The Budd Blog

Posted by: Ian Mapp | 21.07.2010

My decision to join the Sunday Times Wine Club some years ago was fuelled in equal part by laziness and greed. I enjoy a glass of wine – especially red wine and even more especially good, red wine. But, I do not enjoy having to carry the bottles (I daren’t put ‘cases’ there, even if it is true) back from the shops.

The combination of decent wines, home delivery and a special introductory offer at that time proved irresistible! And I have to say that their customer service, on the odd occasion when I have not been satisfied, has been pretty much exemplary. I have also taken advantage of a couple of their so-called ‘wine plans’ – most recently to try   some Spanish wines – which provide regular deliveries of mixed cases, and a good introduction to a new region. But, I was reaching a point where something different was in order.

Generally I use the website to place orders and have done so successfully throughout my membership. But, on one occasion recently, I was unable to get the website to recognise a voucher that I had to use. I was forced to use the phone to contact them! I say ‘forced’, but it has always been a pleasant and enjoyable experience in the past. There was a longer delay than normal before the phone was answered, and my heart began to sink, but once through my order was handled quickly an efficiently.

Whilst on the phone, I took the opportunity to cancel my wine plan subscription. The adviser asked why I was leaving and tried to retain my business – without being pushy about it. I was left with the feeling of an efficiently executed process and confidence that everything had been done. As an aside, also a professional recognition of good practice in capturing reasons for defection! Happy, I thought that would be the end of the story.

Imagine my surprise when I received a letter a little while later. A letter signed by a senior wine buyer (fascinating choice of job role to author such a letter) expressing his regret that I had decided to cancel and reminding me of all the other ways that I could continue to buy from them. Enclosed with the letter was a card folder with a cartoon on the front, including the words “wish you were here” and a person holding a glass of wine. Inside was a voucher for £10 as an additional incentive – in their words “to nudge me” back in their direction.

The tone of the letter and the lightness of touch hint at a thoroughly well thought-through customer journey and a deep attention to detail. The voucher, a random act of generosity, suggests a genuine desire to retain my business.

Well done Laithwaites (who are the organisation behind the Sunday Times branding)! Now, have you sorted out that website glitch on processing vouchers yet?

brilliant basics, broken websites, customer experience, customer experience design, fast+simple, quality, self service | 2 Comments

Posted by: Ian Mapp | 23.04.2010

The UK General Election has accelerated the interest in what is called ‘social media’ – in this context meaning Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, etc. And in particular, how these new ways of communicating with people can be used to win the election.

A lot of this has to do with the perception that the use of these new tools was hugely influential to Barack Obama’s success in the US Presidential election. We can debate whether this is true or not, but my purpose here is only to recognise that social media has become widely acknowledge and discussed. I want to look at the potential impact social media may have on business.

The current news items are only the public face of a debate that began some time ago in the business and government worlds. But what the added attention has done is move the topic of social media up the corporate agenda – and no doubt many will rush to ‘”do something”, to be seen to be doing something and not to get left behind.

Like most bandwagons, and especially technology-led ones, it pays to be cautious and spend time thinking – hard – about what you want to achieve by engaging in these new forms of communication. In amongst the uncertainty about how organisations should react to this change in customer behaviour, one thing does seem to be certain. There is no going back once you have started. 

Many groups and forums are springing up to address this area, many of which are ill-informed and offering poor advice. But, there is lots of valuable thinking and sharing being done as this new area is explored. One that I like is called Social CRM Pioneers. It has somewhat of a technology slant (which suits my background) but there are some very informative and insightful conversations being had there.

The first question is how to start – what should be done first? There is no single right answer to that, as individual circumstances differ massively, but here are a few thoughts for you.

Your customers have always been having these conversations between themselves about your products and services (although with less reach and fewer people to listen). You now have the possibility to ‘overhear’ what they are saying in these public communities and networks and, if you are careful and respectful, the possibility to be invited into the conversations and maybe influence attitudes and opinions. 

How will this change in customer behaviour affect your corporate culture? Firstly, remember, your employees are customers too – and will be feeling this change first-hand in their everyday lives. So, you probably already have a lot of knowledge internally. Perhaps, you could start by asking employees about their experiences and how they would like brands to interact with them in this environment? Start an internal conversation as a precursor to external conversations.

The rise of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems over the last fifteen years should have been accompanied by corporate adaptation to a more customer-centric model, although in most cases only the technology was implemented. Maybe, in this new social revolution we should be building ‘people-centric’ organisations.

That is, not companies facing off to individual customers (remember the ‘market of one’ and 360 degree customer views?) but individual people in organisations building trust and relationships with individual prospects and customers over time and through multiple channels and media – whether that be for marketing, sales or service needs. That would mean organising internally to meet customers’ needs and not simply organising for efficiency.

Oh, and don’t forget that there are a large number of customers who do not not participate in online communities and social media. Their needs must not be overlooked in the seeming stampede for this new promised land.

brilliant basics, culture, customer experience, customer forums, frontline agents, listening, managing, people, social media | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 22.04.2010

I flew to Stockholm last Thursday morning at 7.30am by British Airways from terminal 5. I’m just on the way to pick up my car, one week later.

Why did I fly? Because no one mentioned any possible disruption, despite the fact that 90% of flights were already stopped by 7am. Blissful ignorance.

Did they not have the information to give? Somehow I doubt that.

Did they think about the effort they would cause their customers downstream?  To quote Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon:

 “I think most big errors are errors of omission not commission. The times when they were in a position to notice something and act on it…and yet failed to do so”

The chain of ‘customer effort’ and frustration that BA have created for me is fascinating. And the amount ot work it caused other people and companies. All avoidable, had BA been open and honest. I’ll try and précis it.

• An afternoon of calls and web searches by me, my PA, by my concierge service, by my Swedish collague. To get information, assess options, arrange hotels, try to get a car. At least 3 calls into hotels, 6 to the office, several to local car companies, that I could see. Many calls, texts and emails to friends and contacts to try to get a car. Many calls on our behalf.
• 2 hours shopping for clothes and necessities.
• 6 texts and 2 calls to a colleague’s son whose friend had a car we could hire.
• Multiple attempts and 4 calls into 3 insurance companies to check cover for the car.
• The colleague’s son’s friend taking the morning off work to get the car test renewed before it ran out the following week.
• The son planning to fly to his sisters in London who would have to keep the car before he drove it back for his friend.
• The PA trying to get a car crossing for the channel and googling, texting  routes.
• The 26 hour journey across 7 countries by car.
• The 3 calls to HSBC for bouncing my card, presumably for being used in different countries. The very poor handling of which is resulting in them losing our business accounts. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
• The re-organising of picking up a new car back home.
• The colleague’s wife driving to Dover to pick us up.
• The re-re-organising of picking up the car ( with 2 subsequent re-visits, but that’s another story of customer effort)
• The abortive trip to Heathrow to move the car, but there were no shuttles. Big well done to BAA for waiving the car park fees!
• The actual trip now to Heathrow to pick the car up.

I could go on……. but I’m distracted by the effort in resolving how Fiat sold me a “previous model” as a new car without telling me and hoping they’d get away with it. 

One small omission by company, many large effects for customer. Huge customer effort…..

So my message is….. think about the effort you cause your customers downstream. They will. To quote Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, again: 

“I think most big errors are errors of omission not commission. The times when they were in a position to notice something and act on it…and yet failed to do so”

British Airways, Customer satisfaction, HSBC, airlines, banking, complaint, customer experience, dumb things | No Comments

Posted by: Ian Mapp | 11.03.2010

One of our ‘truths’ is that customers and staff that interact directly with customers already know a lot about issues and problems … and often how to solve them. Listening to their stories is often inspiring. The following was inspired by a customer advisor on a recent client engagement.

View from the front

We the unheeded, doing the unneeded.

Showing the unknowing.

Too much pressing, too many stressing.

The unneeded our undoing.

Talk more, rest less.

Always collecting, something new to show,

never reflecting, learning from what we know.

The knowing unheeded, bright new world unweeded.

Doing the unneeded, defection speeded.

They talk, I squeeze.

They talk, I breeze.

I talk, they freeze.

I talk – on their knees!

I hear them, they are my feed.

I hear them, know what they need.

Now is the time to hear me speak.

Now is the time to heed the call.

Now is the time to follow my lead.

I’m undoing the unneeding, starting now.

 

               

Voice of the Customer, agent experience, culture, customer experience, feedback, listening, process improvement, reduction in contacts | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 13.01.2010

Have you noticed these things during all the snow disruption?

1) Company websites are referred to in phone messages and by the media: “for the latest information, go to our website at ….”
2) The company websites don’t have any information
3) If they do it’s often wrong

The brand damage accrues……

Some examples:
Look at these examples of BAA and flybe’s sites at lunchtime Friday Dec 18th. I was due to pick up my girlfriend at Gatwick in the afternoon, after it had had severe snow disruption in the morning and many flights were still being cancelled. Not a dicky bird about it. No fast publishing capability. No information.

 

On Weds 23rd I tried to get to London by train. Southeastern’s call centre said trains were running. A timed IVR message at 12.30pm announced normal services resumed on all routes. Its screens announced trains. The website showed trains. No trains ran from 8 till 2pm whilst I was there.  I went back at 6.30pm. The signs said no trains. The guy on the end of the platform message button said there were no trains. One came in and I went to London.

What becomes useful is the ability to see reality with your own eyes. I followed the various web snow forecasts on the 18th, 19th and 20th closely. Kent to Gatwick, central London and Gatwick again, with a partially closed A21. The forecasts were pretty random. The Highways site had a bit of data, but that didn’t stack up with what friends were saying about blocks and queues. What was brilliant was the ability to see the live video feeds at various parts of the road network. It might be saying snowing on the website but if the camera couldn’t see it, it wasn’t snowing. The Gatwick site has a live arrivals and departures board which if true, is pretty close to seeing reality. However the rail equivalents of live boards doesn’t work. I went for an 1150 train today showing “on time” on the site. It wasn’t. No trains had run for 3 hours they said and they weren’t sure when the next one would run. Shambles. It’s no wonder Southeastern cant run a service most days – it probably can’t tell its drivers where to be and when.

Best I go and update our news page then….

BAA, British Rail, flybe | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 13.01.2010

Here’s a great example of the small things in a customer experience that end up costing serious money. They’d cost very little to fix. Sent with love as the clients at M&S Money and first drect are top people and their past experiences have been excellent – but they threw away the sales benefit of all that great history at the crucial point.

I have travel insurance with M&S Money so I received a renewal notice by post. It feels a bit steep having gone up 50% in 2 years. But I haven’t got time to muck about. I’m going skiing so I need to act. I also need to get buildings and contents sorted before I go. And I have a quote in my hand from NFU for 2 of my cars that needs renewing before I go, so I may see what they can do on that before I make another call.

The M&S Money renewal notice is 6 pages of paper, much of it not relevant to me at this point. Some of it about Axa who underwrite. But nowhere does it say how to renew automatically online. Nowhere does it remind me that they did a great job on a claim last year – a fact I forgot until later. The number to ring is there on page 2 so I ring it.

The number is obviously the same number as for new sales as it tells you get the best price, 20% lower, by going on line. So I select option 3 for that, thinking it was a strange way of getting online. It just sends you to oblivion. I just checked the number again but  its closed and advises you still to go online to get a best quote (despite the fact the website is down).

So I go online obviously seeing no end of googled prompts to go somewhere other than the M&S Money site. I get a price which is 8% lower, not 20% lower. Hmmmm.

Since the price is steep and not the 20% lower, I do a quick check before buying from the M&S site. Meerkats brand awareness is in mind…… so I “go compare” at their site. Its very fast and I get a list within a minute. I don’t recognise any of the brands but they are a good 50% lower in cost for the same headline benefits. I check out the site of the most likely one, Multitrip, since there are no creds on the Meerkats site. It shows its underwritten by Axa – the same as M&SMoney.  I remember at this point that it was Axa who did a great job on the M&S claim. It has a detailed list of benefits and features which seem comprehensive. I check the 6 page letter and it doesn’t have a list.

I then check the quote on the Multitrip site – its fast and lower again than on Comparethemarket so I buy it direct from Multitrip. Job done. Note how the brand trust has travelled from M&S to Axa to Multitrip.

Meanwhile NFU phone and I renew the cars without getting an alternative quote from M&S Money. Or anyone. Why not? They’ve always been lowest on any quote Ive got by a country mile on old Land Rovers. The souped up Mini is reasonable at £400 ish and so I know Its not worth chasing a quote. NFU has no functionality on line.

Now for the home and contents. I go back to the M&S Money site to get a quote and get the attached quote screen – the service is not available. So I ring the number given. Eventually I get to choose an option 5, yes 5th of 6, to get a quote. And what a wall of recorded messages I hit. I went from amused to fed up to giving “fed up” feedback on the IVR when I eventually got through. And then guess what – the agent’s system is down too, so I’d wasted all that time listening to messages for no use at all. The poor agent got more feedback about updating sites with relevant messages. And how I wasnt going to get a quote from M&S Money later, no thanks.

Now people at first direct may be laughing…. but don’t. I got transferred through to insurance sales after a routine transaction earlier in the week from a train. I would have asked for travel, car and home quotes. But the recorded “business prevention” message was so long that I just told the agent I didn’t have time for this that the message had so turned me off that I didnt want any quotes.

OK this stuff is hard to get right. But its not rocket science. Its attention to detail. Its inexpensive to fix. As one client said this week – “the brand IS the customer experience”.

Compare the market, Marks and Spencers, NFU, first direct, multitrip | No Comments

Posted by: susanc | 9.11.2009

If you’ve got competing demands for constrained budget how do you decide which ‘horse-to-back’? 

Case study findings show that having great agents who listen to customers in order to determine appropriate interventions in real-time can deliver equivalent business outcomes to that of more costly change programmes but the payback from empowering your people is quicker and it requires little or no capex to get started.

‘Up close and personal” can be downloaded free from BuddLife at www.budd.uk.com

Uncategorized, WOCAS, frontline agents | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 5.11.2009

Our business bank account is interesting. There’s usually sufficient balance to keep the bank manager in bonuses and the cheques roll in from well known household names. We’ve never been overdrawn on our business account. Yet nearly every month my HSBC business card gets stopped. Usually at an awkward time like paying for a client’s lunch.  So why do they do it? The rules of course….

The company credit cards have an aggregate and an individual maximum and eventually you may hit one of them. Particularly if business is doing well. But you’re not allowed to  pay any money off mid month to keep the card useful. Against the rules. So it’s useless til month end. 

More business  = more spend = more for the bank you’d think.

So why do they cut you off from doing more business? Because the “product” can’t cope with any flexing. Ah well….. But after regular and irritating calls to the call centres it was time to do something. 

Irritating because they wont talk to our finance person. Irritating because you get ID&V-ed again after transfer. Irritating because security questions like what was the last transaction on the account mean nothing to the average MD of a  SME  company. Irritating because they also cut you off frequently for security checks…… all basic stuff really, but no one is thinking about customer effort they create from these policies and product rules.

So I called the sales call centre to find there was no real alternative. I tried it again for somebody who was bovvered.. Same answer. I tried the man on the end of the newsletter. Lo, there was an answer – a commercial card that you can pay down mid month. So we ordered that. You can guess what happened next…..

Yes, they cut the existing card off. Why because the new one had been sent out. Where? To my PA. I’ll see the new one some day when the post is working again…… dumb things, dumb things, dumb things…… 

What’s the collective name for a bunch of dumb things….. answers on a postcard please (but not til after the postal strike)

HSBC, dumb things | 1 Comment

Posted by: Peter Massey | 2.11.2009

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam . Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands . 

Take a look at HEMA’s product page.

You can’t order anything and it’s in Dutch. Don’t click on any of the items in the picture, just wait and see what happens. 

This company has a sense of humour!

HEMA, fun | No Comments

Posted by: Ian Mapp | 15.10.2009

For many companies, customer complaints are an irritation – they would rather not get them and they handle them grudgingly. There is no effort in getting complaints, they seem to arise naturally from everyday operations and find their way to you; and dealing with the ‘noise’ they create is considered a necessary chore, and simply part of doing business.

But, is that enough? The vast majority (90+%) of dissatisfied customers do not complain – they are the silent majority. How do you incorporate their voice into your business strategy? And what is the impact of focusing on complainants and trying to convert them to be loyal customers – whilst ignoring the others who do not engage with the company?

A new article on Budd Life this month explores these issues and offers guidance on how to engage successfully with this disengaged part of your customer base. It concludes as follows:

“ Wholehearted and sincere customer care is an absolute priority for all organisations in today’s hyper-connected, and hyper-competitive, world. You must care, and you must treat dissatisfaction seriously, because it hits both the top and bottom line.  ….

Customer retention may well be critical to survival, and excellence in maintaining loyalty may be a significant competitive differentiator. If so, the quiet voices of the silent majority customers who are dissatisfied with their experience but do not complain are the key to success.”

Let’s hear it for from the silent majority!

Customer satisfaction, Strategy, Voice of the Customer, brilliant basics, complaint, customer experience, dumb things, feedback, success factors | No Comments