Tag Archives: Poor service

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.

Bursting bubbles

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!

Bursting bubble

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.

Service bubble - about to burst

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.

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…

Mobile mast

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.

Bad service

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.

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?”.

Should we put up with poor service?

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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?