Archive for the 'contact rate' Category

Posted by: Peter Massey | 31.07.2008

The contrast in use of tax payers resources, the politics and the bigger system and the good news….

Is my tax £ being well spent?

I love Jeremy Clarkson’s idea that the police shouldn’t be allowed to fine you for car parking until they return your stolen goods!I was struck by the contrasting use of resources around Soho Square as I walked into work yesterday. In Greek St, there was a police cordon around a bar. Uh oh must have been a murder. Two officers, once taking photos of the scene. At the opposite end of the square, parked opposite Soho St, was a Smart car with CCTV on the roof. It was aimed up the one way street from the wrong end. Presumably to catch cyclists going the wrong way up the street, since cars cant turn into the street the wrong way easily given the shape of the traffic islands on Oxford St - itself a street only for buses and taxis so unlikely to generate much “driving” crime. There were two guys sat in the Smart car reading the Sun.

The contrasting focus of manpower is striking in a time of newspaper headlines about knife crime, rising prices and taxes.

The wider system

Not only do cameras everywhere make me feel less safe, but they make me aware of government. It strikes me that everything that is government charged, privatised and vaguely regulated (and I use the two words specifically), or is an effective monopoly is just going through the roof. Parking fines rising to £120, gas going up 35%, my station car parking going up 17%, fuel rising to £1.34 - but more noticeably the gap between unleaded and diesel jumping from circa 6p to 14p. Yet the money raised doesnt seem to make any difference to the services offered.

It seems that an economic downturn is a great excuse to screw customers. Does the government thing that people don’t see the connection between the way government governs and regulates, the way business works and the way investors invest. 

Maybe Mr Brown would be better trying to make the adjustments in pricing happen in the stockmarket, not in the high street. Centrica and British Gas is a great case in point. Poor old British Gas has to hike prices whilst Centrica raises its dividend to shareholders, claiming poor old pensioners need the money from their pension funds. Doesnt matter, its still the customers who fork out more to investors via a business and weak regualtion/competition. It feels like we are just paying for the fact that the government sold all the family silver years ago and can no longer control large multinational players, many foreign owned, who will do what they need to do to keep their shareholders happy overseas as funding gets harder to raise.

So Mr Brown - go find a better lever to pull - talk to the analysts and investors. Unless they expect and accept that profits will suffer as markets restructure, without sacking CEOs or ransacking share prices, the CEOs will continue to pump customers for short term gain.

But what about the good news?

The good news is that there are richer pickings for CEOs and government to be made from removing waste than even pumping customers for money they dont want to give. The Cabinet Office agenda is to save 50% of “avoidable contact” with citizens from every goverement department. Not to sack people and save money, but to free people up to do more valuable things (than catching cyclists….). Now this I get. If CEOs set the same challenge to remove 50% of unncessary contact then there would be real change in the customer experience. At the moment there’s a lot of pussyfooting around with cost savings, not fundamental change.

Why is contact rate so important to the experience and the economics? Take for example, last week I had to get my divorce papers done. I really dont like paperwork, but 8 years hanging around is ridiculous. But heh it’s easy - I managed the hard bits easily with only 2 contacts. (Dont let that give you ideas!).

A visit to directgov led to all the forms and how to fill them in. A copy of the marriage certificate within 24 hours all done online. The only contact was to check the fee to pay - it looked like the figure it was, but it didnt say “divorce” on it, so I called to check - all details being quickly available to do that too. The other contact? Meet with the ex to sign the forms too, of course. Job nearly done. A great experience, very little work for me or anyone else, for a complex task.

Then there was splitting a pension. I shall keep the innocent unnamed since they were very helpful. But suffice to say, after looking at the website and even starting with a personal contact, it took several people to get involved to clearly establish what needed to happen. No action has been taken yet, but I can see why their SLA is 4 months to act! I havent counted the calls or emails but it must have been a dozen. Must have cost them a fortune.

So maybe the goverment’s transformation agenda is working better than we notice. Maybe private business can learn a thing or two. Certainly government is giving The Best Service Is No Service serious attention. And we’re going to try and help with an event on the 29th September - a goverment summit we’re running with Contact Centre Clinic in Liverpool. The Cabinet Office will be speaking along with several top public and private companies. But mainly we’ll be causing people to talk to each other and take back specific actions they can take in their government department, police force, NHS body or local authority. And of course private companies are welcome to learn too. Get in touch with joanne.sparkes@budd.uk.com for more details. PS and its £250 - good experiences are always less expensive to give than dumb ones!

Government, Healthcare, Uncategorized, contact rate, customer experience, the best service is no service | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 6.04.2008

The book of “The Best Service Is No Service” is already up to 12th on Amazon’s best seller list and people such as Guy Kawasaki are blogging it.

The FT ran an article on it on March 27th

It’s going to be big…. More importantly the idea that its not ok to do dumb things to cause your customers to contact you is even bigger.

Amazon, contact rate, customer experience, fast+simple, the best service is no service | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 2.01.2008

For 4 years now, Budd has been championing the cause, developed at Amazon, of “The Best Service is No Service”.

With our passion for “How do we stop doing dumb things to our customers and people?” we remain focused on how companies can drastically improve their customer experiences by reducing contact by 20%+ per annum, with its consequent impact on operating budgets.
But, and there is a but, many companies appear to be adopting the strategy of saving 20% of their operating costs without a good understanding of what it takes to avoid inflicting pain on their customers.

So - your strategy is to reduce unnecessary contact by 20% in 2008 - but how much damage or how much good will you do for your customers?

The most common problems are:
— A focus on cost not the experience. The focus must be on the experience first with cost savings as a consequence
— Starting projects to fix the problem. It’s about implementing proven, sustainable processes that constantly take out unnecessary contact. Projects rarely sustain the behaviours required over years
— Trying to do too much too fast. The first wins are critical but they need to be part of a coherent approach
— Leaving out the frontline staff. Regardless of new tools to gather data, tapping into what the frontline staff know and their engagement is key to sustainable success
— Doing again what worked a year or two ago but lapsed as soon as the next focus appeared

Budd brings proven processes that can be embedded to make the savings year on year. Our top clients are saving 80% of their operating budgets now.

On a £100m operating budget, you’d be saving £20m per annum in the first year. That’s £1.67m per month, £400k per week. If it’s done well you’ll be a hero. If its done badly it will cost another £100m to regain your brand’s reputation. Do you feel lucky? Or do you need to get it right first time?

Contact us if you’d like to talk through your ideas - peter.massey@budd.uk.com

contact rate, customer experience, dumb things | No Comments

Posted by: David Naylor | 22.11.2007

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

Posted by: Peter Massey | 17.11.2007

Why is it always me that gets cloned? Well at least a useful comparison was possible this time….

My HSBC business credit card was cloned several weeks ago. By my reckoning the first call took place on the 2nd October. It’s now the 17th November and the replacement is still not set up properly. There have been more than 20 contacts so far.

My first direct personal credit card was cloned last Saturday the 10th November and the replacement was with me and working by Wednesday 14th. It would have been Tuesday but I was away.

First the right way to do it. I’m shopping with my daughter in London and the first 2 transactions bounce so I call first direct. They transfer me to the fraud unit and a lady abroad ( sorry forgot to ask whether it was Malaysia or India - betya it’s an HSBC centre though) asks me if I’ve tried downloading songs from iTunes that morning which I haven’t. So bang goes the Xmas shopping on the credit card. I wasn’t happy.

She tells me the card will be with me within 5 to 7 working days and I’m thinking “oh yeah?” given what I’m going through with the business account. Anyway I get home Wednesday to find it there and I’ve had no problem using it subsequently. Bingo - one very satisfied customer.

Could it have been better. Well yes. They could have called me before I had the embarassment of a snooty waitress at Harvey Nicks bouncing my card. They could have had the first person I called ask me about the iTunes transactions, rather than a rather lengthy transfer tying up me and the agent. The second agent could have spoken more clearly and been more understanding at my protests of being without a card for a week. They could have said that the card would go out same day and be there Tuesday and I’d have thought they were really trying to make it quick.

What about HSBC then? I’ll try and remember as many of the contacts as I can…..

1) The first call came at about 9pm from an Indian sounding lady saying she was from HSBC and could she have my credit card number, date of birth etc. Strangely enough I said “no - she couldn’t until she could prove she was HSBC and not some “phisher”". We got nowhere as the process says she can’t talk to me til I’ve been through security and since security was evidently silly I wasn’t willing to and they should get somebody sensible to ring me (lucky I had that glass of wine or I’d have been uptight by now !)

2) & 3) I then had a call from my colleague who’d had an earlier call from HSBC about the card. He’d told them they’d have to ring me. He explained they’d told him the card had been cloned.

4) Another Indian gentleman called me and attempts to take me through security again. I again refuse and ask him to go through my security checks. Tell me which company name is the card in? He can’t tell me anaything until I’ve been through security. Tell me the HSBC phone numbers on my credit card - he gave me 2 and both failed my identity check. So we parted company there.

By complete coincidence I had a conference call the following day with the nice guy at HSBC who runs the offshore centres and gave him the feedback on the security process.

Then I did nothing for a couple of weeks. The bank did nothing. Exactly as a phisher would do. My card stopped working though so heh maybe they were real. I just starting using another card from another bank.

Two weeks later on the 17th October I was speaking at the Institute of Customer Services Conference. I use several real examples of “dumb things” and this was at once added to the repertoire.

5) At the end of my talk, no less than the Customer Service Director of first direct comes up and wants my details to sort it out. He may not be HSBC directly but he takes it on personally - that’s fabulous. At the end of the conference I pick up my voice mails.

6) The first direct guy has called the right person in HSBC
7) He or she has obviously called Claire….
& 9) …..who has called me and left 2 voicemails whilst I have been in the conference
10) I return the call but she’s not there so I leave a message and…
11) ….she returns the call and we speak. She’s taken up the case and will sort it out. No security checks required, I notice.
12) & 13) When I get back to email, I find that Claire had emailed me to. I mail back and say thanks

I wait for the card over a week but nothing comes. In fairness there’s a postal strike.

14) Eventually I call Claire again and she checks it has been sent and it must be in the post.

15) I wait some more and eventually it arrives. At my colleague’s house. I get it next time we meet in a few days time. Then I wait some more for the pin number to arrive.

16) & 17) I email Claire again. She emails back. The card was preset up with the same pin so no need to have waited at all ! How dumb do I feel? But heh it didnt say that on the letter with the card….

I use the card and it works… YES ! But wait…. I try to use it on the web to pay for wireless access. This requires my address. The card bounces again. I try again. No. It bounces.

18) & 19) I ask my PA to call the number on the card and get the address corrected which she does. Of course they cant take her instruction as she cant pass security. So she passes the phone to me, but the computer says no. No I cant have my own address on my own card as I had before. Her insistence that it has never been possible drives me to distraction and I pass her back to my PA to escalate to the supervisor. After 20 minutes on hold she hangs up.

20) & 21) So she emails Claire at my request. Claire emails back to say she can’t take my PA’s instruction as she’s not a named contact on the account.

22) I email her back and confirm the instruction to have me on my address. And not to swap my colleagues onto my address!!!! No security but it apparently happens.

23) Last week my existing pin number arrived in the post under one of those sticky flaps in the letter! Not something I was happy with from a security point of view, since as with many people I’m sure, its the same one I use on my other cards.

I haven’t yet tried to use the card with my address details so I don’t know whether it’s really fixed. But I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t. And I wont be dsurprised if a colleagues card stops working.

Have I complained? No, I’ve done enough work. Will I move banks. No - its tons of work and wont be any better. I’ve used many banks and see no differences.

And do I feel like putting our insurance business thro HSBC? You guessed it - about 23 times less likely than going to first direct. Oh when will they start business banking !! Then it would be worth moving.

So an extreme story? - I dont think so judging by our personal experiences of dealing with banks. And we have further evidence from our work with the Amazon Skyline processes. One of our banking clients has reduced their contact rate by 81% in the past three years. Another US client has quadrupled the size of their business and decresed their contact support headcount by 20% at the same time.

If you work at HSBC and want to talk about how we can save you up to 80% of your operating budget then contact me on 07802 793515 or peter.massey@budd.uk.com

If you work at first direct and are reading this - fabulous, thank you and yes - when are you going to start business banking ! ??

If you are just a blog reader - Hi, thanks for reading and you can get more in our white paper “100 things you can learn from first direct”in our library

100 things, HSBC, contact rate, first direct | No Comments