Why does it pay sometimes to be economical with the truth? Because dealing with some companies forces you to if you want a desired outcome.
Take today. I am having huge problems with my ISP and seem to be the only person who can’t stay connected to the web long enough to do anything.
Having checked all the obvious things with my PC it became obvious that the problem was me but my provider.
I call and get a whole bunch of options that nearly address my problem,I’m not moving or don’t wish to add options to my package so that narrowed things down.
I press the appropriate button on my phone and wait for some time before a friendly voice asks for security details,account numbers etc and then proceeds to ask what the problem is. Just as I get to the good part the line goes dead…
Second call the same that third time it just rings out..by now I have been on the phone for nearly an hour.Not a huge amount of time but an annoying amount considering the list of things to be done before I can clock off for the day.
My solution was to press the I’m leaving you button…before I could react the phone was answered and an even friendlier voice asked what they could do to help. I explained that I had pressed the wrong option and they grew chilly telling me that they were there to help and basically stop customer churn. They did transfer me to a very supportive person who managed to solve my connection issues.
The point of this is that I had to lie to get to what I wanted. All the options should have been answered as swiftly giving the customer some confidence that the supplier is on their side.
Each call should be treated with equal gravity, it shouldn’t matter if you are un happy with the service or are moving house, that call should always be a priority.
The majority of customer experiences are judged on the single criteria of the quality of the customer service.This is valid but not always appropriate.
Customer service should be the end result of a series of exchanges and not the sole deteriminant of how good a company has performed.
The old adage that “coffee stains on the passenger trays tells me that the engines are not being looked after” is very apt.
If a company can’t get the last part of the equation right then it shows that there has to be an inbalance somewhere else for the answer to be wrong.Too often the key elemnets of the experience and customer touch points are ignored or badly handled.
Take a holiday example.
Olympic Holidays were great at getting me and the family to the hotel which was fantastic.If asked at this point I would have given them 12 out of 10.Great price,great service and attention to our needs.
It all fell apart very quickly.
The Rep was never around to ask if things were OK,excursions were poor and under delivered on expectations and were massively over priced.
On some excursions guests were simply dumped in small towns for hours at a time with nothing better to do than spend money in tourist shops and in local cafes.There was no explanation of what these tours actually would entail merely a promise of something to be savoured.
OK,I know that holiday companies are there to make money and that package holidays are just that,packages of experiences,mostly poor.Choice and free will prevailed and guests did not have to pay too much for too little….but…
A key brand,Olympic Holidays,clearly failed in their handling of the individual customer experiences and ultimately led many guests to change their positive perception of them to a very negative one.
Every facet of the customer journey needs to be seen as important if the overall perception that a customer has of a brand is to be positive and reinforced.Failure to ignore any one part just ruins all the good work that had previously been done to establish the brands position.
Why do companies continue to do this?Taking a customers money in the hope that they will come back again is short termism if not supported by an active intent to please at evey stage of the interaction.
Stop asking me….
So you’re in Smith’s and you are just about to pay when the assistant asks,”would you like some chocolate,it’s on special offer,two for the price of one?”
Or you are paying for your petrol and as you pay a never to be missed offer is up sold to you, Red Bull, three cans for the price of two…
It happens all the time and it’s about time customers complained and put a stop to this as it damages customer relations and staff morale which will lead to them not being as attentive as they could be.
Customer relations get damaged because you just want to pay and go.If you wanted to drown in Red Bull you would have asked for three cans.If you wanted to test the pricing structure of your dentists practice you would have demanded two bars of the biggest slabs of enamel corrosive known to man. What about that giant bar of Toblerone? Yes please,seven…
Customers do not want to have to feel as if they are on University Challenge when all they are trying to do is pay some money which will help with profits and supposedly help pay for improvements in the customer experience.
Staff morale suffers because they are made to ask the same inane question to every customer,they have no choice.It must destroy their morale,it takes the spontinaeety out of engaging with customers.There can be no special customer touch point here because all experiences are reduced to a common denominator, sales over kill.
Staff are doubtless driven by area managers who are themselves goaded by head office to improve sales of target items.There is probably some tedious sales competion that staff are supposed to be so excited about that they relish asking their question a thousand times a day.
No one wins in this up selling over selling excercise apart from some short term improvement in sales margins.Customers and staff might just not want to play anymore and shop and work at places where a Thank you may just be enough at the till.
Tesco Metro in Berkhamsted don’t seem to understand the basics of customer service.It seems that every little help is too much effort….
They open at 7am and staff are there to clean and bake at 5.00am.
At 8.00am the baked goods are rarely on the shelf…why?No idea…
The delivery could be late of course which could account for some of the occasions when the bread isn’t on display but surely not for every instance.
To add insult to injury when you ask the staff if there are going to be any rolls they just say “don’t know” and carry on doing what they were doing.Trying to get them to actually go and ask is a Herculean task.
I probably sound like Victor Meldrew,maybe a bit of me is but most of me is passionate about customer service and it’s not on that major retailers don’t live the concept.
The Metro format is designed for busy urban settings so why do we have one in Berkhamsted? Apparently the town is predominantly singletons so stock is geared towards this segment which means that standard lines are not stocked. Strange,I thought that this was a town that had more families with children
Tesco is there to sell food and provide what customers want,they invest squillions in customer data capture,layout and POS.All this is wasted when they can’t get the basics right.
People generally want milk,bread and a few other basics in the mornings so why can’t Tesco realise that and at least have the produce out and ready? They are a shop after all, it’s what they do,it shouldn’t be rocket science to get bread on shelves so that we can buy it,contribute towards their profits and make shareholders very rich.
Moan over,I’m going to calm down with some more tea which I got from Waitrose…far better range…
I spent yesterday in London and was musing about the ease of getting good coffee and the lack of a good place to have tea.
It made me think about the old Lyon’s Tea Houses and how popular they were.At one time they were Europe’s largest chain of restaurants if you took into account the Corner Houses that they operated.These were literally on the corner of major streets and basically the whole building was given over to different restaurants.Plenty of choice in one building,genius.
The Lyon’s Tea Houses did so well because like McDonald’s they offered a formula that was replicated in all outlets.You knew what you were going to get before you got there…
- Good food
- Reasonable prices
- Limited, but adequate choice
- Good service from trained staff
Lyon’s in fact owned the Wimpy Bar concept that was first launched in London in 1954, miles ahead of McDonald’s,so its no surprise that the tea houses were such a success.
Could these tea house make a return I wonder? Could a simple formula based on consistency of service and product be possible in the 21st century?
It’s not rocket science but still it looks like many companies can’t do a Lyon’s Tea House to this day.
Tel-E-Market to stay ahead
What does it cost to run a good Tel-E-Market campaign? A modest amount that is a brilliant return on investment.
What does it cost not to run a Tel-E-Market campaign?
You could be costing yourself valuable clients and intelligence by not keeping up some regular customer and market place research.
Non Tel-E-Market use could effectively contribute to some of this happening to your company -
- Loss of valuable customers who haven’t been able to contact you to talk about their relationship.They will go to someone who wants to listen and find out – your competitors
- Not being able to regain lost or lapsed customers because you are not making customer research a priority.Without doubt a lost or lapsed customer has gone because of something that can be sorted out with ease
- Missing out on opportunities by not investigating your competition
- Never being aware of new services that your customers,current and lapsed,would like to see you offer them
Most companies profess to having a strong and proactive Tel-E-Market system in place already with no need to outsource a “house keeping” function.
To those that do,well done, to those that don’t call or email Customeyes and find out how much business you could stop missing out on by using our Tel-E-Market services
Having spent some time recently with friends from London it seems that there is a move a foot to invade Hertfordshire…
The reason is clear, apparently people in this county are friendly,welcoming and generally nicer than our London counterparts.Also it was noted that customer service seems to be alive and well in the shire with stories of people actually being nice in shops…
Are we so spoilt in Herts that it’s become so part of the fabric of things that we take it for granted? I’m not sure.Maybe day trippers get a different service than residents.
Recent skirmishes into Hemel and Watford have shown me that far from being alive and kicking customer service seems to be dead and dormant.
A recent visit to a well known fruit based mobile phone shop left me feeling that I was invisible.It took ages to get served even though the shop was empty of real customers,there were some customers but they were the friends of the staff.The resolution of my problem was left in my hands, I had to call a service number and explain the issue again and they would help me.Odd how the previous response to calling said number was to go to the shop where the phone had been purchased.
Maybe there is some good customer service out there,maybe it’s more London based…
Our local library has installed new high spec technology that lets you take a book out and return it without having to ask any staff.
You put your bar-coded library card under the scanner, the machine notes your details and presents you with some menu options. All very 21st century but all so very dull…
The people element of a library has been taken out of the equation.No more banter about how good the book was, no more interaction, a crying shame. The only time that the staff are engaged is when you need to ask a question, have you got the latest by Fruity Metcalf? How do I find out about? How does that bl***y machine work.
Staff are still there so why bother imposing technology on a town that was never asked if it wanted it? Have all libraries gone 21st century?
Why take people out of the one transaction where customer service and interaction are the key elements of the customer experience?
Gone is that lovely sound of the date stamp followed by the gentle thud of the front cover closing…
Have seen too many lists recently that attempt to show the best way of approaching telemarketing, the what to do and not what do type approach.All very useful I’m sure.
It’s clear that the most important point has been missed..too many companies run a Telesales campaigns in the name of Telemarketing and are doomed to failure because they are riddled with poor assumptions.There is no problem solving in this equation so any discovery aspects are immediately written off.
A Tel-E-Market approach does not have targets,does not focus on the right moment to sell and does not have to worry about about getting past gatekeepers.
It’s about being able to offer solutions based on a conversation not about trying to “sell”,close or blurt out a load of benefits that may not apply to the person on the end of the phone.
The simple truth is that the phone is a weapon in the wrong hands as it does more damage to your company and it’s reputation than to anyone that you are calling.If anything a poorly run telesales/telemarketing campaign can undo all the good that was preveiously achieved.
Think of what you are trying to achieve way before you get your hands near a phone,it may just save you more than money…
After a long day of keyboard interfacing a curry was called for…duely ordered I was told 20 minutes before I could pick it up…great
Went along just before my 20 minutes were up and shock horror,it wasn’t ready….
Normally I would have been a bit put out but this time I wasn’t.Why?
Well as soon as I went into the restaurant I was given an apology followed by an honest explanation which took the sting out of the situation. This showed me two things.
One, they knew who I was as soon as I came in and two that they were honest enough to admit their mistake and they looked after me whilst the order was put together. I am happy and will come back,they will make sure that they don’t make the same mistake again.
My only problem now is that I’ve got too many free side dishes,how many bhajis can a man eat?
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