Customer Service excellence– right first time, every time

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.

Intellectual Property – the solid foundation for investable businesses

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual Property (IP) is a bit of a mine field. As a term, it encompasses a wide range of rights recognised by various laws in various geographies covering legal copyright, trademarks and patents among others. As a concept, it is hotly disputed as to whether it contributes positively to innovation or restricts it. As a legal framework, it is so varied on an international basis that trade disputes and legal challenges are the bread and butter of an army of lawyers.  As a practical tool for protecting the ideas of inventors, it is complex and can often seem confusing, but it remains the best method we have today for protecting the rights of the inventor or author to their creations.

Patent assertion

The importance of securing the rights of a business to its IP can be seen in the plethora of law suits active around the globe. Whether it is Apple and Motorola in Germany or Oracle and Google in the USA, ‘patent assertion’ is the order of the day. And the value of these patents is on the increase, too. Microsoft is reported to be planning to buy patents from AOL for more than $1 billion. There are even companies in existence today whose sole function is to hoover up the patents of other businesses with a view to selling them on for profit.

The wind-up radio

It is not just technology giants who are concerned about the security of their IP. For a small business looking to create new solutions to old problems, ‘the idea’ itself is often the starting point. 

I recently attended a talk by Trevor Baylis, the inventor of the wind-up radio and a strong advocate for teaching Intellectual Property within the national curriculum in schools. When he heard that the spread of AIDS in Africa could be combated by the improved education of people if only they had access to radios which, because of the lack of electricity and the cost of batteries, were not available, he decided to solve the problem. 

He had the idea of producing a wind-up radio that would be cheap enough for widespread use in Africa. Trevor is an engineer and used his domain knowledge to build prototypes and prove his design. The next thing he did was to patent his idea. In his talk, he said that the greatest day of his life was meeting Nelson Mandela in South Africa, part of the recognition that he got from helping to save countless lives. All possible because he secured the rights to his invention. 

The importance of the investor

However, Trevor also told of the obstacles he faced in getting recognition for his idea and the problems of making it happen. It wasn’t until some eagle-eyed investors recognised the opportunity and established the means to generate a commercial model that the wind-up radio was successful.

It often takes the genius of the original idea together with the money of savvy investors to bring innovations to market. But those investors in the wind-up radio were only interested in committing their money when they knew that the idea was protected. Not only did the patent give protection to Trevor Baylis, it also gave protection to the investors.

A solid foundation for small business success

Small businesses can learn from this example. When the product of a new company is ‘new ideas based’ and has clear market potential, it is essential that the foundations of that business are built upon the rock of Intellectual Property protection. 

Without it, it will be very difficult for that business to gain the support of the investment community. With it, alongside strong management and solid profit forecasts, the investor can take heart that the opportunity has a much higher chance of exploiting competitive advantage. 

And, as we are seeing in the recent spate of patent trading, there may be hidden value in the patent itself.

Sustainability for small businesses...a cost too far?

It all starts at home

Attitudes in the UK have changed over recent years. Smoking in public is more and more reviled, fat in the diet now has to be unsaturated, the numbers of people taking regular exercise has increased, and the sales of Fairtrade products in the UK rose by 12% in 2011 alone. We are also changing our approach to throwing things away, too. More and more of us actively recycle our household waste, use bottle banks and battery bins, and are generally more conscious of our impact on the environment. 

Larger businesses are reflecting public attitudes

In business, the greatest impact of these changes has been on big ‘household name’ businesses. At first, they all scrambled to generate Corporate Social Responsibility statements on their websites to try to persuade us of their green credentials, but now, as a result of the interactive nature of the internet and sites like Facebook and Twitter, these businesses have to ‘walk the walk’ as well. It doesn’t take much for the public to create a Twitter Storm about a product or service that isn’t seen to be ‘playing fair’. And these businesses are now quick to respond to such criticism and improve the product or service, fearful of the impact of negative publicity on their financial performance.

Becoming environmentally and socially responsible is easier for large businesses with deep pockets. They have huge reputational risk as well as the significant bottom line impact to consider. But what about smaller businesses; what are they doing to reflect these changes in public attitudes; can they afford to be sustainable?

Do small businesses need to follow suit? 

For many small businesses the thought of ‘going green’ can be very daunting. They don’t have the time or the money to spend changing their modus operandi. They often see reducing their environmental impact as having a real cost, which at a time of economic downturn is a simply one cost too many. It would seem that what is becoming standard business practice for large corporates might still seem like pie in the sky for some small businesses.

It doesn’t have to be that way though. After all, many of us have changed our attitudes to our personal carbon and environmental footprint and started switching off electrical appliances, washing our clothes at lower temperatures, using less water by showering more and bathing less, changing to energy efficient light bulbs and recycling not only our waste but also our clothes and mobile phones. It may not on its own save the planet but it can make us feel that we are contributing to a greener environment and saving a few quid into the bargain.   

The reality is that similar savings from reduced energy consumption are available to businesses, too. The Carbon Trust Advice Line’s free guide (see link below) is a good place to find out how to start.

The Triple Bottom Line

But in today’s changing world it isn’t enough just to think about the financial impact of business activity. The key for small businesses is to start to think about the Triple Bottom Line, that is the performance of the business against Social and Environmental as well as Economic factors. Think of it as how the business operation directly affects the 3 P’s: People, Planet and Profit.

But given that some small businesses are struggling to engage with relatively simple ‘green’ concepts why should they consider these other impacts? Well, in addition to the fact that going green can actually save the business money, there are two other key reasons for doing this. 

Reasons why small businesses must become sustainable

Firstly, as the customers and potential customers of these businesses change their attitudes to social and environmental issues in their personal lives, so they will start to expect similar attitudes from the businesses they buy from. As mentioned earlier, this has already started with large corporate organisations that are liable to lose customers if they aren’t able to demonstrate their Corporate Responsibilities. Customers will start to apply these conditions to smaller businesses, too. 

Secondly, more and more businesses are selling their products and services through supply chains and in partnership with other organisations. The reputational risk to the partner organisation, the next buyer up the supply chain or the end customer in sectors as diverse as the Public Sector, Retail, Construction or Professional Services will mean that businesses who don’t think about People and Planet as well as Profit will not be asked to tender for the business. In effect, such businesses will be left out in the cold.   

The truth of the matter is that becoming sustainable isn’t an option anymore for smaller businesses. It is now an essential part of future success. The question isn’t ‘can small businesses afford to be sustainable’; rather it is ‘can small businesses afford not to be sustainable’?

Further reading

Carbon Trust Advice Line free guide: http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/cut-carbon-reduce-costs/products-services/technology-advice/energy-saving/pages/energy-saving.aspx

The Triple Bottom Line: How Today's Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success -- and How You Can Too by Andrew W. Savitz and Karl Weber

Branding and innovation – the keys to unlocking long term future success

Marketing cowboys?

When I was a boy I wanted to be a cowboy, riding my horse across the Great Plains, driving a large herd of longhorns to the distant rail-head; all that beef on the hoof, all marked with my own brand to show they were mine. Like many a small boy’s fantasy, nothing of that dream ever became reality apart from the fact that I did end up working with brands, although in the marketing rather than the ranching sense.

They may have been developed for use on cattle but really brands are all about being human. They are about ownership, recognition, identity and even personality. They have become the standard way in which 21^st Century mankind recognises the product of human endeavour; a fundamental part of life from Tynemouth to Timbuktu. They identify all sorts of products from those around me right now such as Toshiba and Tetley, to the most far-flung of human objects such as NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. They are so familiar to us that we don’t even think of them as brands, they are just part of our everyday lives.

Hoovers aren’t all Hoovers

For the marketing executive, the ability to get the brand name into our everyday lives is a constant quest. I remember at business school learning that the ultimate in branding was to get the brand name to become the generic object, with Hoover being the example cited at the time.

But Hoover also serves as a great example of how a brand can be impacted by negative publicity. Their free flights promotion from 1992 saw the business overwhelmed by demand for the flights and resulted in a lengthy court case, directors losing their jobs, Hoover in the UK being sold and the brand being seriously damaged.

Having a great brand isn’t a guarantee of lasting success

More recently, there is the example of Eastman Kodak. For a century or more Kodak was the world leader in photographic film but is now struggling to compete in the world of digital photography. This shows that a great brand in a great business without great innovation can eventually lead to great problems. 

And then again, a great company with a great brand can try to innovate unnecessarily. Remember when Coca-Cola tried to introduce New Coke in 1985 in response to the growth of Pepsi.  Innovation, for a while, actually damaged both the brand and the business.

Look to technology giants to show the way forward

The trick is to get the brand right within a business that both protects and nurtures what it has, while having the culture to create and encourage new ideas. Such an approach lies at the heart of technology companies today. Because companies like Microsoft and Apple were set up and operated by young people with little regard for the old school working arrangements, they adopted a culture from the start that actively encouraged the development of the brand in parallel with true innovation. The commercial results have been startling in both cases. 

Today, technology giants like Google are forcing further ahead with its 20% Time rule, compelling their employees to spend one day per week working on new concepts and ideas. These businesses are fully aware that ‘game changing’ ideas often come from outside established businesses where focus on developing and commercialising existing ideas is fundamental to stakeholders. They are determined to buck that trend.

Application to smaller businesses

Finding small businesses that have the focus on brand building and commercialisation as well as having the space to support innovation isn’t easy. But these will be the key businesses of tomorrow. The key is to learn from the technology companies and embed these concepts into the business from the start. If you build in time to innovate from day one then it can become a fundamental part of what you do. It is surely much easier to create such a culture from scratch than to introduce one into an existing business.

But even if your business is up and running, it is never too late to validate whether you have that balance right. Invest a proportion of your time on a regular basis being creative, researching your competition, gaining a better knowledge of your market and its future direction, and generating new ideas to serve it better. But remember, whatever you do should always serve your brand.

I wonder if I was a child of the 21^st Century whether I would still dream of being a cowboy. Given the technological world we all now live in, I might dream of building a successful and innovative business instead. But I am sure it would still bear my brand.

Are small businesses being failed by traditional marketing methods?

Essential marketing?

When I set up my own small business, I remember all the focus at first being on creating the business itself – finding a name and a web address, getting advisors in place and getting the business registered. Of course, money was tight and I wanted to buy in only the bare essential services while I built up the business.

One of those essentials seemed to be some form of promotional marketing. As a new business offering professional services it was no good relying solely on existing contacts and networking opportunities. These had to be aligned with a decent website and some targeted marketing to let the world know about my existence. And all this had to be augmented by the considered use of social media outlets such as Facebook, You Tube, Twitter and LinkedIn, and even sites like Pinterest. 

The ‘push’ marketing model is broken

However, it didn’t take long for me to feel that something was wrong. The system wasn’t working for me. I was becoming just another consultancy service showering prospective clients with sales messages they didn’t really want. Instead of winning new customers, I was in danger of seriously putting them off completely.  At first, the only way I could see to get over the problem was to spend more time and money on marketing communications to make my content different, be smarter about how I focused on the market and be even more targeted on potential clients.

Then it struck me. It wasn’t that my messages were wrong; it was that the model of marketing communications itself was wrong. And it wasn’t just wrong for a services business like mine. It was wrong for many businesses and small businesses in particular. As a small business owner, I just couldn’t afford to spend the time and incur the cost pushing out my messages to potential clients in the vain hope that they would happen to land in their inboxes and doormats at just the right time. Traditional marketing communications lore deemed it a success if there was a 2% positive response to flyers and if 35% of emails were opened. Well that just wasn’t good enough for me. It wasn’t generating what counted – new clients.

The marketplace alternative

What was needed was a way for me to gain access to businesses and individuals who had an actual need for my services, in the right location and with a valid budget. If I could focus on real unmet demand then my success rate would be much higher. And if I could pay for that promotion on a commission basis only when I concluded a deal then I would have greater control over my spend and increase my margins.

If only a Marketplace model had been there for me back then. The ability for my prospective clients to easily discover my services when they had a real need for them and for my business to attract these real prospects through one on-line marketplace would have been ideal.  I certainly wouldn’t have spent as much time and money on ineffective marketing.  

Isn’t it about time we moved away from the traditional ‘push’ marketing method and embraced a Marketplace model that really attracts customers and favours small businesses?

Passwords bloody passwords....

Privacy Protection vs. Identity Theft

Now that Google has actually changed its privacy policy, the internet is alive with speculation that Californian giant may already be in breach of data protection codes in Europe at least. The French data protection authority has written to Google saying: "Our preliminary analysis shows that Google's new policy does not meet the requirements of the [1995] European directive on data protection."

Now I know that privacy of information and how companies like Google use what they have access to is very important but frankly I am still more concerned about the security of my identity online.

Can the war against Identity Theft be won?

In the wake of several articles over the recent years describing how businesses have lost user password details in hacking raids, I noticed in an archive article on the Chicago Tribune website that President Obama had last year urged the private sector in the US to come up with alternatives to passwords for user security.  

It appears the war against identity theft isn’t going too well and the cost to individuals averages around £450 and takes 130 hours to recover from. The bad guys are winning too often. Time for the cavalry to arrive!

Apparently, some of the biggest names in the US software industry are now looking seriously into the possibility of developing methods that consumers can use instead of passwords to identify themselves online.

Beyond passwords?

Now I don’t know about you but I hate internet passwords. I know you aren’t supposed to write them down and I know they are supposed to be difficult to guess but my problem is that there are so many applications requiring passwords that if you keep them all unique there are just too many to remember. 

And the websites themselves don’t help matters. There are no standards in the format of passwords; some insist on 8 characters, some insist on alphanumerics, some are case sensitive and some even prevent the use of certain characters. No wonder the most popular passwords used today include: 123456, password and iloveyou!

So now I am waiting expectantly for the likes of Microsoft and Google to make things a lot easier for me. No more passwords (or user names, for that matter) to remember and some new, sexy technology to solve my memory problem and keep my data secure.  

Is Big Brother watching you?

But maybe I will have to wait a good while yet. Maybe it isn’t as simple as that. One of the alternatives being suggested by the Obama administration would be to provide all users with some physical credential to generate a one-time digital password. Hardly a new idea but one that is already being met in the US with a chorus of public concern about their government promoting Identity Cards in a different guise. And you thought we were sensitive to having ID cards in the UK!

So the ball is now well and truly in the well-funded techies’ court. The Holy Grail is to come up with a solution that is completely secure, easy to implement and use, is acceptable to fair minded people and which is very difficult to hack. Simples!

My brain hurts...
So here’s to the new generation of password-less authentication and biometric fingerprinting. It all can’t come soon enough for me even though I get the feeling I could be waiting for several years. In the meantime, I guess I will just have to dust off my brain trainer and remember those bloody passwords.

Exactly what is Crowd Funding?

The Power of the Crowd

Does anyone remember Marillion? They are rock band from Aylesbury who had a number of hits in the mid 1980’s and who still have a loyal and not insubstantial army of determined fans. Now, most bands have fanatical support but few bands can muster that support as Marillion have done in the past. Way back in 1997 they needed money to tour the US. But way back then they weren’t as successful as they had been 10 years earlier and access to the money was harder to find. Then someone in the fan base struck upon the brilliant idea of asking the fans to help. Fortunately, there was the internet and email and before long the $60,000 required to underwrite the tour was raised. This mechanism was then used to raise more funds to allow the band to record several albums over the coming years. Fan power, indeed.

Linking the Crowd to Business

This early example of crowd funding is an interesting one. It shows that ordinary people, who can see a reasonable return from their money - seeing the band live or accessing a new album in Marillion’s case -, will put their hands on their mice and invest. The key is the ease with which this can be done, the small amount of investment required from each participant and the interest in a possible return that can be gained in the future.

It has taken crowd funding many years to become more than a flash in the musicians’ pan. It has taken a global financial crisis combined with the stellar growth of businesses such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to make the business community aware that there are alternative ways for small businesses in particular to raise the finances they need to become established and successful. 

Government Backing

Now crowd funding is moving into the mainstream, particularly here in the UK where such investments in return for share capital is permitted and schemes such as EIS actively encourage angel investors to support small business growth. Even recent noises from government seem to be encouraging crowd funding as a legitimate alternative to hard-to-find and expensive bank lending. And as its popularity starts to increase, people who would not have thought of themselves as traditional business investors are interested in getting into potential high growth companies at an early stage hoping they become significant game changers. With investment levels starting at £10 the new investment community could become massive with everyone becoming a potential 'armchair dragon' and supporting small business growth in the UK.

First North East Business now on Crowdcube

UK businesses such as uBrands are ideally placed to benefit from such financing. Not only does the business have a strong base build on extensive IPR and trademarks but it has found a niche opportunity that will change the way small businesses across the globe attract their customers. It just needs the funds to make it happen. Sites such as crowdcube.com are the perfect place to bring together this new investor community with the small business with great thinking that need access to finance. Welcome to the brave new world of crowd funding. Or as Marillion might say, ‘A penny for your thoughts’.