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A Customer’s Experience should be the Same no Matter the Language or Culture
Author: Linda Bbanga
July 26, 2006
It is important to note that "Businesses are competing for the $700 billion Hispanics spend each year", according to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Web site.
In recognizing this reality, some financial institutions and insurance companies have made the necessary changes to their marketing strategies and found ways to connect with the Hispanic consumer.
And this is not as simple as translating an English marketing program into Spanish. It means understanding the culture, what appeals to this consumer.
The Customer’s experience should hold the same standards. Above all - remember - Make a Customer, Not a Sale.
Does Pay Make an Employee Happy?
Author: Kathleen Gilmartin
"Companies with less than 10% employee turnover also had 10% higher customer retention rates than those with employee turnover rates around 15%." Source: Towers-Perrin
It is important to keep employees happy. When employees don’t care or aren’t happy, customers notice. Mike Hartman admitted this is his blog last week, "Happy Employees."
But what makes an employee happy? Is it their paycheck? Chicago’s City Council is voting today on a minimum wage for ‘big-box’ retail employees in the city. The proposal would require major retailers to pay at least $10 an hour in wages plus another $3 in fringe benefits by July 2010. Will this make an employee happy? What about friendly?
As I said before, customers notice when an employee doesn’t like their job, and it’s a turnoff. What can companies do (besides pay more) to make employees enjoy their job?
Right At Home
Author: Jen Miller
This summer, I had my first experience in buying and selling
a home (and moving with a toddler) all in one day. That day was the culmination of over a year
of shopping, negotiation and soul searching. Although the day was a long one, my “total real estate customer experience”
turned out to be a pleasant one which is a pretty amazing fact.
In real estate, a customer’s experience depends on their “team”
of advisors (real estate agents, mortgage brokers, lawyers, assessors,
financial intuitions, inspectors, etc.). This team works side-by-side to provide me, the customer, with a good experience. In other words, my total customer experience depends
on a series of interactions with different people and intuitions. Ultimately, no one was completely in control
of my real estate customer experience. So, what made it a good experience?
In retrospect, I believe that the experience was a good one
because the people that we worked were extremely honest. The mantra that I heard (separately) from
everyone on our team was that they were not interested in doing what was
fastest or easiest. Rather, they wanted
to do “the right thing” or “what’s fair” for all parties involved. Their honesty made it easy for me to trust
and believe in them to provide me with a great customer experience…which they
did.
Cell Phone Shopping
Author: Aaron Huston
July 21, 2006
So it was about that time… After having my current cell phone for about three years, it was starting to act peculiar, not booting up properly on occasion, making unexpected noises for no apparent reason at all, and the like. Time to get a new phone I guessed, and so did my provider Sprint, as they were leaving me voice mails every couple of days pitching a valued customer credit. After all, I had been a Sprint wireless customer for seven years - pretty long time by today’s standards.
I went about researching the VC credit and learned I was to visit my nearest store to learn the exact details. Upon visiting my local Sprint store, I found out that I was due a $150 credit towards a new phone. Sweet I thought, as I knew most of their high end phones retailed for about $150 after rebates - I should be able to get my new phone for free! Alas, this was not to be - the phone I wanted, a Samsung model that competes with Motorola’s RAZR, would still cost me $99. Not because it was retailing for $249 mind you, but because my VC credit could not be used on top of any existing rebates or sales prices - Huh? It appeared all of the phones in Sprint’s store were at a sale price or had rebates associated to them. So what good was this valued customer credit if it was worthless?
Trying to reason with the store manager, I informed him I’d been a loyal Sprint customer for seven years, and asked if there wasn’t anything he could do for me - maybe at least cut the $99 Samsung in half - I’d pay $49 for it. NO, we can’t do anything for you, is what I was told. Well, I guess he made my decision for me as to whether or not I would remain a Sprint wireless customer.
On the way back from the Sprint store, I stopped by T-Mobile and Verizon stores. Both offer the RAZR - sweet phone. However, neither would offer me the phone for free - the cheapest I could get it would be for $69 for T-Mobile. I decided to think about it some more.
A day or so later, I remembered reading about a wireless B-to-C website that was being dubbed the "Expedia for Cell Phones". I managed to find it buried in my books marks - WireFly, that was it! I had read about the company in Inc. magazine, as Wirefly was ranked #1 in the 2004 Inc. 500 list.
I visited the website and quickly learned that I could receive a FREE RAZR from EITHER T-Mobile or Verizon, along with a FREE Bluetooth headset, for signing up as a new customer to either provider. I was a bit hesitant, as I did want to keep my current phone number and did not want to end up with a huge headache trying to get my number ported to a new provider. What if I had problems? Who would I call - Wirefly or T-Mobile, or Sprint?
After giving this a bit more thought, and becoming angry thinking about how Sprint had just treated me, a loyal customer, I decided to risk it… Worst case, I’d end up with a new cell phone number… not the end of the world.
Having picked T-Mobile as my provider (due to their cheap web service) and phone, and read through Wirefly’s order process information, I confirmed my purchase.
10 Minutes later I received a confirmation email that Wirefly had received my order and was notifying T-Mobile of my new account application. Five minutes after that I received an email that T-Mobile had confirmed my account creation to Wirefly. About ten minutes later I received yet another email informing me that T-Mobile had initiated my phone number transfer from Sprint and had received a port request acknowledgment back. Yet again, several minutes later I received an email informing me that Wirefly had everything they needed to ship my new phone and accessories to me, which they would be doing shortly.
Shortly thereafter, I received an email to inform me that my order had shipped, FedEx 2nd day delivery (for free), with my shipment tracking number. That was Wednesday. As I write this, on Friday, I see my new phone sitting on my desk next to me. Nice work Wirefly.
In the future, I will only use brick-and-mortar cell phone stores as show rooms for online phone purchases from Wirefly. Not sure how the cell phone providers think they’re offering any kind of customer experience since they are obviously unwilling to treat loyal existing customers as well as as they should be though… It will be interesting to see how the network provider stores pan out in the long term.
Happy Employees
Author: Mike Hartman
July 19, 2006
I’ve noticed most of the people working at Walgreen’s don’t seem that happy to be there. I’ve also noticed similar employee attitudes at other grocery or convenience stores like Jewel Osco and Dominick’s. Sometimes they will offer a half hearted "welcome" or "thank you’ but you can tell they don’t mean it. Sometimes I play a little game to see if I can complete my purchase in silence without any interaction other than the financial one between myself and the company’s representative. I’ve got about a 70% success rate.
I’m guessing these people aren’t excited about their jobs because there’s no reason to be. They probably don’t get paid very well and have little incentive to try very hard.
Somewhat recently I’ve started shopping at Trader Joe’s where I’ve found decent prices, good products, and happy and friendly employees that make driving the extra few miles worth it.
I wonder what Trader Joe’s is doing for their employees that Walgreen’s isn’t.
Succeed By Transforming, Not Conforming
Author: Anne McLain
July 17, 2006
You’ve probably heard that Southwest Airlines is experimenting with assigning seats to customers now. Southwest, a customer experience darling has always been known for their efficient but cattle call-like, first come first serve seating. There’s a lot of chatter on other blogs and in the media about how great it is that Southwest is now like all the others. But are they?
Southwest still knows the customer better than most other airlines, let alone most companies. They continue to look for ways to make the customer’s experience a better one - not conform to outdated and inefficient ways to keep doing the same old thing. The first day of assigned seating and planes ended up leaving early from the gate. Now that’s something that every airline could learn from.
Artvertising?
Author: Jack Borland
Remember the Million dollar homepage? It’s now moved through the looking glass - from virtual to physical - at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.
Cool idea. But I’ve got to ask, is it art? Is it advertising? What’s the value to the viewer?
And didn’t we see something like this already - called Times Square?
Can Citibank’s Customer Experience Be Saved?
Author: Luis Serpa
July 11, 2006
It all began when I received an offer to open the new Citibank e-Savings Account. Already a Citibank customer, I thought that this new savings product with 5% APR would fit me perfectly.
I went online but couldn’t find any way to sign up through my internet banking account. So I called my account manager to see what I was doing wrong. She told me that my account wasn’t considered a domestic account and, as such, not eligible for an e-savings account. To qualify, I should open a new checking account.
I explained that this account is a remnant of my wife’s relocation benefits package and it is linked to it several other Citibank products (investment brokerage account, CD account, normal savings account, credit cards, bill payments, etc). Reconfiguring everything to a new checking account would be a tremendous hassle. I mentioned that I could easily open an e-savings account with several other institutions and link it to my current one with no hassle.
My Citibank account manager’s opinion? I SHOULD GO AHEAD AND DO THAT!
I wanted to prove myself a loyal customer, so I reconsidered opening a new checking account. To my surprise, I found out that with my balance, investments etc, I was entitled to a more beneficial financial package than I have with my current checking account.
Of course, instead of being happy I am now very upset.
What did I learn?
• I am a better client than I knew but never got any recognition.
• They seem to value the acquisition of new customers over retaining the current ones.
• They are willing to let me go to another bank without even trying to accommodate my needs
• Their internal bureaucracy and inconsistencies are getting in the way of a good customer experience
So, now that I know I am more than they deserve, what do you think I will do?
Luis Serpa – Customer Experience Consultant
Vox Inc – www.voxinc.com
Change the Channel, Please!
Author: Jack Borland
July 10, 2006
I wrote last week about my horrifying experience with NICOR, our local gas company. Well, I’ve now experimented with some of their alternate channels, and if they’re not as bad as their phone service, they’re certainly nothing to write home about.
Firstly, after writing last week’s blog, I tried to contact someone at NICOR to register my complaints. Looking on their website, a contact us option is not available on their home page. I found it under their residential page – pretty obvious, huh? As good consumers we should know that we must first select the corporate silo to which we wish to speak.
The residential page has three choices under the Contact Us section, an “Emergency Contact Information”, a “Customer Service”, and a “Moving In or Out” option. Pretty clear so far, right? Going to “Customer Service” I saw another plethora of choices:
On one side was a line of text (below). On the other was a picture of a (presumably) helpful NICOR operator, eager to handle my emergency call.
Our customer service representatives are available to assist with gas emergencies 24/7
If you smell gas, or if your service is interrupted suddenly, follow emergency procedures and call us from a safe location.
· Contact us about moving in or out
Call JULIE before you dig on your property
Selecting the “Send us an e-mail” option finally got me to an e-mail screen. Below the message section of the page was a set of contact information fields. My first thought was “Great! Now I can lay out my issues and have a sufficiently senior customer service manager call back for a potential resolution.”
No such luck. A day later I received back an e-mail stating that I’d have to send my comments in writing to their mailing address. Between the horrible phone service, and the disconnect between their “Send Us an E-mail” application and their service department, I’m pretty sure that their mail handling system will be equally disappointing.
I’ve got to ask myself “What could NICOR do better?” Going by my experience of last week, I’d say the first thing is to fix their customer service staff. Hire more of them, and train them to recognize that the customer is calling to resolve some sort of issue. If that issue can’t be resolved right the first time, it will to cost the company money to try to address it later.
Next, get the wait time down to something approaching reason (1 to 2 minutes). Last week’s wait time was extremely long, and it was doubly frustrating because of the large amount of “dead air” on the line. Every five minutes or so a recorded voice would tell me that NICOR valued my time, and offered the website or a telephone callback to replace my wait time on the phone. Between these messages was nothing – often I’d dial up the volume to the max to try to see if the phone was still live.
Fix the callback option with a specific timeslot guarantee - that the callback will occur during a 30 minute slot starting at a specific time. That way, I can know if it’s worth my while to put in for a callback. And don’t have your automated system hang up while transfering the call to a live operator (my experience last week)!
If you can’t hire more people to reduce the wait time, at least add some basic background sound or music. And dump the alternate channels offer after the first one or two offers. Instead, provide some sort of estimate on current hold time, and number in the queue.
For the website, it’s also pretty simple. Think about the way people typically interact when they’re on your website and bring the most common actions to the forefront. Provide an account login on the home page. That’ll allow NICOR to differentiate residential from commercial customers and offer them likely choices on the account landing page without requiring customers to self-sort before searching the site.
For the customer service channels, integrate complaint handling so that phone, fax, email, and mail are all routed to an appropriate customer service specialist, and take advantage of the opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one. The more hoops someone must jump through just to get questions answered or complaints registered, the more frustration you’ll cause.
Well, that’s it for this week. I’ve contacted the Chicago Tribune’s What’s Your Problem department, and I’ll be contacting WBBM Channel 2 CBS News to see whether this story is newsworthy. And if I hear back from anyone at NICOR I’ll be sure to let you know.
We Don’t Care, Because We Don’t Have To!
Author: Jack Borland
July 6, 2006
Do you remember what movie this line is from? If you guessed The President’s Analyst, you’re right! James Coburn starred in this 1967 send-up of cold-war America. And TPC, the dastardly villain lurking in the shadows of the movie, was eventually unveiled as “The Phone Company”, with this self-same motto as its defining vision statement.
Fast-forward 40 years and Ma Bell may be coming back into existence, but hopefully not with the same commitment to non-service. Unfortunately there are still lots of mini-monopolies that seem to feel that customers should only be seen and not heard.
Case in point, my wife and I had to try to deal with our local gas company, Nicor, Inc. this weekend. I say "try to" because they’re not set up to actually help anyone with their problems. The background: My mother-in-law has been picking up the pieces of her life after her husband of fifty years passed away over Christmas. She got a bill from Nicor showing she owed about five times her normal amount. After waiting over an hour on hold, she finally got to a “billing representative” who told her to pay the bill, and who wouldn’t help her try to figure it out.
Here’s where we stepped in. Since she wasn’t about to pay a bill without understanding how things had gotten so out of whack, and since the wait time to talk to a live person at Nicor was and is excessive, we offered to make the next call to try to uncover the facts. Oh, and she also wanted to get off the Nicor budget plan, which is supposed to help you budget for gas expenditures by stabilizing the cost over the summer and winter months.
So armed with bills and reading material, we took turns waiting at the phone for someone to pick up. Over an hour later we finally got through to Ricky, our not-so-friendly billing representative. His immediate reaction was "You’re not an authorized party for this account – so I can’t help you."
We tried explaining "… death in the family, bills jumbled, we’re just trying to understand the situation …" all that, but Ricky wasn’t interested in hearing it. When asked for a supervisor, he said "You can’t talk to one". When asked how we could get through to one he was silent. When asked for his last name, or any other information so that we might actually be able to identify him for a complaint, he refused. We even asked to discuss the situation in a theoretical manner, so that he wouldn’t have to view or divulge confidential account information. His response? He said he had other customers waiting and hung up.
I’m sure Ricky (if that’s his real name) did have other customers waiting. Given our wait time, there must have been a lot of people waiting. And if they got the same service we got, I’m sure they weren’t helped at all. Interestingly, we all knew beforehand, based on past experiences, that the wait time was going to be horrendous.
Nicor is a profitable utility, providing value to its shareholders while providing service to its community. But if it wants any changes to governmental regulations, it should think about the impact its non-customer-friendly interactions will have on the voting public.
