theIdeaStudio (Customer Crossroads)

Things we only notice when they don't work: the emotional landscape of utilities and banks

 

Life is full of things that we sort of don't pay much attention to until something goes clunk

Utilities are the originals. The gas and electricity we use in our homes, for example, is largely unappreciated except in two instances. One, when we pay the bill and may feel some annoyance at the cost. It's rare that we say,  

"Wow, for only a few hundred dollars, something ephermeral like gas that was formed millions of years ago and lives a mile underground was brought up from the ground, purified, transported thousands of miles, and has now been safely burned in my furnace to keep me warm all winter. Not a bad deal."

The other time we notice a utility is when it isn't working of course, and again, feel mainly negative emotions. Power failures would be the obvious example, but I also marvel at the land-line telephone. The uptime on the phone system is so amazing, that it's remarkable when it is NOT working. A symptom of a larger problem almost always -- a cut cable at the least, worst case perhaps a war-of-the-worlds Martian invasion scenario.

Interestingly, the problems utilities solve for us are big ones, right near the foundation of that familiar Maslow triangle. Being cold. Being in the dark. We are highly motivated to solve these problems, and communities will invest a lot in solving them. But once solved, we quickly habituate to all that warmth and light. We only experience their power in their absence -- irritation quickly building to rage and even fear as we face the elements as defenceless as a squirrel.

Other categories of services tend to behave this way too.

Bank machines do little to charm or endear themselves -- they generate emotion largely when they are out of order or being recharged with cash.

Support services in the business world tend to be that way. When everything is working, that's what we paid for, after all. It's when something goes wrong that we get all "what are you people thinking over there???"

Cloud computing / SaaS is surely in that category now -- a service that we get either for free (but still expect to work pretty much six sigma), or we pay a relatively small cost monthly, in which case our expectations are even higher.

I have to say that there are a few services in the cloud category that have made my life so much simpler I do actually appreciate them a lot -- Dropbox for example. But how long will it be before I am so dependent on it that any lapse of service causes major frustration?

You'll never be loved as a lifestyle brand

If you are in the position of marketing such services, you are working in a rather challenging emotional landscape. Your boss may be telling you they want to be as loved as Apple or Coach, but your reality looks more like the graphic above.

A bizarre flip side of these services is how we feel treated as consumers. We often feel like these providers barely notice us unless we try to leave. Or unless they are trying to gain our business. When we are just dutifully paying our bills, they appear to be as indifferent to us as we are to them.

For example, the phone company and cable company are all excited with offers for you if you'll move from a competitor. But once you are there, that's it. No more freebies for you! Same thing with your credit card company, who was all hot for your business until you moved, and you can no longer get in on all those great advertised offers.

With utilities, customers often feel unappreciated, even taken for granted. The same emotional play is working on both sides. If customers start leaving in droves, it's like the power went down at HQ -- suddenly everyone is paying attention.

I'm reading Daniel Kahneman's wonderful book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. I'm hoping I'll learn some fresh insights into this scenario. If I do, I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, I'll try not to take you, my reader, for granted.

The Secret to Delegating Work

Ben Yoskovitz on The Instigator Blog published a nice piece on delegation, apparently inspired by something I wrote here about the power of a good story.

There's no app for delegation -- but there are some great guidelines, and I like these a lot.

One of the things I have consistently encountered in organizations struggling to deliver a good customer experience is weak delegation. No one is allowed to do or decide anything.

You'll find just the opposite in leading organizations, for the most part. Within clearly specified limits, people can do whatever they think is right, using their own judgement.

The wall of distraction: Three rules of communication that will help you get over

This morning my workout buddy told me she was so distracted thinking about all the things she has to get done, that instead of gargling, she swallowed her mouthwash. Her explanation: "I have about 3,000 things on my mind right now. Do you ever have that problem?"

Oh yeah.

One recent morning, distracted with a dozen things and dabbing at the remains of the mascara from the day before, I noticed that the eye-makeup remover smelled odd. Odd, but familiar. Fortunately I noticed that it was actually nail polish remover before I actually got acetone in my eye. (Yikes!)

It's easy to find distracted and overwhelmed people -- just get into your car and go for a drive, they are everywhere.

I could have called it the wall of irritation, because there are so many little irritating things we all need to do ... follow complicated procedures, install things on our phones, reset passwords, find forms, meet deadlines, find answers in support forums, replace broken appliances, get new watch batteries. In the face of this, the world wonders why we aren't paying more attention to our health, spending more time with our families, and making good financial plans for the future.

There is now so much information available, that we can even feel guilty if we don't find the right answer to a great many things, like the best price on a car, or the most durable washer. The information has helped, but it has also added to the great wall.

We don't even have time to be good consumers. We don't read the fine print, we don't follow the instruction manual, and we click "agree" with abandon. Is it any wonder we re-use the same password over and over, even though we know this is not a good security plan?

Three ways to get over the wall

When I think about this in the context of my clients, I always come to the same conclusions:

• Keep it short -- our attention span is shorter than ... sorry, wait, what was I saying?
• Keep it simple -- none of us have time to sort out confusing messages
• Keep it relevant -- your product/service is not the thing we are most worried about (-- unless of course, you have really made a hash of things)

The New Experience Economy virtual conference - free and interesting

ClickFox sponsored a webcast presentation on Nov 10 that provides free access to 19 great thinkers on customer experience (and me).More details about the event, the sponsor and the speakers are here.

Registration is free, and the video is very good (thanks Skype)!

Some of the remarks that caught my attention:

- Beth Smits from BestBuy talked about not letting metrics and measurement take over as the only way you think of success. She believes that every customer interaction needs to create loyalty, not necessarily revenue.It's a balancing act for business to find, and stay, in this sweet spot.

- B. Joseph Pine II talked about how we must not get too stuck on innovating the products, because innovation in services is the cutting edge of differentiation

- Kerry Bodine from Forrester talked about the emergence of experience as the way to dominate markets in the current decade, and put this in context of trends of the past, where the best distribution or information led to market dominance

- I pay homage to Steve Jobs by reminding us all that "not sucking" is not enough -- we need to strive for much more than that (around minute 13 in the main video)

Really interesting approach, and I look forward to seeing more of this kind of information.

Thanks Tom Huston of ThoughtLead for the invitation to participate!

 

 

Confirmation messages: a nice touch and a good example

There is a local retailer of housewares and small home appliances that works very hard to set themselves apart from the national chains, called Cayne's.

We recently bought some soda chargers (for making your own soda water) via their web site. Here's the nice confirmation e-mail they sent. First time I can ever remember getting anything like this.

If you combined this with Dell's order status updates, you'd have something really spiffy.

These folks do a nice thing with pets as well, which I have written about here.

People that put you on hold: is there anyone that doesn't?

Reader Lindsay Willison sent me her article "10 Companies that Always Seem to Put You on Hold", naming basically any organization that a consumer is likely to call for service, ranging from the phone company itself to your insurance company, your cable provider, and even your health-care service.

Then there are those of us who no longer answer our own phones (guilty) because 80% of the calls are an unqualified* sales call.

I've met a number of people recently who carry two smartphones, one for family and actual friends, and the other for work. This way they can stream not just the calls, but also the e-mail. This shows just how polluted the phone lines have become with dreck of various sorts.

And it's not just the phone either -- I find that chat support if kind of like this too. There's one person chatting with multiple customers, and you have to twiddle your thumbs waiting for them to come back. (How many people can one person chat with I wonder?)

We like to complain about this, but really, what's the alternative? Because we sure don't want to talk to someone who doesn't know and can't help.

What might help:

• Sending a digital signal to your phone that shows you where you are in the queue
• Telling you where you are in the queue
• Not repeating that my call is important
• Letting me opt out of music by pressing a number key  "press 1 for soft jazz, 2 for sales pitches**, 3 for complete silence"

More troubling, I find, is that after 15 minutes of doing something else while on hold, when the agent finally arrives, they are all focused and in a hurry, and expect me to be able to kick my brain rapidly into gear. And who can blame them -- they're being judged on a pile of metrics that relate to speed.

I'm not sure what the answer is here. What's your take?

____________________________________________________________________

*Unqualified sales call meaning I'm a poor prospect for their service and the whole thing is a complete waste of time for both of us because I'm not going to buy anything regardless of the quality or the frequency of the pitch.

**Okay, call them product updates if you want

Delivery: Your customer service is only as good as the last contact

We recently bought some new appliances. Good sales experience. Then we had to deal with delivery.

The delivery window? All day.  (Have these folks not heard of cell phones?)

First problem: Two rather rude individuals arrive, and say they know nothing about a stove, but have a refrigerator.

Then they try to move the fridge in without taking the front door off.

After they leave, we have several bangs in the wall and moulding to touch up. Then we discover a few things that have been knocked off the back of the fridge, little bolts, and plastic thingy, that sort of thing. No idea where they belong.

Very poor response from customer service when we phone to try to locate the missing stove.

Stove finally gets delivered. Again, they want a full day delivery window. Older and wiser, we take the front door off ourselves (as well as putting it back on ourselves.)

Stove arrives, and these delivery guys are at least civilized.

However...

The somewhat better delivery experience does not quite wipe out the unhappy memory.

Our sales guy has apologized, and makes vague noises about "doing something" for us. But nothing happens.

So. We now join legions of others who hate the whole appliance purchasing thing.

Depsite a pretty great sales experience, I'm not sure if we would choose this retailer again.

My take

Profit pressures have pushed things like delivery service down to the cheapest possible option for most companies. The net result is that you get what you pay for -- people who are ill-equipped to represent your brand, and who may actually damage the total customer experience. And they are often the last people to see the customer.

Is anyone doing this better? What have your recent experiences been like?

The one most important referral: What great salespeople can do for you

In one afternoon at a shopping mall, I met three amazing salespeople.

After many years of service [some might say loyal, but truly, appliances are not loyal, they are stuck with you] it was time for us to replace our stove and refrigerator.

Like all other consumers of major appliances now, I looked online to try to thin out the field of considered brands and models. I remembered driving all over town the last time we bought something big [a tiny deep freeze and a washing machine], and finally ending up at Sears. So this time, we decided to start with Sears.

Amazing salesperson #1

We'd had a good experience with Edgar, the guy who sold us the freezer and washer, and hoped to see him again. No luck - he was off that day. But it was okay, because another guy with a very similar approach helped us.

1  You are as good as the last sales experience people had in your store. Every experience needs to create at least one referral -- where the client refers themselves back to you. If you can't get that one referral, you've got a problem.

It's a fine balance between attentive help, and someone that is so intrusive you can't look for yourself and talk to your spouse about what you see. This guy had the blend perfectly. I expected him to push the house brand -- he showed it to us, but when we said "nah, that's not for us," he moved on.

2  Shoppers are tuned in that you might be favoring one item more than another. And that's okay, as long as you don't go too far. See point #4 for more.

Through all of this looking, I was so impressed at the product knowledge this guy had at his fingertips. Even though I had spent a lot of time looking at things online, he was way ahead of me.

3  Many people have done their homework.They have researched online. They have looked at Consumer Reports. Can your sales staff keep up with them? Can they actually add value?

Everyone pushes their insurance package now. It's ubiquitous. Even the rechargeable batteries from Future Shop can be insured. So I knew the pitch was coming. But when it came, he made a recommendation that made sense. Then he offered some unique tips like this one: print a little label with the date the no-claim warranty rebate comes due along with the number to call, and stick it inside the fridge so you won't forget to call and get your refund. Nice idea!

4  Transparency is important. People have finely tuned BS detectors now.

Amazing salesperson #2

When we left the store, poor but happy, we didn't plan to make any more stops. But we did pop into H+M to pick up a DVD for the evening.  That's when we met amazing salesperson number 2. She wanted to be sure we knew about the BOGO. So we went and picked up a second DVD. Her enthusiasm for the DVDs, and subsequent recommendations for other products kept us engaged and buying.

5  Really helping people is invaluable. There is so much choice, that someone who can help you find what you need makes the whole thing fun.

Since we were in the store longer as a result of this, I remembered that I needed prizes for a project. So I bought some gift certificates. This person turned at $10 sale into a $100 sale with very little effort.

Amazing salesperson #3

Walking through the mall back to the car, I was offered some hand cream from a kiosk in the mall. You guessed it, I just met salesperson #3. She offered to show me a miracle. That's a hard offer to turn down, especially when the person has your actual hand in theirs. I walked out with a manicure kit for myself and two more to give to people (you wouldn't want to miss out on the special offer now, would you?).

6  Even the hard sell can be interesting if it is done in a charming way. Use the classic sales techniques, but bring freshness to them.

I told the last salesperson, "You're wasted in cosmetics. You should be in real estate." Her reply, "I want to sell luxury cars."  And I bet she will! She had crafted a script for herself that was entertaining and hard to avoid. She had figured out compelling ways to demonstrate her product. And she was charming throughout. I had to tear myself away before she started in on the facial products!

I left the mall optimistic for the future. These three people, working in roles many would consider dead-end jobs, had brought thoughtfulness, brains and professionalism to the task. They appeared to enjoy their work. They were trying to help people at the same time as making their numbers.

It showed, and it worked.

What's your take - would you refer yourself back to the last store you shopped in?

Relationship marketing: how to start rethinking it

In the last post, I suggested that most relationship marketing strategies are hollow at the core, and are really a pretty label for direct marketing tactics. Which is fine, but don't call it a relationship. This post looks at a different approach based on research in the public relations sector.

In my research work, I often find myself seeking a stronger framework to support my approach and recommendations to clients. [If you want to be a great consultant, not just a good one, you need to make clear and focused recommendations. Yup, it's scary stuff.]

I came across a wonderful paper recently by Dr. Linda Childers Hon at U of Florida and Dr. James E. Grunig at U. of Maryland: Guidelines for Measuring Relationships in Public Relations. [Download the PDF] Sounds pedestrian, but isn't.

Outputs is the immediate result of a PR effort -- such as getting newspaper coverage. Outcomes is the longer term measure of whether the activity and outputs are making any impact on perceptions of the target audience.

Six Dimensions of Relationships

Hon and Grunig make a case for six dimensions of relationships that can be measured, which they define as follows:

Control Mutuality

The degree to which parties agree on who has the rightful power to influence one another. Although some imbalance is natural, stable relationships require that organizations and publics each have some control over the other.

Trust

One party’s level of confidence in and willingness to open oneself to the other party. There are three dimensions to trust: integrity: the belief that an organization is fair and just … dependability: the belief that an organization will do what it says it will do … and, competence: the belief that an organization has the ability to do what it says it will do.

Satisfaction

The extent to which each party feels favorably toward the other because positive expectations about the relationship are reinforced. A satisfying relationship is one in which the benefits outweigh the costs.

Commitment

The extent to which each party believes and feels that the relationship is worth spending energy to maintain and promote. Two dimensions of commitment are continuance commitment, which refers to
a certain line of action, and affective commitment, which is an emotional orientation.

Exchange Relationship

In an exchange relationship, one party gives benefits to the other only because the other has provided benefits in the past or is expected to do so in the future.

Communal Relationship

In a communal relationship, both parties provide benefits to the other because they are concerned for the welfare of the other -- even when they get nothing in return. For most public relations activities, developing communal relationships with key constituencies is much more important to achieve than would be developing exchange relationships.

The paper provides questions that can be used to measure on a Likert Scale, such as "This organization treats people like me fairly and justly".

Are you seeking Communal when you are actually offering Exchange?

I found these definitions, and the questions proposed, quite thought-provoking. I believe one of the significant disconnects people experience in their relationships with large enterprises have to do with the expectation of a Communal Relationship when the other party is operating on an Exchange Relationship model.

For example, some providers of research platforms seek loyalty from people like me. But my loyalty is almost completely related to performance and pricing -- in the absence of those elements, I would move to other providers, despite having good interpersonal relationships.

The lack of control is an important issue in some business categories: financial services (especially lending), telecommunications (those cell phone contracts!) and health care come immediately to mind.

Better as a thought-starter than a measurement framework?

Not everyone agrees that this form of measurement is the pinnacle for public relations practitioners. See the article by Kim Harrison below.  This is a very valid point -- I am working on a project right now where the client wants to generate new ideas for PR events that will result in actual new customers for the retail stores. That's a very crunchy measurement. 

However, I am jazzed about this model as a thought-starter. Perhaps a touch-stone. And maybe even useful for thinking about things like brand advertising efforts.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have any experience with this model?

Resources

More on Likert Scales  http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/scallik.php

Kim Harrison, Cutting Ede PR Blog. The Myth of Relationship Building as the Key Measure of PR http://www.cuttingedgepr.com/articles/relationship-building-pr-measure.asp

Seeking another way of looking at relationships

So much BS is written about relationship management in the current era of consumer power that you need a power-shovel to find any gems in the smelly stuff.

Part of the challenge is that most of what you will find is tactical -- "here's what you need to do" -- and is not necessarily informed by a guiding philosophy of any kind.

We went right from Permission Marketing and The Cluetrain Manifesto to "How to make a killing with E-mail marketing".

The challenge with focusing exclusively on tactics is that you will quickly find no basis for making your tactical decisions. For that, you need some kind of a strategy.  In developing a strategy, you will quickly find yourself trying to back your way into some sort of guiding philosophy.

I went questing for some meatier material to support a current project, and came upon a gem of a report about relationships and how to measure them. 

See more in the next post.

Resources

Seth Godin's influential book, Permission Marketing, published 1999, has principles that seem to have been forgotten in the age of better targeting tools. What people seem to want now is HOW TO MAKE AN ABSOLUTE KILLING WITH EMAIL MARKETING !  Interestingly, the book is actually titled "E-mail marketing for Newbies", but Amazon kindly provided the marketing phrase. [Maybe they read the book. I confess I did not.]

The Cluetrain Manifesto, by David Weinberger, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls and Jake McKee is also available free online. Or you can buy it from many retailers if you prefer a hardcopy read.

 

 

Keeping things in context: what can happen in 5 years, and what it means for planning

I was doing a client debrief today related to a long-term technology project. Things in the planning stages will take years to build and launch -- 3 to 5 years, most likely. I wanted to help the client team remember that our research looks at where people are at today -- their expectations and experiences. But the planning needs to be out where people are headed, not where they are today. Such a cliche, right? But true.

Customer expectations are constantly moving. These days, customer expectations are moving fairly quickly.

We did a little exercise together to think about what has changed in the last five years. Here was the list I prepared for them.

5 Years ago: May 17, 2006 – what has changed since then:

• Netflix introduced downloading of video Oct 1, 2008
• Kindle launched Nov 19, 2007
• iPhone released June 29, 2007
• Nintendo Wii – November 19, 2006
• Facebook opened to non-students – September 26, 2006
• Google bought YouTube for $1.65 B October 9, 2006 (YouTube launched Feb 14, 2005)
• Twitter launched July 2006

When you think about what you or your company needs to deliver in the future, you might ask yourself what has changed in the last few years in the relevant dimensions in your industry. Then springboard from that into the future.

Some of these changes were so profound that it's hard to believe they are so recent!

What would YOU add to this list?

In the era of self-serve, the problems people call you about are not ordinary

Large organizations gather lots of statistics. Such as who calls the call centre. And what their problem is.

When they encounter a frequent problem, they do one of three or four things:

- they fix the problem (design feature, assembly instructions, whatever it is)

- they create self-serve options on the web site to help the customer fix the problem (such as tracking your package)

- they create an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file to deal with the problem

- they put a message on a phone recording to tell you the answer (such as what hours the store is open)

All of this is done to reduce the number of enquiries about simple stuff, and (hopefully) to make the experience better.

This has led us to an interesting situation -- all of those problems that used to be dealt with by people are now dealt with by us. By definition, what's left is uncommon problems.

So have a little respect for your front line call-centre staff, because they only get the difficult stuff. You may not be training them that way, but that's their reality.

My take

I was thinking about this again because I am speaking to some service quality professionals at the end of the month. And I think this is one of the things they have to contend with. We've actually solved many of the obvious service problems. What's left is not all that straightforward.

Your service doesn't have to be perfect: but it can't be hideous. Bonus: hostage loyalty versus natural loyalty

We decided to cancel our HighBeam research account a while back, and just waited until the renewal date was upon us to do it. [Ed. note: where's the link? Me: I am not helping their SEO by linking to them. Forget it.]

Hostage loyalty versus natural loyalty

This organization is one of many these days that has a rather obnoxious approach to renewals: they automatically renew you unless you cancel. There is no notice, there is no reminder, there is no opt-out.

Naturally, this begs the question of why their natural loyalty is so poor that they can't count on renewals... When any organization uses a hostage approach to loyalty, this is not a good thing.

Our chief money guy thought he had issued cancellations on all of our accounts. Then a charge went through. A phone call to the company generated no happiness. Here's what they said, roughly:

• Each account has to be cancelled separately
• There's a no refund policy, didn't you read the contract
• The fact that the charge went through only yesterday is irrelevant -- our no refund, no pro-rating policy still applies
• The fact that you have an e-mail confirmation of cancellation is irrelevant
• We can, however, offer you a discount right now if you extend your subscription
• There is a supervisor, however we are not authorized to transfer any calls to this person

Okay, that pretty much defines hideous, doesn't it.

Not only is there no help to resolve the issue, but pretty much an attitude of 'we got your money, jerk, and we plan to keep it. You could cancel now, but you'd lose access to our database for a year that you just paid for.'

Money guy asks me: Did you renew? Did you get a notice? I say, no siree, I did not

Next step: contact VISA

Biggest point in their favor: trying to help. Explaining what is going on. Advising of options. Being calm and respectful.

Key learning from VISA person:

• If you sign an automatically renewing contract, your bank will put the transaction through even on an expired card [so your expired card on the account is no protection at all]
• If you change your card number with the same bank, your bank might put the transaction through, even though that is not the card you gave the automatically-renewing-jerks

But, and happily...

• if they sent you a cancellation confirmation e-mail, we just might be able to get your money back for you

You don't have to be perfect, just don't be awful

So VISA wasn't really promising a lot. But they did calm down the chief money guy. They offered helpful information. And they tried to find a way to help. They did not suggest by tone or word that any fool who ticks "yes" to such an agreement is beyond help.

You just have to be nice. You have to try. And if you do, you will look so much better than the other guys, that you don't really have to be perfect.

Are you counting on hostages?

I don't want to tell you that hostage marketing tactics will not work for a while. But they will not work in the long term. And they will hide the fact that people don't want to renew, they just got suckered. If you were valuable, they'd renew.

Clever or annoying?

I'm curious -- what's your thinking about these automatic renewal contracts? A convenience (ie. clever) or annoying (seriously annoying)?

Credit card fraud and the customer service problem

Credit card fraud is a serious, expensive and pervasive problem -- even as the banks use clever ways to protect transactions (e.g. chips) fraudsters seem to find ways to keep up.

The net result is that many honest card holders have had fraud problems through no fault of their own. We appreciate that the issuers are vigilant in monitoring card use and can move quickly when they believe a card has been compromised or is at risk. In research, I hear lots of people taking comfort from this.

But companies are not always as quick to let the customer know what's going on when they take these steps. The tale of woe sent to me this week by a regular reader makes this clear. An automated message was deemed to be adequate.

Getting the automated message your card has been compromised

Here's a tale of woe from a loyal reader that highlights this issue:

On Monday, Aug. 9, I received an automated voice mail at my cell phone number advising that I was being issued a new card and that as of Aug. 6 my transaction limit was restricted to a maximum of $500. There was no explanation for why this was being done. Just a recorded announcement that was longer than the length allowed by my voice mail and that was cut off.

I can say for absolute certainty that no effort was made to contact me personally because my voice mail response for my cell phone specifically says not to leave a message at that number but to use another number. (BMO MasterCard has my home and office numbers and did not call either. They also have my e-mail address, but did not use that.)

I called on Aug. 9 and asked for an explanation and got the expected party line about how they are looking after my best interests etc etc. (And of course: "We are experiencing a significantly higher than usual call volume...." Do you ever not get that message?)

But here's the thing: On Aug. 5, I checked out from a seven-night stay at an all-inclusive resort and charged more than $3,000 to my MasterCard to pay for the visit. How would I have felt if my credit card was declined at that time over something that I was unaware of. Humiliated and inconvenienced are terms that come to mind.

In May I was in Europe for eight days and I didn't bother to take my cell phone because it doesn't work outside of North America. How would I have felt if my card had been cancelled or restricted during that trip without my knowledge? Humiliated and inconvenienced to the extreme are terms that come to mind.

Would a direct telephone call by a real customer service representative alerting me to what was happening be so hard?  ... After 30 years as a MasterCard and BMO customer I am considering switching to Visa.

My take

The focus on customer acquisition in the credit card industry means free points and bonuses for signing up. You might not be thought so valuable when you have a problem though.

If you have to get a new credit card number, you can plan on changing all those recurring payments yourself. A great example of a situation where you may as well look around for other deals since you're going to be updating everything anyway.

Profitability modeling has taken us to a place where your past real business counts for nothing, and your potential future business counts for everything. How bizarre, how bizarre.

What's your take?

Is anyone doing a good job on this? Do you have your own tale of communication woes over fraud problems?

How to survive in the shark tank: go for actual loyalty, not just inertia

If you feel like you are swimming in a shark tank of competitors, you are probably right.

Today's example: we are miffed at the service from our pharmacy. We use their automated call-in service, which is nice when it works. But if you have a new prescription on file, they won't refill the old one. Even though the IVR accepts the order.

Okay, fine. It's not a perfect system.

But the pharmacy staff know that they aren't going to fill this order. They could call to let you know. After all, isn't that why the automated service confirms your phone number? Why wait until you come in to tell you this?  [No kidding. When you put these things in words, the craziness is obvious.]

Other recent incidents: they were OUT of a drug I refill regularly (along with, my guess, about a thousand other women in a one mile radius). They told me to 'check back with them every week'. Are you kidding me? I transferred the prescription to another pharmacy. They had the same problem, but at least offered to call and let me know the situation.

Here's the thing. Within a 15 minute walk from my home, there are at least 5 major competitive outlets (some under the same banner, but with a different store operator). If I care to drive a little farther, there are many more options.

If there is a consolidation in this industry, (which seem likely due to other factors), who do you think will survive?  What about you -- if there is a shakeout in your industry, will you be on the steamroller or on the road?

I ask myself these questions all the time. And honestly, I often find areas to improve. That's the nature of service businesses -- they take constant management.

My take:

State your actual operating method in words, as if it were a service directive instead of just what you do. If this approach were the rule instead of just the habit, would it still make sense? What would your customers think if they saw it in writing?

Don't rely on inertia for loyalty. Try for actual loyalty. Then you have two kinds of glue in place, and a much stronger position.

Your take:

What's your view on this? Does service count for you? Could you easily replace your current providers? How do you keep your competitive edge in the shark tank?

Body language in real life: Susan meets the security guards, and ponders intimidation in customer experience

On a short trip through the shopping concourse at Union Station last week I noticed amazing pink chocolate boxes at Laura Secord. Yes, indeed, they were Sex and the City chocolates! I thought to capture a short video of them for you, dear reader, which is below.

What isn't in the video is that two huge security guards came up behind me and got all serious about "what was I videoing", and made vague references to the need for heightened security in the shopping concourse because of the impending G20 meetings here. They even told me I was not on public property -- how this can be true in a transit hub is beyond me.

Given that I had just finished a book on body language (previous post), I found it fascinating how quickly these guys were able to make my stomach do flip-flops just by standing far too close to me, mere inches from my face. Too close to see their hands, too close to see their feet.

The fact they were wearing bulletproof vests didn't help. And neither one identified themselves, so I still don't know who they were, although at the time I assumed them to be private security guards.

I'm joking about it now, but the truth is, at the time I found this quite distressing, it totally took the fun out of my day. And I didn't feel like buying any SATC chocolates either, although they might have helped my mood. Instead of lingering, I left, happy not to have had these guys pawing my Blackberry.

Having just returned from the Czech Republic, an authoritarian regime until the early 90's, it made me wonder what it must be like to live in a totalitarian state, where intimidation is the rule of the day every day. 

Every day intimidations customers endure

On a more mundane level, when you put yourself in your customer's shoes, it's important to consider what elements of your environment are potentially intimidating. Because intimidation is rarely a desirable element in a customer experience, and it is present more often than you'd suspect.

Older bank branches and hospitals are good examples of environments constructed to be intimidating, to hold up the authority of the institution, and to varying degrees de-personalize the customers/patients. Contrast the feeling in these environments with newer constructions and you will see that this was no accident.

Many pharmacies still put the pharmacist on a raised platform so that they are always standing above you, reinforcing a status difference. Not only that, but you must endure a private discussion in the presence of others -- others waiting in boredom for their own few moments of reluctant self-disclosure.

Once you start looking for these elements in customer environments, you will find them everywhere, in the way the environment is designed, or the way the employees behave.

By contrast, consider the environments that are winning awards and leading business results -- frequently, these organizations have systematically re-thought the power structure signals and elevated the status of the customer. And customers love it.

The video that threatened security of the G20, or something like that

Wishing for pleasant surprises

I am just writing up the report for a big project that has to do with computerization / automated functions.

Our experience of automation - which is pretty extensive now -- is usually that any random event is a negative event. Computers break. Software does not work. Orders do not go through. I'm sure we could create a long list of such things. Ticket dispensers on the fritz.

When we talk about customer experience and customer service, very often people talk about surprise and delight. I'm not totally a fan of this idea, because i think it creates a standard that is ultimately not meetable. However, that's not what i want to talk about today.

Today, what is on my mind is that we haven't built much surprise or delight into our automated world. Your machine doesn't give you a lollipop. At best, it does what is is supposed to, and it does it correctly. It also does it the same every time.

There are no random acts of delight in the automated world. Unless you are at a casino. That needs to change. We need to start making it a lot more fun.

Clever things to make customers happy: what's yours?

When I saw the way my cold beer arrived on a very hot day, I actually squealed in delight.

Now what clever thing can you do that doesn't require new technology or big expense and will show your customers you are actually thinking about them?

What's your clever thing?

[Extra credit if you observed that this was another Marriott, surely among the best managed front-end experiences in the hotel biz. I blogged on these guys once or twice before. Here's one, and here's another]

Catching up: immersive experiences, bathroom blogfest and simplicity

I've been away from my office for a week, but it feels like a month, things are so backed up.

This morning, trainer TK (aka the princess of pain) wanted to know why I didn't get any hotel workouts in... at the time, just getting enough sleep felt like a victory. Some experiences are very immersive, and don't leave much room for anything else. A good vacation is like that, but so are some conferences, and some of my work projects are like that.

Immersive experiences and simplicity

Here's the thing - many of your target customers are in some kind of immersive experience. Their day to day life is often pretty immersive if they have children and work.

They simply don't have any mind-share to spare for you or your needs. Maybe it's some procedure that seems simple enough to you (a mail-in rebate form, for example), but that bit of effort has to displace some other important thing. 

My take: no matter how simple you think your form, your procedure or your communication is, you need to make it simpler. If we have to set it aside for later, later might never come.

Bathroom Blogfest

The Bathroom Blogfest pretty much plunged on without me this year, and there was even a sponsor!! [Although I did get to dabble in logo design again, see left. It was more fun than the reports I needed to write].

I rather liked CB Whittemore's post about simplicity, here. Her recap of the week is here.

Simplicity of operation seems to have gone too far in public johns, IMHO. We all stand waving our hands under automatic sinks that don't come on, trying to get soap from automatic dispensers that won't dispense, and waving frantically at automatic towel dispensers that aren't whirring.

Mostly the automatic dryers seem to work, but you have to hang on to small children lest they get blown over by the high speed fans.

Inside the stall, it's much worse. If the automatic flush doesn't happen, you may look in vain (as I did a few days ago) for a manual button. Why these little buttons are so well hidden is a mystery. As often as not, these units flush twice, which is hardly a water saving. 

Encountering these mysteries in several airports, I empathized with the newcomers who must be mystified by these devices. If we can't figure it out, what hope does a foreigner have?  It's not like there are signs that explain what to do.

My take: We have a lot of weird obsessions about bathroom fixtures that could keep a team of anthropologists busy for years. I strongly suspect that the automatic switches have more to do with not touching the untouchable than with any real efficiency.

Good bathrooms are good for business

McDonald's is one of the few places you can count on a good bathroom, and that's motivated me to stop there on many occasions. And in the spirit of reciprocity, of course I buy something too. 

Linda Wright has actually written a book about this topic,

Skip to the Loo: Bypass Big-Ticket Advertising and Build Business with Better Bathrooms.

My take: I haven't read the book, but I totally endorse the concept. When you are talking bathrooms, you are talking about a need felt by 100 per cent of the population.

Blogfest Blogger list

Participating bloggers for the Bathroom Blogfest ’09 include:

• Susan Abbott at Customer Experience Crossroads http://www.customercrossroads.com
• Reshma Anand at Qualitative Research Blog http://onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/
• Shannon Bilby at From the Floors Up http://fromthefloorsup.com/
• Shannon Bilby and Brad Millner at My Big Bob’s Blog http://blog.mybigbobs.com/
• Laurence Borel at Blog Till You Drop http://www.laurenceborel.com/
• Jeanne Byington at The I mportance of Earnest Service http://blog.jmbyington.com/
• Becky Carroll at Customers Rock! http://www.customersrock.net
• Leslie Clagett at KB Culture www.kbculture.blogspot.com
• Katie Clark at Practical Katie http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/
• Iris Shreve Garrott at Checking In and Checking Out http://circulating.wordpress.com/
• Julie at Julie’s Cleaning Secrets Blog http://cleaningsecrets.greatcleaners.com/
• Marianna Hayes at Results Revolution http://www.resultsrevolution.com
• Maria Palma at People To People Service http://www.people2peopleservice.com/
• Professor Toilet at Professor Toilet’s Blog http://www.professortoilet.com/
• David Reich at My 2 Cents http://reichcomm.typepad.com/
• Bethany Richmond at The Carpet and Rug Institute Blog http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com
• Carolyn Townes at Becoming a Woman of Purpose http://spiritwomen.blogspot.com
• Stephanie Weaver at Experienceology http://experienceology.blogspot.com;
• C.B. Whittemore at Flooring The Consumer http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com
and Simple Marketing Blog http://www.SimpleMarketingBlog.com
• Linda Wright at Lindaloo.com: Build Better Business with Better Bathrooms http://lindaloo.com/

Respecting your customers

I think you'll like this little story, but I have to tell you the situation first: I'm in Palm Springs at a Renaissance resort for the annual QRCA conference. Since I'm three time zones away from home, I'm up early.

So yesterday, I decided on a quick swim and a hot tub shortly after 7 am, when there was no-one around except the guys making the pool ready for the day.

I thought I saw a big pile of towels on the lounge seating. These are like giant outdoor livingrooms with fire pits to ward off the desert chill at night. The chairs are oversized bamboo and cushion affairs that are quite nice.

Turns out the towels had men under them. Two guys to be specific, both covered in big striped pool towels, with their street shoes and suits still on, and the evidence of the party the night before all around them.

What I loved is that the hotel did not chase them away at 2 am. They worked around them.

I didn't think the Marriott chain's service could surprise me anymore, but they show tremendous respect for their customers. And this was just one other example.

Leveraging e-mail to extend and improve the experience: managing before, during and after

In October, I'll be attending the Qualitative Research Consultants Association annual conference in Palm Springs. It's a fun conference, because it is only practitioners who attend, and the schmoozing-for-business-development factor is pretty low. We learn from presentations, try out the local restaurants, and even have a costume party. [I have described my colleagues as people who wear flowy clothes. Not all of us, but there are a lot of F-feeling personality types in the profession.]

Okay, so this is a few weeks away -- but this morning, the hotel sent me an advance welcome e-mail, and invited me to use their electronic concierge to set things up for myself.

This really made me smile. It was a good reminder of my reservation code, now tucked away in the trip file. It made me look forward to a bunch of things like swimming in the pool [that I probably won't have time for. I only wish they had an on-site costume service...]

From a business angle, this totally makes sense. I can order and book spa treatments, restaurant reservations, even room service items to be ready on my arrival.

Something to think about: before, during, after

Services are always anchored in time. There is time before the experience, the experience itself, and time after. You can think about ways to do a number of things in advance of the experience, whatever it is:

• simple reminders of an appointment, from a hair appointment to a doctor's appointment
• what to bring with you, for example, to a meeting with a mortgage officer
• an opportunity to book additional services -- while you're here, would you like to add an eyebrow waxing?
• a simple welcome message -- telling people you know they are coming to your organization, and that you value them

Your interaction before the experience can be designed to heighten anticipation, reduce anxiety, help people prepare, or help you prepare for them. And new information technologies makes this so easy.

What can you add to YOUR experience?

BYOB: bring your own bag, and how to manage it

In the fruit market on the weekend, as the cashier carefully packed our luscious-looking peaches, tomatoes, green and yellow beans, we talked about the BYOB* situation. 

Like other places, our city has decided that plastic shopping bags will carry a $.05 charge to discourage their use, and encourage people to BYOB**.

Our greengrocer clerk had recently been shopping for clothes, provided her own bag, and was very dismayed that "they didn't even wrap it". She was missing the careful wrapping in tissue paper, and then packing of her recent purchases. Purchases which cost a lot more than peaches. 

"They basically just handed me the clothes to pack myself", she said. She also pointed out that the major chain grocer just up the street does a much better job of using the BYO bags than this, and that "Clothes are really expensive; they should be treated special".

As we come to grips with reducing our impact on the planet, many strange things will happen under the green banner. As you and your organization figure out how to comply, don't forget to look after the details of the customer experience.

*Bring Your Own Bag

** Thereby reducing the use of something that is multi-use -- a plastic shopping bag -- and replacing it with single-use plastic, such as kitchen catchers garbage bags and the like. But it played well to the public. Now we are learning that re-usable grocery bags are a potential source of toxic germs and need to be regularly washed or otherwise cleaned.

Is self-service better, or just cheaper?

There's a terrific article at the BAI Banking Strategies website about the dangers of using self-service technology only to reduce costs, without any benefits to customers.

The Conundrum of Self-Service: Cost Savings or Customer Service? by Nicole Sturgill.

You don't have to trade off improved experience for improved cost -- the best self-serve deployments achieve both. Ms. Sturgill provides one example I really liked for this -- Dexia Bank based in Brussels. They created a self-service zone for cash transactions, and then removed the barrier that the wickets had set up between customers and staff. This is the kind of reciprocity that is very appealing to customers.

As Ms. Sturgill says,

The bank must be asking, “Is this faster for customers?” rather than “How much money can I save?” Another useful question: “Is this easy for customers to figure out?” rather than, “How much can I reduce staff?” While those latter benefits will exist, deploying from a perspective of saving money and reducing staff will look like exactly that and customers will be able to spot it easily.

When scoping out new systems and approaches, you need to set up design criteria that make sense for the customers and the company. Company criteria may relate to efficiency, quality, reduced staff, etc. Customer criteria need to include a requirement that the experience be at least as good, and preferably better. It could be better by reducing an irritant of some kind, for example. Or better because it's faster, more convenient, easier, 

The grudge factor: how expectations color customer experience

It's the first day of September, and I had to bundle up to walk to the gym this morning. Yesterday I thought about turning on the furnace.

I wasn't too thrilled about that, and neither is anyone else around here. Because this is the summer that never seemed to happen in my neighborhood. If you live in a northern climate, you had weird weather this year.  Whether too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry, it was way outside our allowable variances. And none of us seem to be able to just deal with it and move on. [I realize my complaints are trivial by comparison with the problems many areas have had. I'm still grumpy, ok? Even if our backyard isn't on fire.]

We feel ripped off. We had expectations. We scaled them back, And even our scaled back expectations were disappointed.

Sadly, there is no Weather Company to complain to, and we can't switch providers to FedEx Weather or Mozilla Open Source Weather. But we'd like to. We want the undo button to restore the last couple of deleted weeks of summer. We want a mulligan.

Expectations and customer experience

Very often when I am doing research into customer experience, people will have a story about how their expectations were disappointed. That in itself might not come as a big surprise to you. I bet you've got a few stories of your own.

What is incredible is how long people carry these negative feelings. They carry them for years. Especially if they didn't get some closure on the situation, like an apology or some redress for their disappointment. Not only that, but the damage might seem almost trivial or irrational to another person.

The whole point of branding is to create a set of expectations. It's the brand promise, right?

In service delivery, often the expectations were never made explicit, they were implied by the nature of the interaction. Expectations like: being treated with respect. Not getting ripped off. Not being lied to.

Satisfaction research has shown clearly that it is delivery against expectations that largely determines whether your customers are unhappy, just okay, or advocates for your organization.

The metric that counts is customer expectations, and they're formed not just by your organization, but by every organization. Unless you happen to be the leader in your category, in which case you have only yourselves to blame for rising expectations. [That's a good thing, by the way.]

The bottom line

Customers have expectations. When you disappoint those expectations, you've delivered unsatisfactory service, regardless of how your internal metrics look.

Disappointed people carry the negative thoughts around for a long time, no matter how trivial or irrational the situation may look like from the company side of things. So it's a good idea to try to understand what the expectations are, and either meet them, try to modify them, or suck it up when you've blown it. Because nobody just forgets about it. 

A change to our publishing schedule

Expectations segues nicely into something else I thought I should mention.

My standard for this blog has been to publish Tuesday and Thursday, with a "This just in" Friday when there was something cool to tell you about.

I haven't been doing a great job of delivering on this lately. But you're probably inundated with information [as I am], and would prefer quality to quantity, if you can't have both. So I'm going to aim for one post a week. [A brilliant, glittering, insightful thing with tremendous value added that will trigger equally glittering and insightful comments from you, our brilliant, beautiful and valued subscribers]. 

Your feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated. Thank you. We now resume our regular programming.

Delivery Hell: the experience doesn't end after the sale

My friend and colleague S.P. had promised to participate in an online meeting we were holding this week for some members of QRCA here. She kept e-mailing me from her Blackberry apologizing for still being at her cottage, where she does not have a computer/internet.

The reason? Four days of delays waiting for the furniture company to deliver her stuff.

Imagine the sense of rage at the tremendous waste of time involved.

Not only that, but all those happy feelings about new things for her cottage, a place close to the heart for those that have them, have been replaced.

Susan's Take

People are always talking about "delighting the customer" in the context of customer experience. But it's also important to just stop ticking people off. And a good place to begin is by only making promises you can deliver on. When you've fixed the irritants, you have a foundation to build a better experience.

Sauce for the goose department: one size does not fit all in customer experience

I heard recently about a barber shop that had different little treats for customers that varied all the time. I thought this sounded delightful, but the person who told me the story thought they should have been more consistent, offering exactly the same experience every time. They wanted consistency in all things, whereas I like sprinkles on top of my consistency.

Sometimes when I first start speaking with a client, I can detect an implicit assumption that I already know the answer to their troubles. I wish I did have the Big Book of Answers on this topic, but it's rarely that simple.

Some things are obvious and universal

Some things are obvious, and pretty universal. You need to return calls, avoid making errors, fix them promptly, and so forth. Your signage needs to be useful. Your statements need to communicate well. These things are basic hurdles of any service experience.  If you are highly consistent about doing these operational basics well, sadly, that will set you apart. It sets you apart because so much of this is done badly. But it can't really be said to be a branded experience, distinct or unique in any way.

Even though segmentation is pretty well established in marketing circles, especially for direct marketing, experience design is assumed to be more generic. It isn't. Not, not, not true. 

That saying, 'what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander' makes sense when you are eating the geese. If the geese are getting car repairs or hair cuts, they may very well want different things. This is the essence of segmentation, and it's crucial to thinking about customer experience.

Here's another example. A colleague of mine told me he prefers to deal with smaller companies as suppliers, even for things like telecomm service -- he's on VOIP -- so that he knows his business is important to the supplier. He wants to get to know the managers of the business. He wants a high touch experience. I prefer to deal with big enterprises that have high operating standards because they have big clients. I just want things to work, and hope to never have to call anyone.

Unless you are starting your business from scratch, you have existing customers/users/stakeholders who chose you. [Or who had to choose you, because you are the only game in town. That complicates things a bit. We call those customers hostages.] 

If you want to change your experience, change the service, be more customer friendly, or whatever, your first step has to be to gain some insight into what these people are experiencing today. What they might wish to be different. What is annoying or irritating to them. What hacks they are using as they interact with you. Then you have a starting point.

It helps to find out what staff are experiencing too, since they are the ones delivering the service.

But you still need to figure out, based on these insights, what you want your experience to do or be. You need some kind of vision.

Consultants like me can help you get to both these things, but we don't know what they are before we start. Nor should we. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to turn you into a cheap copy of something else. But to be successful, you have to be more uniquely your own animal, to discover and express your own DNA as much as possible.

Susan's take

One size fits all doesn't apply to customer experience any more than it does to shoes. To change your culture to be more customer focused, you have to have some notion of what customer focus means in your organization. Some vision of what the customer experience should be. And to get that, you need some insight into why your current customers chose you.

Resources

I couldn't resist the wonderful image above from Wikipedia under a creative commons license

Happy rituals: how to take your brand to a new level

I was thinking about a few of my happy rituals recently. Showering in the morning. Having extended coffee with the newspaper on Sundays. And sometimes, adding croissants from a favorite bakery, or homemade biscuits into the weekend morning ritual.

You may be, like me, someone who abhors repetitive routine. Even if you are, I suspect you have a few happy rituals.

The happy ritual

A happy ritual is something that gives structure and joy to daily living. When our happy rituals are in place, all is well with our corner of the world, even if the rest of the world is going to hell in a backpack.

Brands can join in those happy rituals. Which is why you find Bisquick, not with baking supplies, but with the pancake mixes at the grocery store. Pancakes are staple happy ritual accompaniment in many households. They are the birthday breakfast choice of lots of children, and one of the first things kids learn to make for themselves.

Coffee, of course, has become a major happy ritual, regardless of whether you are a Starbuckian or favor the independents.

I was thinking about all of this relative to my morning shower. [I'd much rather give up imported asparagus than my showers, if push comes to shove on the environmental front]  My hair care products aren't adding much to the experience. They are highly functional. They do the job I am buying them for. But they're not giving me any extra emotional goodies. No fresh scent that I would miss if I changed products, for example. 

You could argue that there are emotional benefits associated with keeping my hair from going insane during humid weather. Or keeping those expensive highlights looking fresher longer. That's true. the functional benefits do link to emotional benefits. But there could still be a  happy ritual during use.

Whatever the brand experience you are offering, if you stay at the level of functional benefits, you're missing out on ways to garner greater loyalty.

If you only do product research out of the customer's context, you will have trouble finding out about the happy rituals.

Acknowledgements

The image is from unadorned.org/morningpaper by Stephanie Troeth under a creative commons license.

I've written about happy rituals before.

With respect to deconstructing the Curves customer experience: Curves and more Curves.  

Why Starbucks and instant coffee don't make sense to me. How Starbucks surveys about customer experience. Starbucks versus my local independent coffee places.

This just in: digital nomads, social networking in the workplace, Burger King Studio reprise - how to manage social media

I have to tell you that the guys who created Burger King Studio -- Mess Marketing in Chicago -- demonstrated awesome social media management skills.  You will recall my post wherein I gushed about the cool t-shirts you can make online, and gave them what-for about glitches on their purchase process. Look at all the things they did right here:

♥ They are keeping track of social media mentions of their project. [check]
♥ Rob Robinson, creative director, immediately posted a comment on the blog [check]
♥ Then he tracked down my e-mail and sent me a personal note there too [check]
♥ He apologized for the problem, acknowledged my concerns, said they would give the feedback to the web team, and would also try to find my custom designs!  [check, check, check, double check!]
♥ I got an additional wow when a package showed up at my office, with two t-shirts, some cute buttons, and a catalog of the project showed up. [2 checks and a gold star for that one!] 

This is totally going to make workouts more fun while trainer TK - aka the princess of pain - is tossing medicine balls at me.

♥ Oh, and one more thing. They went hunting for my custom designs, and have promised to send them along as soon as they are made. [extra credit!]
Here they are:


I told him, via e-mail, that I was planning on using the t-shirts as prizes for a workshop I am doing for a client on consumer trends. Because I thought their project was pretty leading edge.  Which it is.

Okay, so he's getting a little earned -- aka unpaid -- media. And he had to exert a little effort for it, as do you. But look at this circle of happiness that was created. He gets more profile. I get cool t-shirts. AND I get a killer story for the next dozen or so presentations I give. Everybody wins.

And an even more loyal BK customer, who really likes to have it her way.

***

Stopping by Chris Brogan's blog I found an interesting report from Citrix about web commuters -- the workshifting phenomenon.  Some startling statistics like these: by 2008 there were 33.7 million US teleworkers. Forrester is projecting big growth, such that as many as 1/3 of the workforce will work from home at least part of the time.  Given that you can't flip burgers or change hotel sheets from home, I'd guess that this means knowledge workers will be telecommuting a lot.

A study Citrix Online commissioned found that 73% of American workers and 53% of small business owners want to be able to work remotely.

In the late 80's I was part of a Future of Work Secretariat that the ministry of labour in Alberta launched. We were talking about this stuff then, but the technology just wasn't there. Now it is.

Apart from technology support, what does this group of people need?

***

In a similar vein, Aon Consulting has published a report about employee attitudes around social media in the workplace. Aon is looking at the big shift towards Millennials in the workplace, and their comfort level with social media, and seeing a disconnect with the ways employers communicate.

45% of the 8000 respondents in the study already work remotely. Almost half use instant messaging at work. Four in ten use text messaging at work -- not to talk to family and friends, but to exchange information.

"The internet’s power not only gives people access to a wide range of news perspectives, but it grants each  person an outlet to express his or her own opinion on it. Employees are using social media to collect  information, to interpret and communicate it to others."

So many organizations seem determined to keep the lock on social media. If this study is any indication, it's not going to work.

***

Have a great weekend!
 

What do you need to know now? (About customer experience)

At a workshop on the weekend, several people suggested topics that I should write on. 
I thought I'd share this list with you, and see what you think.

The ideas list:

1. How to create a spirit of service among employees
2. How to gain / increase customers
3. How to improve sales and loyalty
4. How to train the customer
5. How to train and get results from front-line staff
6. How to get to an insight
7. How to motivate staff to give better customer service
8. Why must organizations ask for feedback and then ignore it
9. How to create + ensure customer satisfaction
10. How to create consistency in experience
11. Insights=Perspectives (Not sure I get this one, but I'm pondering it. Any thoughts?)

Is this the stuff you want to know? 
What would you add to this list?
What do you need right now to get through this day, this week, this month, this quarter?
Just to make this fun, I'll put all the responses into a hat and draw for a nice treat. Spam doesn't count, of course.

I'm off to speak at a conference in Chicago this week: the Symposium on Excellence in Qualitative Research. I'm speaking with a client about employment branding, a fascinating and growing requirements.

When I get back, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the list above. Seriously, comments would be welcome. If you hate the idea of posting a comment on the blog, send me an e-mail. susan[a]abbottresearch.com.

Pondering GM: were they living in a cone of silence?

Watching the GM saga unfold, the most striking thing is how long it took for changes to be made, in the face of clear data.

I recently came across an old news story about GM -- around 1999 or 2000 was when the analysis was written. It was course material in a marketing management course. The how-not-to-manage-your-marketing-function part of the course.

The article talked about the pressing needs: To rationalize the brands and banners. Rationalize the dealer network. Get a better fix on consumer desires. The same article made reference to these problems having been in place and observed at least a decade before. 

It makes me think how truly impressive it is when a company can make big changes without a huge crisis. It speaks well of a whole culture when this can happen, not just of an executive. Because the example we have of GM is of a whole company that seemed to be living in a cone of silence half the time.

The service experience: GM vs Acura

Let me illustrate just how huge the cone of silence was by telling you about my 1989 Acura Integra.

The Integra was a delightful car, totally fun to drive and the perfect accessory for a young career woman. When I took it in to the dealership, here's what it was like: 

• Everyone was sharply dressed.
• The place was clean, and they served free coffee.
• They had a van that would drop you off if you worked nearby, or drop you at a transit station if you didn't.
• When you picked the car up, it was always freshly washed
• There were little paper things inside so you knew no oil from the mechanics feet got on your carpet or seat
• The whole thing was a pleasure. I actually enjoyed the ritual of it. I felt like I belonged to an exclusive club.

A few years later, I accepted a fabulous position as a regional manager for a bank. The job came with a car, and my market area included Oshawa, home of three GM plants and the head offices of GM Canada. I wore out three cars on that job, all pretty good vehicles, actually. Two Grand Prix and a Grand Am. No problems, just a lot of driving.

But here's the customer experience at a big GM dealer in Oshawa.

• The reception area was so dirty, I didn't sit down
• I actually didn't put my purse or briefcase down either, because the cement floor was pretty awful too
• There was a beat up wooden podium that served as a counter. It looked like it had been repainted about a hundred times.
• The guy serving me was dressed in oily gray coveralls
• I wondered if I was in the right place
• I felt like I had stumbled into some kind of guy's clubhouse
• They didn't wash the car. In fact, I kind of took a good look at the seat before I popped my suited behind down
• I never went back

If you see it once, it's a pattern

OK, it was one dealership. But there's a good saying in the world of sales and service: "if you see it once, it's a pattern." There are no isolated instances. If some bad thing is happening in one place, it's happening in other places.

Did no-one know how the industry was changing? Or did no-one care? Or did they think that it wouldn't really matter? Or did people try to make changes but just give up due to the tremendous inertia in the organization?

Things may have changed a lot at that dealership. But how would I know -- I never went back to check. And that is just the reality of dealing with consumers. Once we write you off, you're gone from our world.

GM seems to have a game plan now. And good luck to them implementing it, because they have a BIG hill to climb.

Burger King Studio: I loved you, but you don't like Canadians

I

I stumbled across Burger King Studio recently. This is BK's project to engage hipster artists in major cities, and have them create designs that can be screen printed on T-shirts. This seemed like a very creative and edge promotion to me.

These seemed like the perfect item to illustrate a number of interesting trends for a client project I am working on. My plan was to order a couple of these shirts, designed by yours truly, and give them away as prizes at a client offsite. Or if they were really cute, wear one and give the other away.

There were three little annoyances in the shopping cart phase.

First -- you could only order one of a design. Second -- even clicking "back" to see if there is some way to order more appears to wipe out the design you spent loving time creating. Turns out you can order more, but you have to create them one at a time.

Third -- only after you put all your information in do they tell you that they don't ship outside the US. But I had a Whopper with cheese only last week. It's pretty much a global company, although clearly a local promotion. 

What really annoyed me was their D'oh. Like I'm the idiot here.

However, it's easy for websites to find out where I am. Hulu, the re-broadcaster of all things television, won't let me watch anything at all. At least they're polite about it.

A few observations:

Avoid indulging in making people feel like idiots. [Unless of course you are a blogger or a journalist, in which case that is part of your job.] If you are building your brand, you can be edgy and still be polite.

I've been a BK customer for years. I actually go out of my way for BK versus McD. I was prepared to wear their brand imagery on my body! [Something I have previously only considered with Vespa.] And now I'm ticked.

The challenge for service delivery: people costs go up, digital costs go down

Sitting in the cold and gray of January can put one in the mood to contemplate the really BIG issues of life. Such as how the cost of digital services has dropped to practically nothing, and how the cost of human services continues to rise. And what this means for customer experience.

While stepping back and pondering this weighty issue, I checked out another amazing free tool available to the digerati. This one is called Website Grader, and for no charge beyond signing up to their mailing list, you can get a pretty good report on your web site, delivered in a minute or so.  [And there's a nifty badge too. I love badges, all bloggers do. It's down there on the bottom right, below the blogroll.]

All this as a marketing device to attract you to HubSpot's web services.

On the other hand, we have human services. There's a long standing tradition that people should get a little increase in wages every year. And occasional merit increases. So if the head count stays the same, more or less, the overall cost of the payroll rises.

This is leading to bizarre situations all over the place.

I can get webinars on many subjects for free, and can learn a great many things just by watching videos on YouTube, and reading free web content. It's even easier than going to the library. OR, I can take a class at a university or college, where costs continue to rise.

In my hometown here, the faculty of a major university have been on strike for two months because they don't like the latest offer: an increase of 9.25 % over a three year contract, with improvements in job security and benefits. [Are these people crazy, you may be asking yourself? Haven't they heard the news?]

With the cost of so much that is digital dropping, dropping, dropping, it gets harder and harder to find ways to support the perceived value of human-delivered experiences. Like, say, clerks in a clothing store, or tellers in a bank. No one wants to pay for these things directly. But the costs of human staff essentially rise every year, whether prices do or not.

Right you say, that's what has driven offshoring of call centres, among other things.

The challenge for us as experience marketing folk is this: how do you make the human experience valuable enough that people will pay the cost of delivering it? Especially when people are reassessing the value of pretty much everything?

No answers today, just raising the question.

Using GPS to build customer experience: yes, it's another Harley-Davidson story

GPS device maker Garmin is launching a specialized version of the Garmin Zumo - the Road Tech Zumo. It will come pre-loaded with all the Harley-Davidson dealerships, as well as a program to share rides. These will be the kind of rides motorcyclists love, of course -- with windy roads, good scenery, and an absence of express-lanes.

As GPS becomes ubiquitous, I expect to see a lot more innovation of this nature. Read more on the GPS Lodge story.

Resources:

Harley-Davidson Zumo GPS - the Road-Tech Zumo, on GPS Lodge, Aug. 4 08

Starbucks customer experience: not special, not really even local

I walked through my local Starbucks yesterday to see what they'd done with their recent renovations. Kind of hoping it might be a more suitable location for a business talk than it was before. Sadly, there are now fewer seats overall, and the customer space is quite a bit smaller. The counter is bigger, so the staff are likely happy. I have to assume that they're focusing this location on the takeout business, which may actually be a good decision, despite my dissatisfaction.

And therein lies the Starbuckian challenge.
They aren't unique anymore, they're not rare. They are convenient. They are, frankly, mass. Premium mass perhaps, but mass all the same.

In one of the emerging neighborhoods here, Leslieville, I saw a number of unique coffee houses one day. That's Tango Palace Coffee Company at the top of the page. The Dark Horse Espresso Bar was down the street a ways.

And Red Rocket Coffee, above, was not far from the streetcar depot, home of the transportation locally known as The Red Rocket.

This is what local looks like. I expect each of these places has a loyal following, their own strengths and weaknesses, some unique blends of coffee, and perhaps some fresh baked goods.

By comparison, Starbucks has become the Holiday Inn of coffee places -- it may not be special, but there won't be many surprises.

Despite their iconic status, Starbucks has some big challenges. Not the least of which is sheer size. There's no avoiding this once you go public, however. There's no joy in being a utility -- all the money goes to the growth stocks, and that's what Starbucks became.  Their recent decision to close some outlets likely makes a lot of sense.

Now what?

In today's marketplace, you can be budget-bargain or you can be high-end. You can stand for indulgence, or you can stand for the environment, or you can stand for being the smart decision, or many other positions. The mushy middle is a tough place to compete, however.

So what does Starbucks stand for right now, what is the brand meaning? And how does the experience reflect this meaning, reinforce this meaning, and bring this meaning to life?

Starbucks can thrive, but there's no way it keeps its premium price point unless it keeps its game up. So re-examining their coffee taste is a good idea. McDonald's has improved their coffee taste. The donut places are still serving good coffee. And together, these define the budget end of good coffee. Starbucks has to stay above this in the minds of consumers, and they have to earn their premium price. I hear people say it's the best coffee in the world, but I find this hard to believe, and it certainly doesn't mesh with my own experience.

The third-place thing is definitely still working for them -- at least where you can find a place to sit.

I think they might try to customize their focus for each local market, wherever they can. So that locations in business districts have more places for quick meetings, and locations in neighborhoods are friendly to SUV strollers. [I've never understood why they don't have stroller parking of some sort to end the congestion, or  designated seating, or something like that]. Customizing to be local within a consistent larger theme could mean that you get to know individual locations that suit your preferences. For me, I'd avoid the SUV locations, and head straight to the business and artsie ones.

Where they hang the work of local artists, this seems like a good thing to me. It helps them preserve a sense of place. Doing this takes time and effort, however, and staff need to be given a mandate to spend the time and make the effort.

One thing they could definitely improve is their food product. This stuff tastes like it was shipped in bulk from a single factory, and has been on the shelf for days. Especially since we are seeing the rise of local bakeries and patisseries again, that offer the real deal.

Resources:
For more on the challenge of running public companies check out this story by Miro Slodki, Is it time we fired our shareholders?

I've written about the coffee business before.

Cafe, Coffee Place, Coffee House: names and their meanings

Far Coast: Coca-Cola pilot coffee cafe in Toronto

Getting a good coffee in Kingston Jamaica and other third place observations

Starbucks Customer Experience

Becky Carroll has run quite a few posts on the Starbucks experience on the Customers Rock blog. As has Meikah Ybañez-Delid on the CustServ blog.

Coffee Wars

Just while Starbucks is having an identity crisis of sorts, everyone else has decided to get on the bandwagon.
Stephani Ortenzi quoted me in a nice piece about what is happening on the front lines of the coffee wars for Foodservice and Hospitality Magazine. (subscription only)

You can also read the article on Stephani's author site. "Hang Time: The New Language of Coffee"

Customer Care: Helping the 20% or Are you any better at this than Dell?

There is so much effort going into "Customer Care" these days, that there are times I think it's all just working great. It must be. Everyone says it is.

I get a lot of advertising material about systems that are designed to support Customer Care, make it "World Class", and so forth. Here's what I think. This stuff is great for the 80%.

Most of these Customer Care systems are designed to identify the 80% of common problems and make solutions to those problems happen quickly and efficiently.

Even though the whole project team knows the system is designed this way, everyone acts like the other 20% don't exist. When we encounter an incident from that 20%, we keep stuffing it back into the other set of routines.

In fact, EVERY time something doesn't get resolved the first time by one of these systems, it needs to be escalated to the red team, the swat team, or whatever you call it. Because these systems DO in fact work for the 80%, anything that jams up or falls out somehow has to be one of those 20% issues. And the main pipeline of customer care can't handle the 20%. These need to be quickly routed to some skilled and empowered team who can diagnose and fix problems. They often aren't.

I think we've all been there. In the spiral from hell [see diagram above], where YOU are the one documenting the problem, YOU are the one recapping all the previous ineffective efforts to solve it, and YOU are the one coming up with ideas that might work.

Sadly, I am in one of those spiral circles right now with Dell, trying to upgrade my DataSafe backup for more space. Yup, just trying to give them money, and they don't seem to want to take it under any circumstances. I've had one online chat session, several e-mails, and a lengthy phone call with my GOLD Tech Support. [Who can't help because it is a sales problem, although heaven knows they have tried.]

Eventually, I think they are going to realize that some glitch is slowing down sales of DataSafe, investigate, and figure out that something in their fulfillment for this product is screwed up. In the interim, the Customer Care machine will keep squeezing a lemon and hoping for orange juice.

Of course this is one of the great ironies of 20% issues. QUITE OFTEN they are early warning signs of some problem on the fulfillment end. QUITE OFTEN they are valued customers, early adopters, and other people who don't give up easily. All the more reason to flag these items quickly.

You want to improve Customer Care? Start looking at how you handle the 20%.

Testing the new blog authoring tools in Word 2007

I'm having fun with productivity tools this week. Got the new Dell desktop last Friday. You know the routine, of course – move files and settings, reinstall software, ask yourself if you should have partitioned the hard drive differently, and keep changing the location of the new giant screen. It's an odd combination of daunting and exciting, with most of the excitement done and gone about an hour after you turn it on, and the daunting part that continues for weeks.

Our computers, for some of us, are such an extension of our fingers and brains that even relatively minor changes can be tremendously disruptive. Which is one reason I stayed with XP, and didn't give in to the temptation to shift to Mac. 

The shift to Dell was one I resisted, but ultimately, they were the only ones who would let me configure online. And their online configuration/ordering tools were wonderful. They have even made the unpacking process much more attractive than I was expecting. The boxes actually look nice when you open them up, all neatly packed and white inside. [I know, some of us are hung up on aesthetics.]

I did get the new Office Suite software, and even though the ribbon is kind of neat, it's still a change, and therefore a disruption. There seem to be two big bonus items here, however, that are very cool.

1. Changing fonts and styles shows up instantly! Yes, this is amazing, fun, and incredibly useful. At least it is if you are type-design junkie like I am, constantly tweaking.
2. Built in blog authoring tools mean I am actually typing this post from inside Word! The software is integrating for me, and has a whole new menu bar that replicates several functions inside TypePad. If it works [and since you are reading this, it must have worked] this will be a nice addition to my life, and end a lot of annoying formatting problems that are tricky to resolve inside TypePad.

I bumped into a neighbor today who is in her 50s, and is retraining on computer skills to get work, after a marital split. I found it hard to believe that anyone can function without computer skills, it seems so rare now. I didn't tell her how many computers we actually have in our home now, between the new desktops, the old desktops, the current laptops, the laptops we are saving for no good reason, the laptop we read the New York Times on in the dining room on Sundays…. To say nothing of the handheld devices [both working and dead], and the peripherals. It's a wonder there is room for human beings.

Our tools continue to expand our reach. And when they do so seamlessly, it's a beautiful thing to see.

Starbucks Customer Experience: how would you answer?

Starbucks is conducting a survey with CustomerThink and GCCRM about their customer experience.

Their last two questions were good ones. My answers are in italics.

What do you like most about the Starbucks in-store experience?

It's a good place to have an informal business meeting with a colleague

What do you like least about the Starbucks in-store experience?

I really don't care much for your coffee, (except latte, breakfast blend are ok) and your bakery products are awful. Can be difficult to find a seat - one person will have staked out a whole corner for hours. I'm concerned your push into the children's market will make it too noisy and messy for adults like me.

That's how I answered. How would you answer?

The latest news on multi-tasking and what it means for customer experience

Luth Research recently released their IndicatorEDG report on multi-tasking. It looks like we are spending more and more time -- on average, 20 hours a week -- attempting to do two things at once.

"On average, 17 percent of our time awake -- approximately 19.80 hours per week -- is spent using two or more media simultaneously, according to the latest quarterly findings (Quarter 1, 2007) from Luth Research's IndicatorEDG™, an online study surveying more than 5,000 respondents in the U.S. The media in question included all mass media (e.g., TV, radio, Internet) and personal electronic devices (e.g., cell phone, MP3 player, wireless email device)."

Those who aren't employed spend more time in media multi-tasking -- no surprise there. But so do retired people, who average close to 26 hours a week in media multi-tasking. [So your suspicions are correct -- Mom or Dad really are watching the TV while talking to you on the phone.] 

And most of this media multi-tasking is TV together with something else --

"Watching TV was named by nearly half of the respondents to be what they typically do
when working on the Internet or email through a computer. One in five people have their TV on while using their cell phone to make phone calls. TV seems to be a natural fit to co-own consumer time and space with other print media, as 20 percent of the respondents cited TV as the medium they were also using when reading a newspaper, a magazine, or a book."

Those that are spending more time media multi-tasking report that they are less happy overall than others.*

What does this mean for customer experience and customer communications?

If you thought it was hard to get people's attention before, guess what? It's going to get harder. So clarity in all communications is essential.

In these circumstances, is it realistic to expect people to absorb the fine print, or read between the lines of your offer?  Probably not, in my view.

Greater redundancy in communication is also a good idea. Don't assume people are actually informed about your policies or product features or hours of operation. Make it clear, easy to find, and say it often.

If it's directed at anyone who is retired, make the print on the box big enough to scan at a glance, because that might be all it gets.

And your advertising had better be interesting enough to compete with other media. Even if it's only getting half an ear or half an eyeball, it needs to get a message through.

Resources and notes:

Here's the link to the five-page PDF report: IndicatorEDG Research: Media Multitasking

* Note that this should not be construed as a cause -- perhaps the multi-tasking is a response to other life circumstances, which are the underlying cause of the unhappiness

Interview with Jonathan Tisch about Reinventing the Customer Experience

This blog tour by Jonathan Tisch has been interesting on a few levels. What a creative idea, for starters. And what a clever publicist to pick up on it.

I knew we'd be up at the end of the tour week, and I thought that things might be getting repetitive by now. So I sent questions that I hoped were different, and might scratch through the polished package that accompanies anyone who occupies a corner office, to say nothing of someone who is also on the speaking circuit.  I don't think we got anything unvarnished, but I think we did get some frank and forthright commentary.  Here's our e-mail Q&A, as conversational as we could make it.

"[It is] challenging for CEOs to balance service versus profits"

Susan Abbott: Jonathan, I first wanted to tell you that I read a paragraph from your book to kick off a recent client working session about customer experience. It was about how everyone in the organization actually needs to think about and be focused on customers. I was happy to hear people repeating this stuff a week later to others.

I only wish it was so easy to get people on board, especially at the top of the organization.   I know some are -- Lafley at P&G of course is a great example. But it seems like the exception, not the rule. Why aren't more executives on board?

Jonathan Tisch: With the focus coming from Wall Street on quarterly earnings for public companies, it becomes a bit challenging for CEOs to balance service versus profits. The enlightened leaders of some companies have figured out that great customer service usually leads to an enhanced bottom line. That is the ultimate challenge – to find ways for your customers to receive the service that they deserve, turn them in to life-long customers, and ensure that they don’t go to the competition should they have a bad experience. 

"What has changed is the business of hotels, not the hotel business"

SA: One of the things that immediately drew me to your book was your genuine understanding of the vulnerability of the traveler who is a guest in your hotel. I spent a few years where I was continually on the road, and it can be a lonely and frustrating place at times.

Still, I recognize that my expectations are very high. But of course this wasn't always the case -- I can't imagine what travel in the 1800s must have been like. It makes me wonder how customer expectations will change in the future. You mentioned the importance of staying on top of emerging trends and the next demographic shift. Could you comment on that? 

JT: What is happening in the lodging industry today relates to the old saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same.” What has changed is the business of hotels, not the hotel business.

Our business has become highly sophisticated with very large, corporate entities becoming players. When you look at the Marriotts, InterContinentals and Hiltons of the world – all with many thousands of properties, at different price points and market niches – you understand that the big are getting bigger and that, through acquisitions and strategic alliances, they have become formidable competition with tremendous offerings.

There has also been a greatly enhanced focus by Wall Street and private equity on the hotel business, so many of the new players are very well capitalized and have extremely bright people as part of their organizations.

That’s the business of hotels.

But what hasn’t changed since the first person checked into a hotel 1,000 years ago, is the hotel business. At its core, our business is based on hospitality and making people feel welcome, comfortable and safe. The companies that continue to thrive are the ones able to skate the line between profitability and hospitality.

Going forward, we will always have new technological advances to deal with. But once again, our industry is extremely biased toward interpersonal and human relations.   

"The companies that thrive are able to skate the line between profitability and hospitality"

SA: You mentioned several instances in the book where staff quite correctly bend the rules to look after a customer. But you also note consistency is critically important -- customers need to know an organization is reliable and dependable.

Is there a tension between customization and consistency? And if so, how does an organization deal with this tension?

JT: If your co-workers are properly educated and trained, then customization and consistency can, indeed, be compatible. That’s the nature of crisis resolution. What I like to discuss with my Loews Hotels co-workers isn’t about the problem necessarily. It’s about the recovery.

With so many options for the consumer, recovery from a problem is paramount because that’s how you keep one of your customers from going to a competitor.

It is a very fine line that has to be taught to, in some cases, entry-level individuals – how to get involved and what opportunities for crisis resolution are available to them. At Loews Hotels we pride ourselves on balancing consistency with customization to provide the level of service our guests have become accustomed to. 

"The CEO cannot be involved in every decision -- nor should they be"

SA: I'd like to ask you about managing a culture of innovation. If we want to harness the creative talents at all levels of an organization, how do we do that? What specifically does the CEO need to do to role model the right approach? Short of writing a book, of course.

JT: The CEO always sets the tone for an organization. Due to corporate hierarchy, it can get a little lonely at the top if there’s not complete buy-in at every level of the organization.

Due to physical and time constraints, the CEO cannot be involved in every decision – nor should they be involved in every decision. It’s extremely important for middle and senior-management to have a very clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the company. In addition, creativity is an important tool that should be harnessed to effectively manage toward these goals. This is something that needs to be taught to all the individuals making decisions.

"The CEO always sets the tone for an organization"

JT: It’s very important to always monitor the touch-points of your organization so that you can see where the customer intersects with your product or service.

As the CEO, there are times when I find myself talking to clients about their experiences, in a sense pleading with them to be honest and candid with me. It really is important for the CEO to hear everything – the good and the bad. Because much of what gets to a CEO on a daily basis is somewhat sanitized by those working for them, I find it important to regularly speak with our guests.

Additionally there are always letters, observations, comments and criticisms that come across the transom. CEOs always need to understand what’s being said about their organization so that they can deal with the situations appropriately.

SA: Thank you, Jonathan. It's not often that a CEO of a major organization lets themselves be interviewed by a blogger. I really appreciate having your executive level perspective on things that my readers and I think about!

JT: Thank you, Susan, for this dialogue! I’ve enjoyed this week immensely. Thank you for welcoming me to your blog.

SA: We talk a lot on this blog about the need to stay close to customers, and the tools that help you do that effectively. I'm wondering what some of your favorite methods are?

Customer Service Carousel Redux

*** Updates are added at the end of this post.

I've been having some problems logging in to my main business bank accounts, as documented earlier.

I have now called the 800 number twice, and have spent a considerable amount of time -- as they requested I do -- documenting what exactly is wrong with their web site. I sent this information exactly as they requested, through a secure internal message site.

They promised

1. to get back to me within 24 hours
2. to e-mail me when their response was posted so I could log in to see it

They appear to have fulfilled promise #1, but I didn't know, since they didn't fulfil promise #2. I found out today that the problem isn't fixed, and it's basically my problem now.  Here's the message they sent me:

Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate the time you have taken to write us.

Please note that the team that answers messages only has limited access to customer accounts and personal information. Although we can assist customers with general inquiries, we are unable to fulfil account servicing or investigation requests.

For further assistance, please call Online Banking support at 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx. If you don't have a Telephone Banking password, at the start of your call press 0 twice to be connected to a representative. Assistance is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you're calling from abroad, the number is 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx. Collect calls are not accepted.

Thank you for using Online Banking.

Sincerely,

Jane
Internet Communications Specialist

This organization is making more than a billion dollars a year. And they are spending a LOT of money on branding.

This is what I would call a 'customer managed relationship.' If I want the relationship to work, I'm going to have to manage it. And that includes figuring out why their web site is -- you know -- [what's a polite word here???]

Update May 21, 2007.  My e-mail response to feedback has not received a reply. Problem still exists.

Podcast on Customer Experience

Stephanie Weaver is starting a podcast series on customer experience, and kindly invited me to be her first guest, on the topic, "What is the customer experience"?. Listen to our conversation here.  You can also get it from iTunes here.

Some of you will remember Stephanie as the co-creator of the amazing Bathroom Blogfest (tag: ladiesrooms), which we hope to reprise in October 2007.

Defining Customer Experience

Stephanie Weaver has an interesting post defining the inside and outside of customer experience.

"• Inside. First, the experience happens in your customers’ perceptions. It’s seen from their point of view, created by a combination of their feelings, sensations, and prior experiences. Unfortunately, what you intend doesn’t always matter. All that counts is what’s happening inside a customer on the day he or she is at your site. You can’t control this inside dimension. No two customers will ever have the same experience, since everyone has a unique point of view.

• Outside. Second, an experience is made up of many separate pieces outside the customer. That’s your part. The outside dimension begins the instant a person decides to visit, continues throughout his or her time with you, and ends when he or she leaves. You control nearly every aspect of this outside dimension."

I like this approach. We basically agree on the concept, but this is a nice way to put it. Here's my definition, and you can download the graphic model below.

Customer Experience Is... the internal response of an individual to their interactions with an organization's products, people, processes and environments.

Internal response includes the thoughts, feelings and emotions experienced and the rational, psychological and sensory benefits of the experience.

Download ARC-Customer-Experience-Model.pdf

This is civilization: Flying Porter

I'm sitting in an airport lounge that feels a bit different... it's Porter Air, at the Toronto Island Airport. A fellow sitting nearby just said to his buddy, "This is civilization!". And indeed, so far this trip has lacked half the hassle of flying out of Pearson.

[Above: ferry waiting area]

For starters, the lounge is free to everyone. And wireless access is free. There are nice flat-screen computers like the one shown above, and branded water.

The guy beside me -- who has a combat pattern skinned onto his Blackberry -- just finished an espresso. 

You get here via a short ferry trip from downtown. You can pass the short wait by watching the scoters bob and dive for fish. You get to the ferry terminal via a comfortable shuttle bus from the downtown check-in kiosk. And it's a NICE bus. And all the staff are NICE!  They say things like "have a great trip" while giving you a smile.

There are a few mis-steps. I wasn't sure what floor the checkin kiosk was on, so they could have better signage there.  Plus, I just heard Frank Sinatra sing "New York, New York" on the audio for the second time in an hour. And "The Girl from Ipanema" just started. Tape definitely not long enough. But interesting ambiance, and obviously thought through by someone. (Note to self: remember to put the new Sennheiser headphones in briefcase for the next trip)

But the main advantage has to be the ease of access from downtown, and no $50 taxi ride to get to the airport.  I actually came to my first meeting via public transit, and then walked over to the shuttle kiosk. I have to agree: it feels VERY civilized.

I confess I was not in favor of keeping this airport, when it has come up as an issue in municipal politics. And there has been more than enough jiggery-pokery on the funding to keep us taxpayers in a state of rage for years. But as long as this thing is rolling, I plan to give it a try.

Wish List, Continued: Fewer unpleasant surprises

Doing some research for a client a few weeks ago, one of the things people had to say about their service experience was approximately this: 'please make sure I know everything I need to know.'

Consumers often take responsibility for 'not knowing the right questions to ask' -- I've heard this sentiment many times in experience research. They blame themselves for not asking what they should have known to ask... crazy, isn't it? Because that's why you are talking to a representative of the company in the first place. Unless the reps are just order-takers.

It's the feeling that the company rep actually know the pitfalls, but they're not telling you unless you ask a direct question on that topic. It's like some weird game show.

I've had this experience in my business several times recently. There's a whole industry that supports qualitative marketing research, called "field." These are the people who own the facilities, make the phone calls to invite respondents, and manage all the details, like catering. No matter how carefully we try to manage the field costs, the final invoice always seems to have a little surprise. Sometimes several surprises. On a big project, by the end of the thing, it's enough to fund an upgrade in airfare, or a dirty weekend in a country inn.

And because I try not to surprise the clients with a bazillion little nickel and dime charges, these extras invariably come out of my pocket.

Even though I put up a few of the lyrics to one of the funniest songs you'll ever hear -- Master of the House -- I don't really think it's as bad as all that. But there is a reluctance to tell you everything you need to know. People want to win the bid with a low up-front cost. Then they add on everything else as you go along. 

But here's what you need to know: This kind of thing damages loyalty. Period. Full stop.

So tell your customers what they need to know. That's what the very best service operations do, when they provide advice. Full transparency. 

As for myself, one of these days I hope I'll know all the right questions to ask.

Resources:

Lyrics to "Master of the House" by Herbert Kretzmer , part of musical Les Miserables, found here.

Christmas wish list: fix the numbering on your PDF manuals, please!

A regular reader mentioned his frustration with the software manual he just downloaded. It's a 428 page manual, and all the page numbers are wrong.
We both know the problem here, right? The cover has no page number. The first few inside pages have gorpy numbers like i,ii,iii... These are conventions from the world'o'paper.

Most of these user manuals will not be published for users, however -- they are largely going to be used by people reading them online.

Wish #1: Santa, please ask them to number each page for the electronic age, so we can enter a page number in the Adobe reader nav bar, and go to the right spot the first time. Even better, how about navigational links?

Wish #2: Please, Santa, would it be asking too much to have these docs formatted landscape, so you can easily read them on your screen?

Banks Using Podcasts to Connect: First Direct stays on brand with clear communication

First Direct, a UK direct banking organization that is part of the HSBC group, announced that they would be charging customers with dormant accounts a 10 GBP monthly fee. Bravely, they have a podcast  that contains an interview with Chris Pilling, the CEO, explaining what is going on:

This podcast contains key information about the new current account proposition.
  Our Chief Exec, Chris Pilling, talks in detail about exactly what is happening and how it will affect our customers.

It's short, and worth listening to. He comes across as calm and clear, and provides a reasonable explanation of what is going on.  Whether or not you agree with what he's saying, this is such a great approach, to speak directly to your customers about what is going on. Way to go!

When I looked around their home page, you can see that the podcast is totally on brand for these guys: "jargon free service."

A couple of other things that caught my attention:

• imagery that is fun and friendly
• Pet insurance -- pets are big, and getting bigger. Plus they're cute and friendly for a bank to show on its home page
• "Most recommended" -- a much more compelling statement than the usual, "we're great." And it reinforces the customer focus

Customer Experience Coach Tips:

• Translate the core values of the brand into everything you do, including how you handle announcements of service changes and bad news in particular

Service Recovery: apologies and liability

"I'm really sorry this happened"

When things go wrong, our sense of justice cries out for an apology. For reasons of liability, the more wrong something is, the less likely you are to actually get one. This may be changing, at least in some places.

Saskatchewan is the latest jurisdiction to introduce changes to their Evidence Act explicitly to address and remove the liability attached to an apology.

British Columbia, California, and Australia already had something like this in place. We should have this everywhere, so nobody hides behind the fear of unwittingly creating a bigger problem just by saying "I'm sorry".  Very often, this is all people really want -- a sincere apology. Without it, disputes can drag on and leave people feeling dissatisfied and deeply hurt.

People are less likely to sue their doctor over malpractice if they get a sincere personal apology. So it's not just the right thing to do, you can save money, too.

Let's get this going everywhere, and bring a little more humanity back into customer relationships.

References:

'Sorry' not enough for legal liability, Saskatchewan says, Globe & Mail, Nov 17, 2006 (free for 7 days after publication)

Apology a tool to avoid malpractice suits, Boston Globe, Nov. 12, 2004

The Sorry Works! Coalition, an organization promoting the use of appropriate apologies as a way to reduce medical malpractice suits, and increase disclosure in doctor-patient relationships. White papers, research summaries, and other resources

PS - we're not talking here about the popular fake apology, the public relations apology, or anything other than the real deal.   

Don't plant the seeds of doubt

"Good to excellent service must be delivered again and again. As soon as a customer has a bad customer service experience, the seeds of doubt are planted. The probability of the next sale decreases, erasing gains made from previous positive experiences."
        - Carlos Mora

This is so, so true. You are only as good as the last experience. You may have been heroes for years, but any deviation is seen as a new and negative trend, not an aberration.

And it might not even have been your organization that let someone down. It might have been another company in your category, but the customer thinks you are all the same.

The fundamental difference between a service experience and a product experience is the tremendous difficulty of delivering consistency. Don't let anybody tell you it's easy -- it's not. But you have to keep at it. The gardens of customer experience take a long time to cultivate, but they are always fragile.

Here's article link: "Customer Service as Marketing through Statistical Modeling" by Carlos Mora, DM Direct Nov 14, 2006.  Thanks to Emma Warrilow.

Responsive service: how fast, how personalized?

Like it or not, our customers compare us on many dimensions across categories, not within categories. I think this is particularly true with things like contact centres where you speak to an agent, and online "contact us" kinds of help.

The new standard for B2B: act on feedback immediately

I'm experiencing some exceptionally responsive service right now from a technology company, and it got me thinking. FocusForums has kindly loaned me the use of their platform to use in a student project I'm handling right now, which will culminate in an afternoon seminar for some post-grad research students. They asked if I would take some notes on my experience with their application and share any feedback that they could use to improve navigation or functionality. So I've been capturing stream-of-consciousness notes and e-mailing them every day.

Note that this is not a new business -- they've been steadily improving this application for four or five years or more.

The incredible thing is that they started responding to my feedback immediately. They didn't say, "thanks, we'll put that into the hopper for the next development cycle". They said, in effect, "let's get somebody on this", and they have already made several improvements to navigation. WOW.

Let me just emphasize one more thing here. I'm not their customer yet. I think they would like me to be a customer, but right now, I'm just a prospect.

The new standard for B2C: respond like you mean it, and be quick

Here's a few examples of excellence in the B2C world.

The Ask-Us button:

I recently sent an e-mail question to the "ask us" address at a not-for-profit centre of excellence associated with a university. I thought I might never hear back, or might get a pre-loaded response. Nope. The next day, I had a personal, detailed response with links to additional helpful resources.

The Help ticket:

Typepad, the folks that provide this platform, invariably respond to help tickets the same day. A personalized response. With a name. Recently, I sent them a request for a feature. They asked for clarification. I provided it. And they said, "I will certainly pass this feedback along, it's a great idea." This all happened in the space of a single day.

The help forum:

Not all web 2.0 tech companies can pull this off, apparently. I use Feedburner statistics. I use the paid version, theoretically "premium".  The statistics jump around a lot, sometimes as much as 30% in a day. I have posted queries on their user forums. I finally sent them an e-mail one day. Their form letter e-mail told me to go look at the forum topic. Not personalized. And not very helpful. Most of it in geek-speak. You're a blogger, therefore you must be a geek, right? If not, you probably shouldn't play with these toys, you might hurt somebody.

Palm also has a help forum, filled with issues from users with problems. Here's one from October 31, with no answer yet. At least Feedburner monitors their forum and posts responses. Palm doesn't seem to see a need to do this.

The whole existence of a huge forum with problems and titles like "Known Workarounds" or "phpBB 2 Issues" just tells you what you need to know, doesn't it? What kind of a product or service generates tens of thousands of user problems, and then doesn't fix them?

More importantly, where is your organization on this spectrum?