The customer is now emperor
We all have horror stories
to tell about hanging on the phone for ages listening to some terrible ‘muzak’ version
of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons while waiting for a customer services advisor to sort
out a problem. And how often is that wait in vain? How often is the problem
resolved there and then? How often do they actively come back to you afterwards
to check on your satisfaction or the progress of a fix? In my experience, excellent
customer service is still as rare as hen’s teeth!
Maybe it is just me
though. I have high expectations. I expect that things will work first time and
if they don’t I expect to have them fixed immediately. But when I speak to
friends they too are becoming less and less prepared to accept shoddy service
from organisations that should know better.
The rise of the
interactive internet through Facebook and Twitter has encouraged consumers to shout
about their complaints in a very public way. The more that do so, the more
likely a company is to improve its goods and services for everyone. If in the
old pre-internet days the ‘customer was king’ now in the days of the
interactive web, surely ‘the customer is emperor’.
Improvements are out there
A couple of my recent
examples of good and bad customer service spring to mind. I recently wanted to
open a saving account and following internet research selected an account that
required me to visit a bank’s branch in person. Not ideal but I accepted the
reasons given. I didn’t make an appointment in advance but just turned up on
the off chance that I could see someone to resolve my need.
Of course, all the
staff were busy with full diaries but one guy checked his calendar and said he would
fit me in there and then without impacting his other appointments. Fifteen minutes
later and my account was opened and my assets transferred. Now the bank in
questions has faced criticism in the past for the quality of its customer service but on this
occasion Santander should take a bow. I left a happy customer and am now
writing about my positive experience.
Still wrong second time around
On the other hand, my
recent experience of Toshiba UK’s customer services is quite the opposite. My
laptop is still under warranty and this warranty covers the power adaptor which
failed recently. Having spent 30 minutes on the phone trying to get the
technical support staff to recognise that I had a valid extended warranty at
all, they finally raised an order for a replacement adaptor to be sent to me in
2-5 working days. I changed appointments to ensure I would be around for
delivery.
At the end of this period
I still hadn’t received the adaptor so I called back – another 25 minutes on
the phone – to find out that an internal problem with their ordering system had
meant that my order hadn’t been placed at all. Naturally, I raised my concerns
but there was apparently nothing that could be done. They could re-raise the
order but couldn’t expedite the delivery or offer any compensation for their
error and my wasted time. So I was left waiting another 2-5 working days for my
adaptor.
To be fair to Toshiba,
they did offer to email me an update of my new order with a tracking reference but
the part, which did eventually arrive some 10 days after my original call, was
delivered to the wrong address! So despite all their extra efforts they
couldn’t even get it right second time around; hardly what I would call good customer
service.
This experience certainly leaves
a sour taste in my mouth, encourages me to write this negative blog about a
business that should know better and will make me think long and hard before
ever buying from Toshiba again.
Constrained by systems and procedures
In thinking about these
experiences, it strikes me that where many businesses are going wrong is that
they see customer service as an add-on, as an additional cost, as a reduction
on the profit they made from selling the item in the first place. It is
something to be tolerated and monitored and minimised. It is a necessary evil
that needs systems and procedures to control it.
In none of my experiences
of customer services are the people at the end of the phone at fault. They are
trying their best, I am sure, to help me but they are constrained by the lack
of understanding of the customer’s perspective in those systems and procedures
that they are obliged to work with. They are often not empowered to resolve the
problem there and then but rely on other people or processes to swing into
action. These, as we have seen, can be unreliable and time consuming and
completely customer unfriendly.
Excellence as a differentiator
Customer service should be
seen as a positive differentiator, part of the sales and marketing process and
a fundamental asset of the business. Assets must be invested in if a positive return
is to be achieved and customer service is no different. A good experience of
customer service results in a happy customer who will be an advocate for the
business. A bad example will not only mean a potentially lost customer but also
a motivated antagonist who is likely to tell friends and colleagues of their bad
experience.
The problem is that all
businesses know that this is fundamentally true. All talk the talk but few of
them really commit to doing something about it. Generally speaking, call
centres that measure the throughput of calls and monitor the time taken on
calls rather than measure the satisfaction of customers are indicative of this
‘lip service’ approach.
Right first time, every time
Of course, if things were
right first time then there wouldn’t be a need for as much support to fix
subsequent problems. This would allow the customer service team to focus on
fewer calls, too. The best businesses focus on ‘right first time’ and then
measure and analyse the nature of the calls into call centres and focus their
resources on resolving the majority there and then. They think like customers and understand the
power of the satisfied consumer.
This is something for
start-ups and small businesses in particular to think about. Put the right
attitude towards your customers at the heart of everything you do from day one.
Build your products and services around delighting your customers and they will
buy and buy again from you. And keep working at it. Getting it right from day
one and keeping it right on day 1001 are very different things.
If you do it right
consistently and systematically you will see huge competitive advantage over
those small and not so small businesses that are still getting it so wrong.
Time taken getting your product or service ‘right first time’ will pay real
dividends in the future and time taken to resolve customer problems quickly and
fully will ensure a loyal customer base.
It is all just a matter of
common sense, really. Sadly, from the consumer’s perspective, the opportunity
to be better than the rest is still there. I would like to think that this
opportunity will be short lived as businesses truly realise the negative cost
of poor customer service. But in truth, I am just not so sure.
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