Tag Archives: Customer Service

Why Is Customer Experience So Bad?

A huge generalisation but why is customer service not where it should be today (particularly when it comes to big organisations and call centres)?

5 common mistakes made time after time:

1. Lack of empathy.
→ Not understanding customer’s feelings or perspectives.

Do this instead
↳ • Practice active listening.
• Show genuine interest in their concerns.

2. Ignoring feedback and not listening.
→ Not considering customer’s suggestions or complaints.

Do this instead
↳ • Regularly review customer feedback.
• Implement necessary changes accordingly.

3. Poor communication.
→ Not conveying information clearly and effectively.

Do this instead
↳ • Use simple, understandable language.
• Ensure your message is concise and clear.

4. Inconsistency in service.
→ Varying levels of service quality.

Do this instead
↳ • Maintain a consistent service standard.
• Regularly train your team.

5. Neglecting follow-ups.
→ Not checking back with customers post-service.

Do this instead
↳ • Regularly touch base with customers.
• Ask for their feedback on the service.

How are you ensuring top-level customer service in your organisation?

Being customer centric

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A great way to think about customer centricity that really resonates with me:

“A business is customer centric when it delivers on-going growing value to and for their customers.”

I really like this because…

It’s not just for the short term and the now
It’s about the what (the value) and the who
It allows for customers to include customers as we know them, employees and shareholders and investors

The reason being customer centric is important is not only the obvious – that our customers stay loyal when they have good experiences and the product and sales are delivering on our promises, but also as our customers keep evolving and changing, so too are the ways that we operationalise that and support those customers.

If you are customer centric, it means that you are observing that evolution that’s happening to your customer base, and you’re able to be very agile and nimble in responding to that as a business.

Being customer centric is easy to say but hard to do and it doesn’t come organically. It needs organisation wide buy-in and sponsorship, from sales, to finance, to operations, to support, to customer success, to delivery! We live at a time of unprecedented customer expectations both for business customers and our end consumers, and being customer centric is critical. Why now? Think about your ultimate consumers – they’re you and your expectations have changed. Forrester research have stated “This new world requires leaders to think and act differently” and George Colony, Forrester CEO predicts, if a company is not customer-centric, they’ll simply be out of business between 5 – 10 years. What are you doing to be more customer centric today? I’m going to share some practical ideas and examples over the next couple of days of things I’ve seen work very well with different companies.

“Customer Centricity is a journey and not a destination.”

Has your service bubble burst?

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Continuing the theme of the last post, and some good conversations that followed, I want to think about what happens when service goes wrong and the service bubble that was working bursts.

And specifically what can you do to stop it bursting. Like any bubble once the process starts, the burst is quick and more often than not catastrophic – there’s no going back!

I love the shot above – the bubble is actually made up of millions upon millions of individual droplets of water. Your service bubbles are no different – they’re made up of different teams of people, multiple customer interaction points and channels, the overall customer experience and all your social conversations, and they all need to work together to provide your service bubble.

Don’t forget – the whole thinking behind the service bubble, is that it’s all about great service, in the bubble.

It takes just one of these different parts to falter and the bubble is at risk of bursting unless action is taken very quickly. Once the bubble bursts, you lose customer loyalty, that repeat business you relied on before is at risk and your company reputation can be threatened.

To stop the service bubble bursting, you need to focus on two key components – making sure the customer experience works (by constantly listening to what your customers are saying, wherever they are saying it – as part of this you need to be listening and engaging with them on the different channels) and by having the right customer service focused staff on your team, who share and understand the company values (and believe them), and who are empowered to make the right decisions to help your customers.

And yes, customers will be willing to pay a premium for service bubbles that deliver and provide the expected service levels. Just make sure you’re investing sufficiently in the team behind the scenes and that service is one of the core values of who you are and what you do, as a company.

Thanks Bill Quiseng (@billquiseng) for your thoughts on this.

Have you been caught in a service bubble?

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Service bubbles? So what are they? They’re the places you are when you’re being looked after and experiencing a brand’s great and amazing service – and caught in their bubble. You may have never thought about it before, but we’ve all been there.

You’re shopping and having a great experience in the shop, or in a hotel and being looked after by their team – and getting great service. The service is personalised to you, it is provided by service professionals whose job it is is to understand what delivering great service means and what makes it special, and it’s specific to that brand.

Take Apple – yes one of my favourite service brands: you step into their Apple stores and are greeted by their Geniuses – easily recognisable, all smiling and friendly and all there to make sure you are helped in the way that you need. And they’re proactive in providing good service.

Another great example – is good hotel chains, like Shangri-La (well known in the Far East but with some great hotels now in Europe as well). You arrive at the airport in a different country, quite often tired from a long journey. You’re met after security by a hotel representative to take you to the hotel and you’re then in their bubble. Again, friendly staff, personalised service (often greeting you by name) and with a smile. Whilst you’re staying with them – as their guest – and being looked after, you’re in their care and their bubble.

The usual result of the bubbles? You go away a happy customer, you remain loyal to the brand and come back for more, and you tell people about it.

So what makes them bubbles? They’re normally temporary for you – you step into them when you start an experience or journey and step out when you’ve done (a good example being when you leave a hotel, are taken to the airport and dropped off – everyone knows that feeling that it’s back to normality), the bubbles normally grow whilst you’re in them – with the service getting better as you complete your purchase or transaction and there is a only a thin line between the bubble and the outside world.

You can imagine different service bubbles coexisting for different businesses and organisations, and moving from one to another and receiving different experiences in each – some good, some great, some maybe not so good. Businesses that work well together as partners can even have bubbles that join together and your journey from one to the other, is seamless and there’s no need to step outside of them.

Airlines (and other forms of transport – e.g. trains) are another great example of service bubbles and they differ widely from good old economy, business class and first class!

How do different companies bubbles differ from each other? How can you rate and compare them? Quality and size? Does and should good service demand a premium price tag? Stay tuned for more on this in a future blog post.

Whose service bubbles have you be in and what were they like? Do let me know…

And that is how you do good service – thank you Apple!

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My trusty iMac (from 2008) decided to not play ball earlier this week. It was way outside Apple’s warranty (even Apple Care) – by over a few years – but trying to fix it was beyond me and I needed help from Apple. A call through to the local Apple Store (in the Bentall Centre in Kingston) and they advised that they had no Genius appointments that day but to come in with the iMac and they would see what they could do.

When we got to the store we spoke to one of their guys who said all the iMac tech team were busy all day with no slots, but to hold on and he would see what they could do. A very friendly iMac Genius then came to have a look and ran a series of quick tests on the iMac. As typically happens in these situations, everything worked fine and the iMac passed all the tests. A number of restarts were done – where the problem had been before – but all working fine.

The guy took down all the details of the problem as I’d seen it and advised that I could leave it there for them to take a more detailed look (which would probably take a few days) or take it back home and see how I get on (which I did and typically again the problem has re-occurred and I’ve booked to go back in tomorrow).

But, the whole point to this post is the exceptional level of service that Apple provided here, going way beyond what they were obliged to do, going out of their way to help as best they can, to listen to the customer and check and test accordingly, to offer options when the standard response (booking a slot for that day) was a no-goer and doing all of this in a friendly professional manner.

This level of service is what makes Apple so great and why people – like me – will now go back and go nowhere else. It is exceptionally good service and yes you do pay a premium for Apple products but this is one of the major reasons why; it’s not just a great product, you’re buying it’s a full service experience.

It’s not the only reason of course, there are 3 reasons generally why you are willing to pay extra for a product or service. These are:

The quality of the product
The level of service received
The overall experience of using the product or service

These 3 are the major drivers to creating loyalty for you business and Apple yet again are are leaders here. Fingers crossed that my visit tomorrow fixes the problem once and for all.

Bad service is not far behind…

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Only a day after my good service is everywhere experience and post, I had a day of bad service experiences – mainly across companies in one particular industry/market. I’ll leave it to the reader to guess where…

Service doesn’t need to be not good and it can easy to do it properly, but it does require some thinking about and a strategic view on what service is all about.

In this day and age, giving bad or poor service is really inexcusable. It says so much about the person and company giving it.

There are a few simple points to take service to next (and better) level:

(1) Empower the guys providing the service – let them make some of the decisions as they see fit. They’re the ones sorting out issues and queries on the front line.

(2) Give everyone training in good service – it’s a culture shift and mindset change. And requires an investment to do it properly and making sure people know what is expected and what good looks like.

(3) Define good service or even better, excellent service. Reach out to the teams providing the service and find out from them what feedback they’ve had from customers and what changes they suggest.

(4) Listen, listen and listen again, before you say anything. This is so important. Too often these days people want to tell their story or their version or side. Listen first though. The more you listen, the more you can understand and be better informed to make the right decision.

And smile – it makes a big difference to the person you’re speaking to. Again as per the last post, start thinking in all the interactions you have with other people, “How can I help this person?”.

Good service is everywhere…

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Yesterday was a day of receiving consistently good service – from a variety of different people, in different places and different situations. And a very pleasant day as a result.

Good or exceptional service isn’t rocket science but it does require a change in mindset. Some of the key things yesterday that made a difference to the experiences are:

(1) People were smiling and coming across that they were generally interested, and they listened. Even on the phone this makes a huge difference. It’s about empathy and taking the time to fully understand the query at hand.

(2) They were all looking to see how they could help me. This is something I read a great article about recently, where you should be thinking in any interaction with anyone else, “How can I help you?”. Not how can they help me, or what do I want, but what can I do for the other person.

(3) Everyone was going the extra mile – without prompting or being asked for something else. They were all looking to see what else they could do.

(4) They all knew what they were talking about and the services or products they offered or sold, and were passionate about them.

(5) And lastly they were all empowered to make decisions and do the job, and trusted to do so.

This last one is key and a lot of companies and businesses don’t do this and add process upon process around what should be a simple decision, for no real benefit or commercial reason.

Good service is so important in all businesses and so often overlooked or forgotten. It really was a great experience yesterday seeing it done so well and how it should be.

How important is good service to you as a provider and how do you ensure it is delivered?

And as the great Yoda himself said…

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

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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.

Some interesting questions come up…

Can digital/online and physical/traditional retail co-exist peacefully? Yes they can.
What about our traditional high street shops? We need them but they need to change.
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).

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).

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.

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!

Curry good service

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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).

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?

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.

No really, poor service is not good

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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…

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

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?

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…

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

Adventures in customer success and technology

Innovation | Transformation | Success

Tag Archives: Customer Service

Why Is Customer Experience So Bad?

Being customer centric

Have you been caught in a service bubble?

And that is how you do good service – thank you Apple!

Bad service is not far behind…

Good service is everywhere…

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

Curry good service

No really, poor service is not good