Category Archives: Customer Success

Is this the future of shopping? Showrooming and paying to browse.

Leave a reply

My first blog for a few months – this article caught my eye and is on a similar vein to some of my previous ones about the future of shopping.

A very interesting article from the BBC on “showrooming”.  Something you may have never heard of but like me something you do lots.  So what is it?

The peril of showrooming - BBC

You’re out shopping with the family and browsing a high street bookshop (for example) and find something that takes your fancy – your normal reaction now is to scan the barcode and check the price on Amazon (pretty much the de facto online shop for us all) and no surprise it’s cheaper.  You then order online and a couple of days later it arrives, backed up by the great service that Amazon provides.  The high street bookshop clearly loses out here and there isn’t much it can do – they have more physical shop space to pay for and staff to help customers.  Or is there?

Showrooming

 

We all do it.  And it saves us money as online is normally (much) cheaper.  But it doesn’t help the high streets stores.  Charging for browsing is an idea to tackle this growing problem and it only needs to be a small charge, that you get knocked off your bill in the shop if you buy anything from them.  I like it – it makes sense and it’s easy to do.  But unless the prices come down in the shops, it’s not going to help long term get us back on the high street buying, which is what’s needed.

Another interesting article over on Euromonitor talks about other ways retailers are looking to address this problem – in-store discounts, store loyalty schemes, online price matching and more.  Some I can’t see working – loyalty schemes can apply online and the likes of Amazon have their own loyalty scheme (attached to their credit card); online price matching hasn’t caught on – any price matching that is done now is very restricted and never includes online as it’s more often than not too big a difference to match.

Euromonitor - showrooming prevention

Jessops, HMW and Waterstones in the UK have all had this problem and in some cases suffered massively as a result – and gone out of business.

Is it too late for the rest of the high street to change?

 

Connected content – it’s nearly time!

Leave a reply

I’ve long preached the time when we’ll be paying a single fee that covers all our home connectivity and includes unlimited access to all the content we would ever want (music, videos, games, books and more), and all through a single joined up service provider that knows what they’re doing and where it all just works (including how I access everything and when – so a big mobile and hardware bit).

Are we there yet?  Nope, but there are some very clever interim solutions and ways to almost get some of this.

I caught up with a good friend this week who I’ve not seen for some years and we were talking about the joys of using Apple devices and in particular how good Netflix was on it.

Image

So far I’d resisted the Netflix move.  Just couldn’t convince myself it was worth it and that it would be that good.  But I took the plunge today and boy am I impressed.  On the Apple TV it really is as if it’s a content channel with the same great Apple usability as the Apple TV box.  And even the little Nobles can successfully navigate it.  There are box sets on there to watch, that I’ve recently bought the physical DVDs for – yes I know it’s physical but I couldn’t find digital anywhere for the right price (until now).  My DVD collection (that has been getting smaller as we move to a digital world) is now pretty much obsolete thanks to Netflix – minus Disney and Star Wars (technically though that’s also Disney).  They’ll all come I’m sure – they’re already on Lovefilm and similar.

Image

So my Apple TV is now looking even more appealing.  The music link is still missing – sure I can link to my iTunes library but I want more content streamed, not my library only.  Spotify can plug that gap for the music but it’s not on the Apple TV (yet).

I can only see this getting better and very quickly.  Whether we need Apple to bring out a physical TV box I’m now not sure.  Their little Apple TV box of magic does it all and plugs into any screen I want.  I can control it with my iPhone and it works.

Total connected content as I described above?  Not yet.  My broadband, phone, TV and content are all with many different (carefully) selected (good) providers – including Sky, BBC (care of the license fee), BT, O2 and now Netflix.  But thanks to good devices it’s all joined up and it won’t be long before we see some very clever services coming in that offer more or all of it in one package.

Anytime, anyhow and anywhere – IS coming soon…!

Do digital and online mean the end of the high street?

Leave a reply

I’ve long been a big fan of digital content – in all its forms – and how it’s changing our lives for the better.  More choice, more variety, better (read cheaper) prices and convenience.  It’s all about the anytime, anywhere and anyhow philosophy – with us consumers far more in control of when, where and how we consume.  But, this clearly has an impact on the more traditional world of content in its physical form.  And also drives our retail experiences – beyond simple content.

Digital media and content

Some interesting questions come up…

  1. Can digital/online and physical/traditional retail co-exist peacefully?  Yes they can.
  2. What about our traditional high street shops?  We need them but they need to change.
  3. Should we all buy online?  A good question!

It’s not just about digital content – going online for content ultimately impacts my other retail experiences and drives me to the same retail channels, online, for other products.

It’s number 3 that right now is the big one.  In the UK we’ve seen some major high street shops go under recently – or change hands and scale down.  Including – Game, Jessops, Comet and HMV.  Some with years and years of history going right back to when consumers started listening to and consuming content (and buying products).

Consumers

So why are they struggling?  I think it’s quite simple – a reluctance to change and move with what consumers want (all of the above in the introductory paragraph).  Cheaper prices, more choice and one not mentioned above better service.

This last one is important and maybe something not considered as much as it should be.  Good service – or even excellent service (of which I’m a huge fan) – is crucial to build relationships with your customers and get them back and get the all important repeat business going.  Just look at how Amazon do customer service.  No quibbles when taking items back – fantastic return policies – and people to help when you need it, however you want to contact them (not waiting round for someone who might not be the right person to help).

Customer service

Another big plus online is the whole idea of reviews – from consumers just like you, telling you exactly what they think of the item, good or bad.  This helps you make your decisions.

Your typical high street shops now are used more for browsing – and people then compare prices with online retailers, go away and order online for it to be delivered a couple of days later.  Sure there are some purchases that don’t make sense to do this way but more people are going this way.  And yes I’m one of them.  How can I justify a book in one of the few remaining high street shops, when online (and by online I mean Amazon) it’s half price (with great service and quick delivery) – there just isn’t any competition.

Traditional UK high street

I can shop when I want and even when mobile.  It’s all so convenient.

Everyone talks about how much of their Christmas shopping these days is done online and typically this means Amazon.

It’s another post about whether Amazon’s business models (pricing) are sustainable or not for them – but so far it’s working and their bottom line is healthy (now)!

So now to the crunch question – is there still a place for the traditional high street?  I think there is.  A lot of change is needed and retailers need to embrace online and digital as well as their traditional retail arms.  This is critical.  If they don’t – and don’t do it quickly, they’ll sadly go the same way as others.

For us consumers, it’s an exciting time but will be a sad one as well if we lose well known names from the high street.

It’s time to change!

It's time for change

Curry good service

Leave a reply

It’s too easy to write about bad service but good service – real good service – needs to be shouted about, so people know who’s doing it well and how.

Saturday nights in the UK are perfect nights – every so often – for a good takeaway curry. And we’re luckily enough in Twickenham to have a good number of local Indian restaurants (a bonus living near to the home of rugby – The Twickenham Rugby Stadium – yes that’s where England beat the All Blacks this weekend).

Currys

A few weekends ago, with the kids in bed, it was time for a curry. Order placed with our favourite restaurant and greeted on the phone as normal with a pleasant “How are you?”. 40 ish minutes later and the food arrived, delivered in style by a gent in a nice suit and again very pleasant and friendly. Order complete with the usual free large bottle of Cobra beer. We dished up and Mrs. Noble discovered the naan bread that should have accompanied her order was missing. Shock, horror! What do we do?

Naan bread

A quick call back to the restaurant and apologies from them and driver on his way back. 5 minutes later and the missing naan arrived plus another free bottle of beer and a few more free poppadoms. Nice! Very happy customers.

The morals of the story?

1. Good service always counts – whatever business you’re in, however big you are and whatever size order your customer has with you.

2. Exceed customer expectations. Do more than others will at the same price. Your customers will remember you and they will come back.

3. When you make mistakes – and you will – fix them quickly and pleasantly and do more than your customers expect.

It’s all about curry good service…

And in case you wondered, our very friendly Indian restaurant is called The Green Spice. Pop in and see them or call them up for a take away, you won’t be disappointed.

The Green Spice (Twickenham)

No really, poor service is not good

Leave a reply

Ok another post on the sadly too common theme of poor service.  This time it’s from our lovely UK (privatised) utility companies.

It’s been all over the UK press recently with pretty much all of the power companies bringing in a pretty hefty price increase – just before the winter kicks in and we all start using our heating properly.  Clearly the rubbish timing is a coincidence.  Average increases in the region of 10% seemed to be the standard.  So I was prepared – or so I thought.

Woke up this morning to find a nice letter from the lovely people at npower – our power company (who we use for our electricity and gas supplies).  A 3 page letter from them that started off with an apology…

npower saying sorry

Ok, they know it’s not good news and want to be open with me.  Next the reasons…

npower listing their excuses

 

Ok – turn over the page, it’s then the increases, hidden deep in what can only be described as rocket science (and even though I actually do have 2 degrees in rocket science it’s not easy to understand).  They’re planning a 20.3% increase on our electricity and an 18.0% increase for gas.  Did I misread that?  20+%?  I’ve never seen an increase anywhere like that.  Has inflation suddenly changed?  Have the national papers got the average that wrong (and I know it’s an average but this is way off)?  Is it an error?

A quick check on Twitter and it’s not just me.  Lots of people with similar nice letters recently, with the very same reasons (or shall we call them excuses), and with increases – but none quite this high.  Some people even with no increases.  Now maybe I see this in a very simple way but what is it about my supply that means I need a larger increase?  Pass – but npower customer services surely will be able to set me straight.

A nice 0800 freephone number to call and then a multitude of rubbish menus to go through – entering my account number, listening to it, entering my date of birth, pressing the number 6 a few times and a few more.  Then a message saying we’re experiencing a high volume of calls due to the recent letters, oh really?  And you weren’t ready for that?

An irate customer

 

A message then to say they could call me back in about 45 minutes.  Ok, sounds a good idea.  So then about 2 hours later I get the call, and yes more menus and information I have to enter first.  Then the agents on…

I explain the problem and that I’d like to understand why my increase is so much – good question she says.  So then tells me the reasons in the letter – ok that tells everyone why there’s an increase but not why we’ve had the bombshell we’ve had.  She then tells me it’s the region we’re in.  Say what?  Is Twickenham so different in how we receive our power, that they need to charge us twice as much more?  Then she says, it’s also based on our low-ish usage.  Huh?  We have a low-ish usage so the increase is higher?  Nonsense.

Let’s escalate – time for the manager, please can we speak to them?  A 5 minute on-hold pause.  Then, the agent has spoken to the manager and they say the same.  What?  Did “Can I speak to the manager?” not make sense?  So second attempt…

The manager now says the same – and then completes it with we can’t really tell you, we don’t know.  Oh, that’s ok then, so it’s some sort of lottery that even the rocket scientists at npower can’t really explain and it’s ok not to explain to customers, we just charge them 20% more.  Or it’s a secret.

The morals and how this isn’t a good example of customer service…

  1. Don’t send out generic information when what you’re actually saying is very different.
  2. Ditch the menu after menu after menu system – it’s not friendly and no-one likes it.
  3. Employ more staff when you know you’re going to get busy, very busy.  Plan better.
  4. Empower your staff so they can talk to customers and give them real information.
  5. Tell the truth and keep it simple.
  6. Listen and listen again, and understand what is being asked.
  7. If someone needs to escalate, let them – don’t do it for them.
  8. Don’t do something that is guaranteed to lose customers.

The moral?  Well, if I want to keep warm – and today it’s cold – I’m pretty powerless to do anything with npower, the price increase stays and they’re not listening.  But I can switch to someone else.  And yes, no doubt they’ll also have an increase there but there’s a chance that it won’t be an obscene one and they might be able to tell me why….

Happy days, and a nice story in the book on how to lose customers.

The same day also, that a story about how npower mis-sold gas to someone and have been taken to the small claims court and the person has been successful in winning an harassment payment from them…

Digital pricing – it’s not difficult

Leave a reply

Still on the digital books theme as I’m loving iBooks on the iPhone right now.

Pretty much the only reason I visit a real bookshop these days is to browse and let the kids enjoy kiddies book sections. Inevitably I go away and order online (yes through Amazon), for the printed book, as it’s cheaper and not just a bit cheaper.

Last weekend on such a browsing session, I spotted a book called “The Art of Running Faster”. It looked great, (and yes I’m trying to run faster) so I went to Amazon but then thought no, let me check on Apple’s digital bookstore. And yes it was there and about 30% cheaper than the printed one. Sample downloaded, read and enjoyed and I went to click the buy button. Suddenly the price had jumped up to more than the printed book in the real shop. Say what? Why on earth have they done this? Convenience yes but more expensive to download and read on my phone? No thanks. Right now we’re in the transition to digital for books so we need to be incentivised to buy digital. You don’t get more features, it’s just a bit more convenient. It should be cheaper.

What to do? I decided to check out the Kindle app on the iPhone – a first for me – and it was there and even cheaper than the first cheaper price on iBooks. Brilliant. So buy I did, and boy is the purchasing process on Amazon good. So simple and quick. A top result. And yes the Kindle app works well. iBooks now has a competitor.

Please please get the pricing right. Digital should be cheaper. The production costs and other costs of sale should be cheaper. Help us consumers make the transition to digital. Don’t have wildly different prices across digital shops and not more expensive than physical…

Should we put up with poor service?

Leave a reply

No!  It’s that simple.  There’s too much of it about and it’s got to stop.  Whether I pay for the service directly or through some strange indirect route, it shouldn’t be rubbish.

As consumers – where there’s no contract or service agreement in place – we often think we have to put up with poor service, because it doesn’t appear there is any other option.  Add outsourcing to this where suddenly the English (in my case) the other person is using can be a challenge, and this can get even worse.

There are many reasons why the service might be poor – even though for me (a true believer in nothing but great service – at home and at work) it goes against everything I’m about – and they include:

  1. Misunderstanding – for either or both parties
  2. Communication problems – related to above
  3. Someone’s had a bad day – it happens to us all but it has wide impacts
  4. Lack of accountability and responsibility – just reading from scripts
  5. Unable to think for themselves – those providing the service (unable = not allowed)

These all happen and we can understand how they can impact service.  And they can be changed and services improved.  But when there’s lack of thinking or planning into how the service will work, or even what service is all about and not having the people with the right attitude in place that’s not right.

Some examples this week of poor service – both from the same company but different people at different times – that I’ve experienced in preparation for starting a new working life up in London and on the lovely London commute are below…

South West Trains – who provide the train services for my commute into London – scored badly twice this week.  And it’s not just me who’s had bad service from them recently.

Having spotted a Twitter handle for South West Trains recently and seen them use it very well, I was impressed and their service looked to be headed in the right direction but no!

On Monday I needed to get a monthly ticket for my journey.  Easy or so I thought.  I headed to the local station at about 11:20am but hit my first hurdle there and was told you can’t put it on your Oyster pass there because they’re not Transport For London (TFL) – who run the London Underground.  Now for non-Londoners this gets complicated now.  Oyster cards are PAYG or stored value tickets for the tube within London but also London travel zones 1-6, which can include trains, if that train company takes part.  Oh the joys of privatisation of the national railways!

But you can use the Oyster card at the local station.  Ok so someone’s not really thought this through.  TFL tickets and South West Train tickets can be used there and provide the same service.  I’m just a customer and just want to travel into London.  I don’t care who owns the route.  That should be transparent to me when it comes to simply buying tickets.  Maybe it’s down to system integration at the back-end.  Poor service example number 1.

Ok – so we now need to go to a local TFL (tube) station.  The image below shows the complexity of London train and tube travel if you didn’t know already…

It’s a big map, there’s lots of stations and some of it is over 100 years old!  But the ticketing should work – the trains do, on the whole.

We now get to the tube station and Mrs. Noble pulls up in the car outside.  In I go now confident that this will work.  Monthly ticket please on my Oyster – “No you can’t get a new one until after 12pm” – Say what?  Why not? – “ATOC rules!” – Huh?  A tweet to South West Trains to see if they can help but no it’s the rules, that’s it.  No reason why.  No understanding, point blank no and no other help.  Example number 2.

Both examples of 4, 5 and 6 in my points above.  They could have dealt with either request very differently and provided the same end result but the customer happier.

  • Example 1 – sorry sir, we’re not able to sell that here and I’m afraid you can’t buy a new one of ours until after 12pm, as it’s new.
  • Example 2 – sorry sir, for new ones you need to wait until after 12pm.  Oh I see it’s nearly 12pm now, let me check and we’ll sort that out for you.

Now I’ve got started I’ve got more examples of bad service to come.  Do take a look at the @My6Percent site – it’s a bit harsh but fair and you can see how bad the service can be!  As a London commuter, I just accept most of it but then that goes back to my first point – I shouldn’t.

Do you put up with bad service?

Yoda as a mentor

Leave a reply

Another fine post from GeekWire, again written by Brandon Koeller and this time about Yoda and his not great mentoring skills.  As opposed to Darth Vader’s project management endeavours  – “10 reasons why Darth Vader was an amazing project manager“.

Let’s start by defining what mentoring is…

Here’s what Yoda does wrong…

And the 10 reasons he wasn’t a great mentor are:

  1. Too much micro-management.
  2. Lack of transparency.
  3. No clear goal setting.
  4. Lack of clear and consistent communications.
  5. Not providing authentic and real assignments.
  6. Authority (and relationship) problems.
  7. Not relating training to things you know and your existing experiences.
  8. Forget about cult myths and hero worshipping.
  9. Lack of accessibility.
  10. Learning new things isn’t about magic – it’s about consistent hard work.

Yes I am a huge Star Wars fan – which means I like posts like this by default almost.  But what I really like about Brandon’s posts (and his writing style) is the ability to provide very useful info about topical subjects, that are relevant to most people and wrap them up with Star Wars – something that everyone loves – that makes them fun to read (and remember).

Mentoring is something that many organisations don’t do and so they miss out on the huge opportunities it can provide.  Someone in the organisation helping inspire and motivate others, can never be a bad thing!

Are you a mentor?  Does it work for you?  Do you enjoy it?

Simple does work – another good example of how to do great service

Leave a reply

Apple have done it again.  A nice post from Cult of Mac on plans by Apple to improve their Genius Bar services… 

Very simple really – change the tables to get more customers in.  I don’t doubt they’ll also bring in more Genius staff to help.  Bigger tables with more customers and the same number of staff won’t work – and Apple know that.  See my earlier blog post – “How simply should it be?” – that talks about keeping things simple at Apple and it’s part of the culture there and it works.  Great services, great technology, great products and the rest.

This table layout change is another great example of this approach.  It’s easy to do, very simple and won’t cost much, but the impact on the customers will be huge and very positive – more great service.  The Apple Store at the Bentalls Centre in Kingston has done something similar recently but expanded their store at the same time – clearly not always an option.  But they’ve now got more tables, with quite a few of these new long ones, lots more staff and the kids’ tables.  These stores where they’re testing the new layouts minus the kids’ tables, should think again.  The kids love them and they work.  Kids are kept quiet, so parents can browse and interact with the Genius staff more (and yes ultimately buy more Apple goodies) and the kids are playing with great apps on the iPads so very quickly learn to love iPads and Apple and become little fan people in their own right.  Genius!  Getting the next generation into good service from Apple – now that’s long term investment planning at its best.

The challenge – as the Cult of Mac post rightly points out – is providing this improved great service when space is a premium.  How do they do it?  I’ll tell you how – as they’ve done in Kingston here, have less space geared to selling products, as bizarre as that sounds and more geared towards service.  It works.  People coming into Apple shops have a good idea what the products are and want to see and play with them – the big ones (like iPads and iPhones and iMac and MacBookAirs).  Not so much the accessories that take up lots of space.

Does this approach work for you?  Is it about service for retailers like Apple or do you prefer the PC World, Curry’s type approach of products, products, products everywhere and hardly any staff who’ll stop and listen?

On a side note, what do you call more than one (Apple) Genius?  Genius’s?  Geni-i? Guru’s?  One to Google…

Where’s visual voicemail? Come on it’s old technology…

Leave a reply

Having been an iPhone fan (user) since 2008 with O2 I’ve been used to the great technology that is visual voicemail.  It makes far more sense than the 15+ year old normal voicemail technology.  It’s visual and you can easily see who’s called, when and then listen to which message you want to, when you want to.  Nice.

I moved to Vodafone through work on another iPhone and they didn’t have it but I was happy with my own set up on O2.  When I then moved from O2 to Vodafone on my personal one, I’d assumed I’d get the same great voicemail service from Vodafone – I mean they provide the best network coverage in the UK, surely they must have the same basic technology services as their competitors – but no, it was back to old fashioned e-mail.  But I put up with it for a few months before moving mobile networks again.

This time to Three – they’re offering an amazingly priced deal for iPhones (me providing the phone and them the service) and these guys invented 3G didn’t they?  Well sort of, I mean it’s in their name and they were the original 3G network providers in UK.

Signal strength from Three not great – particularly when indoors but their service around data must be the best, surely?  And that must include visual voicemail – or so I naively thought.  Their voicemail service isn’t even close to Vodafone’s non-visual one.  You either have a text message from Three telling you you’ve received a voicemail or no notifications.  The text messages I find annoying so don’t want to use them.  But the alternative is nothing.  Rubbish.  And by nothing I mean nothing.  The phone might register a missed call but there’s not even a counter on the voicemail icon to say there’s a message.  Something’s not right there.

I know, I’ll speak to Three and see what they say.  A message to their support team and a phone call back from their very outsourced support team, who try to point me in some direction but end up saying I need to speak to their iPhone experts who then ask me to explain everything from the start again – that sort of service really gets me.  They’ve not listened or they have and chosen to ignore me and their processes – yes that word again – mean they can’t link things up properly.  Rubbish again.  The guy tries to help but eventually just says they don’t support visual voicemail as their customers don’t want it.  Really?  Aren’t I a customer?  I want it and others do as well.  How many have you asked?

A quick Tweet to the Three Twitter account and pretty much the same response – but delayed (which is also a little surprising)…

If the new benchmark has been set by Apple and O2 5 years ago when the iPhone was released why on earth aren’t all the mobile networks keeping up with the technology that consumers (yes that’s us) want?  It’s all down to money and the commercials – which I guess isn’t surprising.  Why aren’t these guys trying to be more innovative and give people useful services that they want?

See a post on Mobile Industry Review by Ewan MacLeod, that very nicely says it like it is…

If you’re interested here’s a very nice how-to guide for how to use visual voicemail on your iPhone – obviously if (and it’s a big if) you’re network supports it…

If not try one of the 3rd party services like HulloMail – that I’ve just downloaded and will be testing – or wait (for how long though we have no idea).

What do you think?  Am I expecting too much?