A Modern Day Customer Service Parable

Too often you hear stories about people’s customer service nightmares and commiserate with them as you talk of similar experiences. The Virgin Group founder Richard Branson recently shared a story about customer service himself, but the story ended with a satisfied customer and not a disgruntled one.

A Virgin Atlantic customer’s free limo failed to pick him up at his hotel (apparently the customer waited at the wrong door). So, he called a cab and arrived at the airport angry, running late and nervous he would miss his flight. A Virgin agent spotted him and tried to calm him down, apologized for the limo mix up and rushed him through the security staff lane to get him to his gate. She even reimbursed his taxi fare out of her own pocket. The passenger boarded the plane on time thanks to the Virgin agent’s ability to turn a negative customer experience into a positive one.

Unfortunately, when the agent later recounted this story to her supervisor and asked to be reimbursed for the $70 taxi fare, her supervisor asked if she had a receipt and refused to repay her without one. Branson pointed out that had any Virgin employees learned of the agent’s trouble with the supervisor, they would be unlikely to act in similar manners when other potential customer service issues arise. Agents would hesitate to steer from procedure to help customers if they knew their jobs would be at risk. That’s definitely not a good thing for Virgin’s customers, and therefore, not a good thing for Virgin.

Luckily, the airport manager heard about this story and intervened. He informed the finance team that he approved the reimbursement and educated the supervisor on the merits of “catching people doing something right.”

Branson writes, “Good customer service on the shop floor begins at the very top. If your senior people don’t get it, even the strongest links further down the line can become compromised, as the story shows.”

Train your employees well enough and instill faith in them that they can always act in a way where they’re “doing as they would be done by.” When your employees are happy, your customers are happy, and therefore, your company is happy as well.

It Pays to Have Good Customer Service

The American Express Global Customer Service Barometer reveals 61 percent of 1,000 American consumers surveyed value quality customer service amid economic instability and will spend 9 percent more at a retailer that offers it.

TheStreet points out that the survey echoes a 2006 Journal of Marketing study regarding the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). That study revealed the top 20 percent of companies in the ACSI combined outperformed the Dow by 93 percent, doubled the S&P 500 and nearly tripled the Nasdaq.

This year, Nordstrom saw increases in its ACSI as well as its net earnings, and it currently leads all department store retailers. It boasts an ACSI score of 83 out of 100, up 6 points from 2009, and saw a 44 percent boost in net earnings, a 17 percent jump in net sales and a 12 percent increase in same-store sales in the first quarter that ended May 1.

Jim Bush, American Express Executive Vice President for World Service, thinks some companies should rethink how they view customer service. “It’s important to see [it] as an investment, not a cost.”

It’s an investment with an infinite payoff. According to the survey, 75 percent of consumers claim good customer service will make them spread the word about a company that treated them well. Today’s digital age makes that easy for them to do. Reward your customers, and they will reward your company.

Getting Satisfaction

With an increasing number of positive reports on economic conditions, to some, one that ties the customer experience directly to the recovery is the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Although the index fell 0.1 percent in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, it is up 1.4 percent from Q3 2008. For Q3 2009, the index recoded a score of 76 out of 100 possible points.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the quarterly index tracks satisfaction by interviewing customers about how they liked certain products. The index looked at food, apparel, beer, cigarettes, pet food, soft drinks, athletic shoes and personal care product companies. The index was founded by a University of Michigan professor of business administration.

In the food category, H.J. Heinz Co. was top dog with a score of 89, two points higher than its closest competitor. In apparel, another long time trusted brand, Levi Strauss saw big gains by rising 6.4 percent to an 83. In beer, the industry score rose 1.2 percent to 84 out of 100, and Anheuser-Busch, in particular, was up 3.7 percent to a score of 85.

The index predicts fourth-quarter spending to increase between 2 percent to 3 percent. It correctly predicted the third quarter increase of 3.35 percent.

Price promotions may be playing a role with these brands, but Heinz, Levi’s and A-B are far from the discount leaders in each respective category. Only time will tell if this is a resurgence of the long-trusted brand. However, the trend is that sales performance is directly linked to customer satisfaction.

Emphasizing the Experience

It is extremely important to measure and discover ways to integrate customer experience data across your organization. But it is even more important to realize that metrics will not in itself create great customer service. Sometimes we forget that the data is a measure of the experience in the first place, not the other way around.

That seems to be the theme of a blog authored by Bruce Tempkin on Customer Experience Matters. In it, Tempkin puts out his wish list for customer service in 2010. Here are his five wishes and some explanation:

“Forget about average handle times.” Focus more on delighting the customer rather than getting them off the line. Fast handle times often represent inattentive agents, not a quick and effective problem solution.

“Learn from every interaction.” Every chance you get to speak to your consumer is an opportunity to lean about their needs and how you can meet them. This is perhaps the most valuable kind of consumer research that you can acquire.

“Recover quickly and be proactive.” Even a good solution that is drawn-out or difficult can still lose a customer. A sense of urgency will always create goodwill and eliminating problems on the front end is even more effective. Many companies are finding great value in allowing customers to talk and help each other.

“Make customer service a product attribute.” When we design and develop new products, one of the first things we do is make a list of product attributes. This is the time to build in customer service, “as a key component of your offering.”

“Engage reps in customer experience transformation.” Transforming the customer experience is largely dependent on transforming your employees’ experience. The attitudes and experience of an empowered customer service staff are directly reflected upon the customer. If they enjoy their jobs, they will enjoy helping people as an end result, not just simply handling x number of calls.

Service metrics are important, but they are only a snap shot of the real job at hand. When choosing or designing any customer experience touch point, place the emphasis on delighting the customer, and everything else will fall into place.

Who Owns the Customer Relationship?

Ask any high profile brand marketing executive what their company’s most important asset is and they will dutifully answer, “The customer!” “Take care of the customer,” they will tell you, “and everything else will take care of itself.” The reality is that most organizations don’t even consider the customer relationship in their organizational structure.

Although all companies have some type of Customer Service Department and some have adopted customer experience programs to measure and react to the data, most do not have an integrated approach to apply the learning across the organization and back into the marketplace. What gets in the way of integration? If customer programs are used at all, they are used and isolated within organizational silos. See if this sounds familiar. Marketing owns the Customer Satisfaction Survey, Operations owns the Mystery Shop Program, Market Research owns the Customer Intercepts and Human Resources owns the Employee Engagement Program. But who owns the customer relationship?

The reality is that marketers don’t do this with any other asset in their company. The COO makes sure that the widget is the sole focus of the company from raw material to distribution. The CFO makes sure that every bean is counted along that path and knows exactly what the effect of a bean spent in Silo One means to Silo Four. Perhaps it is time to introduce the CCO, the Chief Customer Officer.

Don’t laugh. We have a high ranking executive to champion every other asset in the company, but we don’t have one whose sole purpose is to look out for the, “most important asset.” Companies are already moving quickly into the area of Social Media and you will soon see the advent of the Chief Community Officer, so the development of this new C-suite position makes sense and should not be out of the realm of possibility.

If the customer is truly your company’s greatest asset, then stewarding that relationship has to be more than lip service. The customer experience has to have a seat in the board room and filter its way all the way through the organization as an integrated strategy focus. Now that would be walking the walk.

There’s No Return for Unhappy Customers

Outdated policies and unhappy frontline staff do not create a good customer experience. Customers who purchase items from your store expect to be able to return those same items. And they want to be treated with respect. Many stores still force antiquated policies upon their customers. A simple thing like a “No Return” Policy may mean those customers will never return as well. Is it worth it?

How can you know if your policies are turning customers away? One way top retailers find out is through mystery shopping and customer surveys. Professional mystery shoppers pose as ordinary customers, testing out policies, staff, the store environment and your merchandise. They objectively report their observations, which retailers use to amend employee behaviors, environmental or product issues, and policies. Customer surveys are also very useful, offering a subjective look at what your customers really think.

David Rich, President of ICC Decision Services, offers his perspective. “We provide clients with one source for all their measurement tools. We design and coordinate each piece to complement the overall program goals. There is no ‘finger pointing’ – the program responsibility rests with us. And our team of market research professionals and industry experts work closely to optimize the effectiveness of your unique Customer Experience Management (CEM) program. Specifically, our mystery shopping programs drive frontline staff performance improvement, and increased revenue. We recruit, test, certify and closely monitor our shoppers. Fully customized and integrated with in-person, Web site, call center and telephone-based components, our mystery shopping programs include dynamic and static 24/7 graphic reporting powered by our proprietary state-of-the-art Web-based technology. Our programs leave no doubt as to what your customers really think of your store and your products.”

A TALE OF TWO BURGERS

No doubt you’ve had the experience of traveling along the highway with a rumbling stomach when, all of a sudden, there’s a billboard advertising a juicy, mouthwatering, cheesy hamburger, available within seconds at the fast food joint only one short exit away. Agreeing with your stomach that it sure looks good, you speed up a bit to get there faster, dreaming of splashing it all down with a cold drink.

But as you get ready to devour your meal-in-a-box, reality hits. This burger looks nothing like the picture. In fact, it looks more like a two-year-old slapped it together from pieces of other burgers. You, my friend, have just experienced one of the underlying themes shoppers complain about most often: a disconnect between a brand’s image and the actual customer experience.

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Measuring Progress is a Bottom Line Difference Maker

Clarifying employee expectations and creating reward and incentive schemes go hand in hand with increased sales. That’s what measuring company progress can do for you. But it’s “how” companies are deploying performance measurement programs that is changing the business landscape today.

Historically, gauging consumer “experiences” has been the primary responsibility of the customer service department.

But in my experience, customer service departments have become little more complaint departments. Or even worse, a place to go for customers to go and replace unwanted merchandise. Let’s face it, you can’t use the current customer service department model as a way to gauge the health and vibrancy of your company’s customer relationships – it’s an outmoded model that is spread too thin in terms of responsibilities and is not advanced enough to handle all the measurements that need addressing across the company.

Enter the mystery shopper.

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Report Indicates Consumers are Looking for a Seamless Shopping Experience

A recent discussion on RetailWire discusses how crucial it is for retailers to integrate selling channels. If a customer wants to make a purchase online and pick up the item at the nearest store, then they should be able to do so. Wal-Mart does a great job with this. I believe most retailers know that they should be integrating their selling channels to keep up with the evolving shopper experience, but the problem lies in the technology investment and logistics of it all. Are most retailers ready to make the necessary monetary and time investments? Probably not. However, those retailers that already have integrated selling channels are ten steps ahead of competition.

What do you think? 

Verizon Wireless Introduces New Store Layout

Verizon Wireless aims to improve the wireless retail experience for customers by incorporating a new store design. Features to enhance the customer experience include a greeter kiosk that allows customers to check in once they enter the store and list their wireless needs so representatives can quickly assist them. In addition, the new store layout will have customer service and technical support departments, making it easy for customers to get account information, customer service and address technical issues from trained in-store staff.

For More Information Click Here.