Archive for the 'brilliant basics' Category

This is just a straight forward example of service recovery.

I ordered a black toner cartridge last week which was delivered as expected. Unfortunately they sent a blue one.

I emailed the company www.cartridgesave.co.uk and had a reply within 20 minutes from Danielle (who provided a direct email address - in my book, the right thing to do). “A black one will be on its way today and we’ll collect the blue one”. A bit of a  hassle returning the blue one I thought but their problem.

10 minutes later another email:

“Unfortunately we are unable to despatch the correct Remanufactured Samsung Black Toner Cartridge as stated in my previous email since this item is currently out of stock until the 20th May. So that we do not inconvenience you any further I will be despatching you today a Genuine Samsung Black Toner instead and Cartridge Save will cover the difference in cost. Additionally we would like you to keep the incorrect blue cartridge that you have received.”

Almost perfect recovery, except for the unnecessary first email that could have been avoided by checking stock first. Not bad for a low value consumer product. Here I am telling you all about it. That’s worth it isn’t it?

brilliant basics, customer experience, fast+simple, word of mouth | No Comments

I sit blogging this whilst my daughter is in theatre at Maidstone Hospital – yes that one that made all the press for MRSA deaths. So it wasn’t without trepidation that we approached the place. It’s a toe curling place to be – or rather toe uncurling to be precise – that’s the minor operation she’s in for.

Beth’s last lesson on Friday had been doing TLAFSSOS…three letter acronym for social studies or something… talking about hospital infections. Online yesterday I discovered from a contact in S Africa the sad news that someone I met last year died from complications after an operation. One of Beth’s friends was in intensive care for a month 2 years ago after a minor op here.

What sticks in my mind from a few years ago, was the difference between the private hospital in Tunbridge Wells and public hospital there. Yes the other half of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust once run by the infamous Rose Gibb. She that made the news for chasing targets and the resultant dirty hospitals that killed many. She’s still the signature in the “Welcome to our hospital” book today.

But far from being about slagging off the NHS, this is a story of reassurance. Walking into reception at 7.30am this morning, the place was awash ( no pun…) with cleaners. Every corner looks spotless. Every uniform freshly pressed. Every entrance to every ward has disinfecting hand washes and everyone uses them. Whilst sitting in the room waiting, someone has been in and cleaned the toilet. Someone else has waashed down the surfaces, someone else has vacuumed the floors and finally someone else has mopped them. One of the toilets is marked for deep clean 030308 (heh happy 5th birthday to telco 3, launched on 030303 !).

So I can see cleanliness is a top priority. There are no inspectors, just people everywhere paying attention to cleanliness.

There are at least 4 lessons to draw from the tragic history of this place:

- The business of this NHS Trust became focused on its shareholders, the money men, not on its customers, the patients
- The targets set by its shareholders did not reflect the most basic needs of its customers
- Neither the management nor the shareholders would listen to the customers, even when they were dying, because of cost targets that would ultimately cost a lot of money
- The waste of life stands out: the cost now of keeping it clean must be high, but not so high as the price of a death, let alone 100 deaths
 

It’s about the focus and stamina of the leaders really.

I remember hearing Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney talk last year at ECMW. When he ran Universal, he was frustrated that he could never keep the toilets as fastidiously clean as at Disney. So he called the then CEO of Disney and asked what was the secret. He discovered 3 things:

- Whenever I visit a Disney operation of any kind, the first thing I do is go to the toilets. If I have to pick up paper from the floor myself, I do so. But hell breaks loose if I ever have to do it twice
- The secret is cleaning the toilets most when they are most used eg every 15 minutes at lunch time
- It wasn’t difficult. It just had to be a high priority. And stay a high priority.
 

So as I relax and wait for Beth to come into post op, I ask you these questions from the 4 lessons:

1.       Is your business really focused on the basic needs of your customers, not the money? “Show me the money!”, as the film Jerry McGuire illustrated, just isn’t going to cut it in the 21st century.

2.       If you know the most basic needs of your customers, are your metrics about those needs and are they calibrated to match what customers say?

3.       Do you capture what your customers are saying? Yes? And do your management priorities get set by what they are saying?

4.       The cost of waste hopefully isn’t as evident as at this NHS Trust, but do you really know what it is?

Is every customer of your business as relaxed using your business as I can be sat here?

If you’re not sure, type you company name followed by “sucks” into Google and see what comes out.

Get in touch if you’d like to talk

Healthcare, brilliant basics, listening, managing, measurement | No Comments

I’ve been an Egg credit card customer for many years. I also loved the brand so much I bought shares in Egg when it was floated several years ago. I’d seen what Mike Harris had done at first direct and bought into that as a great customer experience and could see the same future for Egg. Not the best reason to buy shares I know, but companies that think about the customer experience think about their staff as well and that makes a big difference to delivering that customer experience! In fact when it was launched back in 1998 Egg had the stated purpose of “revolutionise the customers experience of financial services driven through unleashing the power of people.”

In an article in MyCustomer.com in November 2006, John Jennick, Head of Customer Experience and Action at Egg said “Strategically Egg has set out since 1998 to be a bit different. We try to have our customers at the heart of everything that we do.”

As a credit card customer I admit that I am probably just ‘too good’. When I was OFFERED the option to pay off my balance monthly by Egg, I took up that option. I probably took credit increases as well, but managed my card too well, so rarely needed them. I have several other cards in my wallet but when I wanted to use a card, I used the Egg card.

My renewal was due last month and I discovered, when trying to use the old card, I hadn’t received my replacement. I rang Egg to chase it up, only to be told that my account had been reviewed by the Renewals Team and that I had been switched to a ‘repayment only account’. When asked what this meant I was told that I could only make repayments of balances not purchases.

“So you’re closing my account you mean?” I questioned. The response was “no, just changing it to a repayment only account which you don’t need a card for”. That’s the same thing in my book!

Now I know Citigroup as the new owners of Egg want to make something out of this business and have a few subprime mortgage problems to deal with. So ‘good’ customers who pay off their balances, are not going to set the profits racing. But they didn’t even have the courtesy to contact me - NO LETTER, EMAIL or CALL. Just NO CARD! It would have been nice to add an Egg card back into my wallet alongside the 4 other Citibank accounts I hold. But clearly, I’d be asking too much for that them to notice that little fact.

The MyCustomer.com article provides a lot of detail about the new survey tools that had been implemented at Egg. I wish I had been asked to be surveyed today after my call. The lack of empathy and explanation was astounding. “We normally do write to customers to tell you” I was told. My emotional state was easy to read (ie angry!) but the agent still failed to adapt to the situation. We finished the call with no resolution but an offer from the agent - “Is there anything else I can help you with today”. The fate of my relationship with Egg was sealed.

There could have been a positive outcome for Egg if it did think I’m not being profitable enough. A call or email to ask me to use the card more, selling me the benefits of the card, the low rate, the cashback… Instead I’ve told 10 people already what has happened since I discovered the situation today, plus all the people who overheard me on the train this morning. In terms of wallet share from me and my family, Egg has just blown it. Glad I got rid of the Egg insurance last year as well.

So what happens when customers are just too good? Businesses try to get too clever with segmentation, get hung up on numbers, loose sight of the customer and do dumb things to them.

If this is a broken process then maybe the survey tools Egg are using could pick it up. One thing’s for sure, that agent knows how much frustration I feel about the situation and needs a way of getting the feedback back into the business it not for my sake, for his, so he can avoid another Monday morning like the one he had today.

We have put in continuous closed loop improvement processes at other banks that have taken 80% of the contact and loads of these dumb things out of the business. Amazon.com did this (77% in 3 years) with processes like Skyline and WOCAS that track contact, engage the frontline in telling the business what’s not working for customers and make sure the right things get fixed. They save money and give the customer more time to work out what to buy next from you.

So if John or anyone from Egg wants to investigate this situation and reassure me that this is an isolated case then I’m happy to hear from them (david.naylor@budd.uk.com). Perhaps the 1998 goal of “revolutionisng the customer experience” in the right way can yet be achieved.

Egg, brilliant basics, customer experience design, dumb things, financial services | 2 Comments

C&G sent me a text this morning to welcome me as a new customer. I was only barely aware that I was. I’ve just remortgaged through a broker I’ve used for the last 4 years and now I’m on my third mortgage and third different provider. The only contact I needed with my last provider was to sign the form and then ring them to ask what was the best deal they could offer me at the end of the fixed rate period. It was a smooth process but not a relationship. My relationship clearly exists with the broker who takes all the hassle out of the process and has managed to get me great deals – yes I did check the market and realized that after 2 hours surfing the websites I was wasting my time trying to find a better deal. For me, choosing a mortgage is therefore just a matter of price.

At Budd we’ve talk for a long time about customers not wanting a relationship with their bank, or any financial service provider for that matter. So what can companies do to address this challenge? Still focusing on the basics is a critical factor. Sending a welcome text is not going to change my behavior in 2 years time, especially if they mess up on the straightforward process of processing my new application. In fact, in 2 years time I’ll probably look around for a new mortgage and if they can come close to the same deal I might stay with them. So how can they be competitive on the product? By being competitive on customer service. Reducing unnecessary contact, as we have talked about for a few years, is not just about reducing your costs but improving your service – as Amazon and others are demonstrating with Skyline more and more. Reduce costs to enable more competitive products, then wow me with basic service that works and I might still be a customer in 3, 4 or 5 years time (maybe longer!).

Skyline, brilliant basics, contact rate, customer experience design, financial services | No Comments

I have been reading with interest an article given by Sheila Dikshit, Delhi`s chief Minister for nearly 10 years, describing with such passion the considerable improvements that have been made in Delhi and it suddenly struck me how very, very basic getting things right ` truly is.

Sheila said that previously Delhi had lacked effective management which resulted in its people lacking confidence and having to to go elsewhere to work, but not any more, now they have more confidence and believe that Delhi will succeed and the good news they are already starting to receive good salaries.
Leadership must be one of those good old basics that Sheila has, her commitment and drive is clearly obvious, her dream is to make Delhi world class even maybe play host to the Olympics, she has a clear vision that everyone understands and can see, she and they recognise that it will take another 5/6 years to put the city on course, but she is changing peoples attitudes, making them feel proud of their City.
The ability to lead is the key to effective change in any country, business, group or team.

Sheila gave an example of Government schools only achieving 35/37% pass rate whilst receiving 900 rupees per child, when non Government schools received far less but achieved a much higher pass rate, she asked the question `why?` and discovered they were not being motivated.
Things have changed and the Government schools now achieve an 85% pass rate.
So how simple but how effective is good motivation?
Sheila received a `best practice` award for a program called Bhagidari, which focuses on governance through partnership. Citizens groups and the government interact with each other every week/month in little groups. “The coming together has helped a lot,” Sheila said.
How does that relate to business, well again a question “how strong is a team of people that work together?”
I have only mentioned a few good things that have happened, but you must see that getting the basics right is the key to success,what ever you do and where ever you are!

brilliant basics | No Comments

I stood in the pouring rain on tuesday evening at the railway station car park waiting to pay for ticket. Nothing unusual about that other than the fact that 2 weeks ago I wouldn’t have had to do it - stand in the rain that is. In their infinte wisdom, GNER have installed new paystations. All three of these are positioned low for disabled use with keypads and screens angled so that 99% of people have to bend right down to see where the card goes and read the screen. Of course, there should be disabled access machines but do we need 3? Probably, since there’s a good chance that 2 will be frequently out of order.

As a result of this and the PIN checking process, the average time to pay for your car park ticket has doubled and the receipt is now the length of one you’re likely to get at Tescos the week before Christmas so they quickly fill up your wallet (when the machine hasn’t run out of paper that is).

Ok, so I sound like a grumpy old man. Well, call me that if you wish but I just thought technology should be here to make our lives easier. Barclays are introducing their new OnePulse card for cashless transactions of £10 - simply wave the card. GNER have introduced new chip and PIN machines to make paying £10 harder and slower.

Who’s getting it right??

Barclays, GNER, brilliant basics, fast+simple | No Comments

brilliant basics, dumb things | No Comments