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Contact Vox to learn about how we can help you create a comprehensive Customer Experience that drives bottom-line results dramatically higher.

This was passed my way through email the other day. You may have seen it, and I can’t claim for its veracity, but I’d like to believe it’s real. It’s the letter of a 98 year old woman to her bank after they dinged her with a penalty. Apparently it was published in The Times in London. Real or not, it’s a great lesson to businesses who want to serve customers the right way (i.e. as humans), and also for not underestimating the intelligence of your customers, no matter who they are:

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three ‘nanoseconds’ must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it.. . I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement, which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty eight years..  You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.  I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become.  From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person.

My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate.  Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.  Please find attached an Application
Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete.  I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative.  Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

In due course, I will issue your employee with PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me.  I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service.  As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further.  When you call me, press buttons as follows:

1 – To make an appointment to see me.

2 – To query a missing payment.

3 – To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

4 – To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

5 – To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

6 – To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

7 – To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required.  A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorized Contact..)

8 – To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through to 8.

9 – To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client

In case you were wondering whether progress would continue, a Pew study predicts that most people will be accessing the Internet via mobile/wireless devices (phones, smart-phones, portable computers, etc) by 2020.

What does this mean for business?  It means that maintaining a forward focus on using the web to connect with companies in new and innovative ways is going to continue to be essential.  This fad isn’t going away, people!

The study also has some interesting analysis on the evolution of Privacy, Property Law, Social Tolerance, User Interface Design and the mingling of personal and work time.

The year has begun, and I think we all know this is a challenging time for businesses. But one way to optimize your bottom line in 2009 is to make at least one “customer resolution.”

This is a simple exercise that can yield positive results. The idea is to resolve to improve at least one aspect of your company’s customer experience. Here are a few quick ideas.

• Grab as much of your “standard” customer correspondence as you can get your hands on. This could be monthly statements and invoices; customer form letters; anything that you know is sent to large numbers of customers on a regular basis. Now look at them. Nothing fancy. Just read through them as if you were a customer, a customer without any special knowledge about your industry or company.
• Pop on to your website, and pick two or three easy tasks that a typical prospect or customer might like to accomplish. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes, and walk through these tasks - gathering information, asking a question, or (if you have this) paying a bill or other customer process. Note how many clicks it takes, and how simple or complex it seems.
• Call into your company’s offices or call center and, acting as a customer, attempt to get a couple of questions answered. Pay particular attention to the tone of the employee as he or she helps you. Or, if possible, listen in to a few actual customer calls. Note nature of the customer requests, the hold time (if possible) and the tone of the customer at the end of the call.

Here’s my guarantee to you: If you just spend a little time and make a sincere effort to better understand one aspect of the customer experience, you will discover some problem that in hindsight seems incredibly obvious: the billing statement is confusing for no reason; you are using terminology a typical customer doesn’t understand; irrelevant content or poor navigation on your website are getting in the way of what your customers really want; or your call center employees lack the freedom to actually help solve customer problems.

Once you uncover the issues with your customer experience, you’ll see that many are problems that aren’t all that hard to fix. You owe it to your customers and your company to make the effort.

So, what’s your “customer resolution” for 2009? Take the initiative! There’s a big payoff for those that do.

Logo Design Love posted this really interesting discussion about Obama’s campaign logo, and how it got there.

The best quote from Sol Sender, who led the design team, is “The strongest logos tell simple stories.”

This lesson in design is also a lesson in customer experience.  Often, our clients are drowning in customer processes - and yet still end up with a totally sub-par (not to mention unprofitable) customer experience.

The evolution of Obama’s design from concept to the clean, simple and compelling logo we know shows the process most of us should take with most complicated and robust challenges.  Start with a concept, but keep refining.  Don’t make it more complicated - aim for simple.

To see the full transformation of the Obama logo, read the article here. 

In the midst of the economic crisis, while most banks are trying to keep attracting customers by offering higher interest savings and money market accounts, one bank (PNC) is thriving by focusing on delivering a unique online customer experience, specifically designed to target the generation Y (people aged 18 to 34, according to PNC demographics).

PNC created a product called Virtual Wallet that boldly discards all usual conventions from the banking industry, such as checking or savings accounts, and offers 3 types of accounts (dubbed “Spend,” “Reserve” and “Growth”) combined in a single solution.  They focused on two simple concepts:

• Twentysomethings consider bank sites clunky, and they typically don’t know how to manage their money (’We need help helping ourselves’)
• The Gen Y really understands how to take advantage of online resources.

The solution takes advantage of concepts borrowed from other online services, games, social networks and even e-Commerce sites with features like Wish-List, Financial Calendar, Money Bar, Danger Days and “Punch the Pig.”   That strategy is luring 130 new customers a day (20,000+ Virtual Wallet customers since July) to an account that otherwise could hardly compete with more aggressive banks in terms of paid returns. 

Defying conventions and betting on exceptional experience can cost a lot initially (PNC expects the project to cost about 15 Million overall), but the ROI is unquestionable: PNC estimates to break even 1 year faster than a similar investment on a new brick-and-mortar branch would have.

From that example (plus everything that we preach here at Vox), I can get 3 great lessons to any company in any industry:

1.  Don’t be afraid to defy conventions!  Know your customers, understand what they what and what they need and create NEW experiences that fit their expectations
2.  Test your concepts with real customers, watch how they react and behave and adjust your solutions accordingly
3. The best strategy in times of crisis is still to offer a truly great customer experience.  Marketing gimmicks and discounts can only go so far as… well, superficial wins…

 So… What strategy will your company follow to get over this crisis?

 See more about it in this article from BusinessWeek

One of my fave companies, the online shoe retailer Zappos.com, is laying of 8% of their staff: http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2008/11/10/daily4.html .

That’s disheartening, but I’m still impressed with how they operate. They’re giving those laid off hefty severance packages and extension of benefits, and the CEO Tony Hsieh was very open about the move, even discussing it on Twitter.com. You can tell he takes it personally.

The passion for travel and travel deals is growing strong and is driving the popularity of various online travel sites making the Online Travel Industry one of the most competitive industries online today. Users are beckoned and lured onto various sites by the latest low fares of the month, great packages, and exclusive deals.

Consumers are quick to resort to the "big 3 Online Travel Agents" - Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity to find these great deals.

And the major airlines out there today are taking notice - and will not be left behind. Recognizing that online consumers may be task oriented and are still highly price conscious, they too are taking advantage of the online travel industry and the effect it has to their bottom line.

A perfect example is Qantas - the largest airline in Australia - They have taken steps to measure online visitor behavior in order to ensure a positive customer experience and increase online profitability.

We will be on the look-out to see the impact and direct correlation between this effort and Qantas’ market share and revenue growth. Stay tuned…

Happy Thanksgiving All!

Bad news for email marketers. In a recent survey, almost 4 out of 5 consumers (79%) confirmed they used their internal system’s "spam" or "junk" button to eliminate email they don’t want. And almost two out of five (37%) did it as a way to unsubscribe from stuff they’d opted in to receive.

What does this mean for you? If your company uses email as a marketing and communications channel (who doesn’t?), then you’ve got to think very carefully about several things:

1) Keep your email lists clean. Use double opt-in methods to ensure people really agree to your email communication.

2) Keep your content relevant. Consider segmenting your email lists into micro-lists, then develop content for each group.

3) Don’t barrage your readers. Too frequent communication is one of the top reasons people drop off lists.

4) Put your unsubscribe option at the top of your message - not the bottom. Give people an easy out, and they’ll take it - letting you know that they’re not getting value from your communications. This will also give you a chance to re-recruit them when they see a relevant offering on your site or in your ads.

On a related note, an Email Labs study from last October showed 52% of at-work users "always use the preview page" and 17% frequently use it. Think about writing and formatting for preview pane users (HTML turned off, graphics suppressed, small viewing window)

Ultimately, the customer (and prospective customer) experience determines whether you’ll retain them over time. The better you get at communicating with people when, how and about what they want, the stronger your relationship will be.

"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?

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?