In order to optimise self service or channel shift, there are a couple of simple places to start in a “Best Service Is No Service” solution: a) identify the customers’ need in the customer language and b) just test the journey and its variations.
A good example yesterday, phoning my insurer to add a car. The web site was not simple but I could eventually find the tiny “already a customer” area amongst all the sales messages. There was then a specific option for “adding a car to an existing policy” with a specific number to use. So far so good – I think I’m getting somewhere.
Then I hit the the IVR on that number. Long standard message that’s unnecessary, followed by choice which is evidently the main menu off the main number: sales, service, claim. A complete waste of my time finding and using the option against my need.
I pick the option for an existing customer. I then get the long standard message repeated again ( so there probably used to be a routing from that number I was given to this point – now wrongly routed obviously). I then choose the one for existing customer over new quote pending and something else I don’t recall. I then choose the add a car option.
So the IVR was well enough designed, few levels, obvious choices. Hopeless standard messages.
I get answered by someone in customer services who eventually says he cant add vehicles and I need to ring the sales line and gives me an 800 number to try. I’ve used it not long ago and know they don’t like doing anything but new sales ( spot the incentive scheme in overdrive).
So I go round again with the “direct” number. I end up in the same place, this time with an offer of a transfer to sales. I question them – “so to get to the place to add a car to an existing policy I need to deny I’m a customer?” – “yes, that’s correct”. No other comment – he’s obviously numb. So I do it again( surely I pressed something wrong) and this time take the transfer and start the add a car process ( which finishes some 90 mins later – another story).
The moral of the story is whether direct lines, IVRs or a combination, you have to travel and test the journeys and fix the details. Otherwise its dumb. Good start on web site, no facility to do online, wrong number, ok IVR design, wrong routing, 3 calls and 1 very long experience at the end of it. A LOT of customer effort, and a lot of cost to that business. No wonder the price was incredibly steep at the end of it and the twitterati are slagging them off.
Today I renewed my passport at Victoria. Nightmare or? Read on…
I was impressed. In fact I can’t remember when I was more impressed. It was better service than any such service I have had for quite a while. It had pretty much the least customer effort as it could have had.
It was a really impressive, well designed multi-channel journey.
Here’s the journey:
Passport coming up for renewal but don’t get many gaps when I don’t need it. Go to directgov and all the options are laid out in detail. Sometimes repetitive, rightly, of the major points.
The quickest method is to take it to a regional office, all the details are there including maps etc and instructions what do to do, what to take, how to do it.
I ring the 0300 number to make an appointment. The IVR isn’t too long winded and gives me the obvious option, I go straight through. He checks all the right conditions exist: – it is a renewal, I understand how it works, when to be where and what to bring with me, what it costs. And he gives me a code to bring. I think he asked me if I want a form and I say no I’ll down load one.
Without being asked, a letter comes through the post confirming the same information again and giving me the code to be sure. It had a leaflet with the same information about what to do as the website.
This weekend I hit the only snag. I go to the directgov site again to download the application form to go with my fresh, well new at least, photos. Can I find the renewal form? Lots of other forms but not that one and nowhere does it say it doesn’t exist on the site. The only option is for it to be posted to me.
There is however a feedback slot at the bottom of each page. It explains that they wont respond, but that the feedback is to improve what’s on the site. So I tell them, unsure of whether it will do any good. We hot foot it to a friendly post office on Sunday morning and persuade them to unlock the forms and hand one over. Well two in case I get it wrong !
This morning I go nice and early for my 930 for 945 appointment. Walking round from Victoria station, there are big signs sticking out so I can see immediately I’m going to the right place. Each different purpose has a different entrance.
I walk in and the first thing I see is “ You said, we did” posters about how feedback had changed things. I am v impressed – so simple but so good to see. I am greeted by smiling security ( ex guerkhas to a man) and have my coat and bag scanned simply.
Before I can get my coat on again a lady is asking what name ( so much nicer than what number ) and I’m given a ticket to go to the second floor. Before I can tweet my delight at “you said, we did” my number is called and I spend 2 mins at the counter whilst a genetleman ticks all the boxes on a form to say my paperwork is correct. He gives me a sheet of paper with a bar code and price and I walk to the cashier and pay my not inconsiderable £129 – £50ish more than standard renewal from memory. As per the website, the phone call, the letter he confirms it will be ready to collect in 4 hours.
This evening I go back to the separately marked exit and join a queue. Uh oh… but no, all they do is take receipts and hand over passports, so the whole thing took 6 minutes despite the queue.
So is this perfect? Not quite but heh its close enough. It’s all basic stuff but a wow to find someone doing the basics right.
It’s very simple and impressive and a great example of designing, delivering and reinforcing a “Best Service Is No Service” journey where knowledge and operations follow quite clearly a common path: I want to renew my passport”.
What could be better?
They could have picked up that I said I’d get a form off the site and told me on the call (and on the website) I need to go to a post office to get a renewal form. And why.
They could still come back later saying “you said, we did” when they fix this.
They could have asked for suggestions in person whilst I was there – I really hope they don’t spoil this experience by sending a rubbish feedback survey out afterwards.
They could charge me less for doing it all – but frankly the time saved and de-risking of lost documents was worth the extra £50 given that it was done so effortlessly.
The guy ticking the form and the lady handing over the passport could have been as cheerful as the security and cashiers – but heh, I don’t really need that.
Everything they did was simple, obvious, but evidently well thought through and done in a way to make it as fast and simple as possible. They had baked in the removal of error upstream in the process so errors would not occur on the visit and ruin the result or the experience. All of the information was consistent, whether on the website, phone, leaflet, form, in the building. They had a means to get feedback which was open to me, not a tick box, and it was evidently used.
So well done whoever you are – do step forward and take a bow at the Passport Office.
What does it say about a bank when the easiest and least “customer-effort” transaction is closing an account? I’ll leave you to ponder what the right answer to that question should be, and limit myself to telling you the story.
Despite the evidence to the contrary, I continue to believe that companies do actually take notice of the world around them and try to learn from the best of their competitors / peers. I guess that makes me a “glass half full” kind of person. Even so, I should not have been surprised by my recent experience with a UK online bank.
Like everyone else, I am keen to find any kind of reasonable return from my (admittedly modest) savings. This has been tough over the last couple of years with low rates of interest. Like many others, I have been tempted by the special 12 months bonus rate offers and opened such an account in late 2009.
The bank in question was then a new venture from a well-established UK financial institution, perhaps best known for it’s insurance products. When they decided to create an entirely online banking arm, I am sure they studied the existing providers. After all, Internet banking is hardly a new phenomenon any more.
But, if they did study competitors or best practice, they were not good students because the result was an all-too typically appalling customer experience. The initial account opening process was not too awful, although my memory is of too many things arriving in the post in a rather disjointed fashion. But I cannot be sure that is an entirely fair assessment as I am aware how much negative overlay might have been added by later, worse interactions.
I have only needed to transact on the account three times (it is, after all, for savings) – twice to transfer money in and, a few days ago, to transfer some out. Because of the infrequency of use, I could not remember all of the relevant security information to gain access. I was okay with remembering two of the needed three pieces of information – unique customer ID, online password and PIN – but could never remember all three.
The fail-safe security design meant that the account was blocked after three failed attempts … an action about which I have very mixed feelings. I can understand that it is a good thing to limit the vulnerability of accounts to being ‘hacked’ – and applaud that. But, at the same time, the risk has to be balanced with how the experience is managed for valid but forgetful customers.
Other organisations providing secure commercial online transactions have long ago figured out how to help customers recover their security information via self-service. This not only allows the customer to complete the interactions quickly and efficiently, it also reduces the workload on customer services staff. Indeed Amazon has had this cracked for about ten years now. (As a n aside, I am not sure that ‘cracked’ is a good choice of word in this context …)
But, in the case of this bank, no such luck. Hope was raised initially with a ‘Forgotten your password?’ hyperlink, but dashed when clicking this link only produced this onscreen message:
“Please contact our Customer Services Team for assistance on 0845 xxx xxxx (our opening hours are: Mon, Tue, Thurs, Fri 08:00-18:00 Wed 10:00-18:00).”
Now, that was doubly frustrating. Not only could I not help myself, but I could not get help at all at that time (Saturday afternoon). And they all have a nice lie-in on Wednesdays! Actually, given the way I felt at that point, I could understand that their agents are probably exhausted and stressed-out having to deal with irate customers all day. So much for making banking accessible 24 x 7 on the Internet.
By Monday morning, my anger had escalated to the extent that I had decided not to transfer some money any more, but rather to transfer all of the money and close the account (but you knew that was coming already, didn’t you?). I mentally steeled myself for the inevitable conversation with the customer retentions team and dialled. Only three options on the IVR (good!), of which one was to close an account. After choosing that option, and while I waited to be answered, I mused on the possible reasons why the closure option had such prominence. Part of me hoped it was in order to get defecting customers to the specialist recovery team as quickly as possible, but my suspicion was that the decision was more prosaic – it was simply happening a lot.
Still, I anticipated some attempt to retain my business; even if only to offer me the current ‘special deal’ for new customers. But no. Nothing. Not even a question as to why I wanted to close the account. In fact, the whole call – from dialling, through holding on for a reply, to having confirmation of the balance being transferred and the date it would get to the bank – took less time than it has taken you to read this blog post! Super efficient, but a super-wasted opportunity to hear my perspective on the dumb things being done by this company to their customers.
It seems very little judging by my experiences in the past week of moving my broadband and trying to fly out of Gatwick.
1) Both provide little to no information in advance of the journey or anything specifically useful via the website for the journey. A lack of publishing and sharing of knowledge with customers is at the root of the problem.
2) Getting to someone who can help you is then very hard and isn’t part of their process.
3) Suggesting someone else can fix it is part of their approach, so that the problem goes to someone else.
4) Having the obvious FAQs at point of need, is not something that’s available.
5) Managing the resolution easily has no structure, no triage.
6) After the problem, all appears to be very well done. Must be an expensive way to work.
If you’re interested why, then read on – its a bit boring – as detail often is.
Let’s take the airline first:
Gatwick departures board not available online all day so you can’t see the real situation and decide to stay home or not. Airline’s site shows half a dozen cancellations and a general warning. Nothing specific on my destination. Can’t get through by phone, not surprisingly. Nothing on twitter, except customers irate about the fact the website is still pushing Xmas offers and providing no data.
Departures screen shows delays back though the day. Self serve check-in is not working anymore so I must join the queue. I could see 150 people trying to get to 3 desks in a tidy crawl. Later discover this was only the part I could see and it was much longer. One lady has a clipboard and is besieged. I find out there is an intention to fly. So I join the queue and move a few metres in an hour. I give in and go home.
Appears to me that the snow isn’t the problem – ticketing passengers is broken. Obviously more desks would help, but failing that do 2 things. FAQs on white boards or flip charts – show us what you’re checking on your clipboard. Make it relevant to the outcomes. For example If you’re waiting for Belfast then a) if you are prebooked we have enough capacity once you get through the queue b) if you are not pre-booked you wont get out today so go home or get a hotel via desk xyz and c ) we are expecting all flights to go. And put this on your website – the whole queue is trying to find out anything via laptops and mobiles.
Secondly simply triage the queue by walking down it and checking for relevance and outcome – many people could have been sent home according to destination and seats/numbers. Many were probably in the wrong queue judging by the number who talked to each other and left. Many would have had certainty that it was the right thing to do.
Saying “the airport isn’t giving us slots” isn’t useful. If the airline and the airport haven’t worked out a plan, then it may be the only answer. But scenario planning should have taken place and the scenario be planned so that capacity is known and decisions, made in advance, enacted so there is clarity.
I get home and check the departures board and airline on the web – no information so I don’t know if the flight ever went. Brilliantly simple claim procedure for the ticket just using one screen and the booking reference. Let’s see if the money comes through as efficiently. Pity they cant be as efficient in the other things they do.
Customer effort? A wasted day.
What about the broadband journey then?
An order placed and MAC code provided. A welcome call about 10 days before to take payment details and tell me what was happening – a specific date but very general about the process. On asking apparently I need do nothing. They’ll send me a router but I ask them not to as I have one – they say you might as well as its free.
The router arrives in a plain box a few days later and goes in the cellar. I dont think I had any email confirmation – at least I have no memory of one despite several references to email later . A search now, shows I don’t have one. I suspect it was sent to their new email address that they gave me and I dont want/need/use.
By the day of swap over I’m already sceptical. An absence of expectation from a lack of information.
When I come home, the phone still works. Alas the broadband doesn’t. I have an idea and look in the plain box that the router came in – there is in fact a letter. No expectations but at least the account id, password etc is there. and lots of web addresses to check things on if any problem. But no phone number in case you don’t have broadband access to check things with.
I chill for the weekend and get by on my iphone checking all the obvious things on the website – but there’s nothing for “my service hasn’t cut over” so on Monday I phone the broadband number on the site. The IVR option 3 for faults is advertised on the site and the IVR is very simple. ( Later I get bored with it telling me I may have to wait up to 10 minutes and there’s a big queue – regardless of whether there is or there isn’t).
Eventually I get through to be told I’m through to the wrong broadband and am transferred. My phone battery dies before I get through. Later I start over and speak to someone who explains its due provisioning today – I retort that to me, it was due provisioning Friday. They don’t seem fussed. It’ll be done today.
Later I get a text to say its been done. It still doesn’t work. No response from a Twitter escalation.
It still doesn’t work Tuesday morning so I call again. Same number but I get a travel firm – redial and it goes through fine – weird. ( Later I have this again twice but to wrong routes within the company these times). This time they check and it will definitely be provisioned by noon and I’ll get a text. I get a text but no working service by noon.
In the afternoon I call again and get someone who checks and says the order hasn’t gone through but he’s getting it done whilst I’m on the phone. I ask if I’ll need to do anything else. He says no that the router is preconfigured with passwords etc. The first I know of it. So he stays with me whilst I swap out the router and reconnect everything. Still no service but he says it will be in the next half hour.
No service a few hours later.
I call again and they say there’s a fault and it’s been reported to BT. I say there can’t be a fault because it hasn’t been provisioned yet. How can BT check something that isn’t provisioned. He says that’s tech support’s process and that’s that. I ask for escalation – he says there isn’t anyone. I cut off and immediately dial again to talk to someone else who goes through the same excuses. I ask what the SLA is with BT for faults even if there were one – you guessed, 5 working days. Escalation – there isn’t one.
I cut off and escalate with a little help from my friends.
The chief exec’s office call within 10 minutes and an engineer 10 mins later. And the engineer’s boss ten mins later. The engineer does some triage, finding out the story so far, runs a line test and says the line is dead and there’s a BT physical problem which I challenge because nothing physical had been touched until the router was swapped. I agree to change the line filter and dismantle the wall socket and he phone’s me back. No change. I’m not willing to give in and he listens and we swap the router back to my old one and he repeats the line test – heh presto there is no BT fault. “You’ve got a faulty router, we can send you another one”. Hmmm Xmas post. We try to configure my router and whilst he’s helpful, we can’t do it. Later I manage to crack the router config using my iPhone to get a website that helps. And it works first time.
The new router is in the bin, as will the second one be if they send it by Xmas post.
Customer effort? I lost 5 days working and several hours of my time.
All avoidable by some really simple stuff around setting expectations, being transparent and sharing set up processes, providing information that’s specifically relevant to the scenarios ( eg what you will have to do, how to troubleshoot etc) and doing proper triage from the outset. Will I be surprised if I get problems with the billing? You can imagine the start date for service wont have been updated ….
And when they call for a netpromoter score I’ll refer them to this blog post.
Successful transformation of a business on behalf of customers is complex. These are the top 10 things that I’ve seen in transforming large businesses around the customer over the last decade. What have you seen?
1) Leadership built on uncompromising values
Leaders give absolute clarity and simplicity in their challenge and vision such that anyone can understand.
They insist on the values being lived
2) Leaders start externally
Ask the customers – nearly always the first step in creating awareness of dissatisfaction, and what to fix first and with what importance.
It usually requires experiential learning as well so that internal people “get it”.
3) Leaders keep learning what to do?
They ask the frontline staff because they know what ought to be done to achieve the challenge – this is at the heart of change working well .
The leader doesn’t ask what changes to make, but sets out clearly where they’re going and consults extensively on how people think they can get the business there.
He/she uses this to set up continuous processes for this kind of consultation and listening in order to “change the change” later.
4) Leaders support and equip their people
Support the change with the right resources and training – so each person feels equipped to do the new things.
Frontline management and middle management usually need more training and coaching than frontline staff.
5) Leaders plan to win
Make sure each person has time to do the job the new way, taking account of the fact that “its not something else on top of what you do, it’s the new way you do it”.
Adequate resource planning means people have time to do a great job
6)Leaders change what gets attention
Support the change by measuring different things differently.
Measure individuals on things they can affect, not the things they can’t affect.
Talk incessantly about the vision and successes on the path to it.
7) Leaders plan slow, act fast
The timescales are much sharper than would be first seen as reasonable – after the plan has been formulated, not before.
Leaders take a long time to consult and communicate and that shouldn’t be cut short if the change is to be sustainable.
Leaders communicate endlessly
Massive amounts of formal and informal communication.
The comms plan is as big as the project plan.
9) Leaders review and change
Proper project planning & review.
Communications planning and stakeholder communications.
Constantly “changing the change” with feedback.
Most project managers don’t have the necessary change skills and need training in many cases.
10) Leaders have stamina and consistency
Each decision, made along the way, sticks to the values and vision.
Any deviation introduces cynicism.
We were discussing this question in the office today. We were in agreement that there are two fundamentals – the physical and emotional angles. Physical work to get what you want, which varies little by customer and “emotional work”, which varies enormously by customer. There were many examples that convince or confuse when it comes to describing or measuring an experience through any customer effort index:
Why will customers queue for 2 days to buy Apple’s iPads? That’s a lot of customer effort. How can the emotional need to own an iPad overcome the physical effort in getting one?
Why will angry customers invest so much time in getting an apology, or in acting as brand terrorists and persuading others not to buy? It’s a lot of customer effort for little reward.
Why do I change my mind about some things from day to day ( buying a car) whereas others are constants (eg Man Utd)?
Why do measurements by asking customers rarely reflect what they really feel or give a full picture of the end to end experience?
Why do people donate lots of time for free in helping others in help forums, such as Microsoft’s MVP scheme or new companies like giffgaff ( more on this company later n the week)
We decided a few of levels of analysis are required for different purposes.
At the first level in “Best Service Is No Service” we use the value/irritant 2×2 grid to assess the amount customer effort (both physical and emotional) for each customer demand ( e.g. “where’s my stuff?”). One can quickly assess what action to take by this method eg if its an irritant to both company and customer then stop it. If value/value then invest in this demand type eg “I want to buy…”. Value to customer/irritant to company can be self served. Irritant to customer/value to company needs to be simplified.
At the second level to understand the flow of value, i.e. how value is added or destroyed, we think of the 3 major flows as physical work, emotional work and reward perceived by customers. We can look at this second level like a water tank being filled by 3 taps and emptied by 3 similar taps. Each tap represents a flow either in or out of the tank. The taps are a) physical work, b) emotional work and c) reward (both financial and emotional pay back). The tank holds the customer’s investment in the company’s brand. Every step along the customer’s journey can affect the taps and how the water level, i.e. the customer’s investment in the brand, goes up or down.
Some interactions can only affect the bottom taps – i.e. you can lose water but you can’t gain any. For example a car recall for faulty air bags done in the normal way can at best be neutral because it should not have happened at all. Some interactions can add or destroy value depending on how they are carried out, what emotional impact they have and what reward they bring.
In the next few days, I’ll look at how these “water tank” analogy can explain the complexity of the 5 questions above.
There’s a third level in which we can look in more detail at what drives the physical and emotional work and rewards. A great way to look at this is by Alan Mitchell of research house Ctrl-Shift. He uses the acronym OPTIMAL to represent a way of looking at effort. We’ll also visit this third level later in the week.
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?
One of the core Best Service Is No Serviceprinciples is that a company should be proactive in its dealings with customers – taking the initiative as a strategy to prevent problems and unnecessary contacts; thus improving the customer experience.
Well, it happened to me today and I have to say I was very, very impressed – not least because it was totally unexpected.
I am currently spending a lot of time on a client site and using taxis regularly to travel between hotel, airport and two client office locations. A taxi had been booked to take me from the hotel to the office that is my ‘base’ in the morning and another one to return me back to the hotel at the end of the day.
Due to the schedule of meetings, I changed the morning journey to drop me (and two colleagues) at the other office. Whilst we were still en-route, the taxi firm(Edinburgh City Private Hire) called to check whether they should alter the return journey to be a pickup from the second office.
Wow!
Simple, but powerful.
Common sense and obvious you might say, but certainly not a common experience. This kind of joined-up thinking is all too rare – so well done to them. If you find yourself in Edinburgh, I recommend you call 0131 477 4000 when you need a taxi – and tell them a happy customer sent you.
Now, if they only had online bookings – they could deflect a whole lot of calls to self-service!
My heart sank as I entered the check-in hall at Luton airport – a massive queue for the Dortmund flight desks. Not sure why I was surprised as I have had this experience before, but I was. Also a bit angry at the anticipated waste of time. And waste of time it almost was.
Standing in the queue, brain in neutral, I was idly thinking that I hadn’t looked at Twitter for several days, and I pulled out my phone to check the latest messages. Somehow, the trivial nature of Twitter content seemed a soothing prospect.
Naturally, my frustration with standing in the queue led to a tweet: “easyJet check-in queue not moving at all”. To be completely truthful, it took two tweets as the predictive text on my phone managed to put ‘doping’ instead of ‘moving’ the first time. I later discovered that the input language was set to German – I guess we will never know if it was my mistake, or over-eagerness by a super-intelligent phone, as I stood queuing for a flight to Germany!
I felt no better having sent the message and so resorted to talking to those around me, who were equally unhappy at the mystifying delay. I finally checked in after a one hour wait and the rest of the journey was completed perfectly satisfactorily.
At some point, it occurred to me that I had heard someone from easyJet was active on Twitter and so the next morning, with a few minutes to spare before a meeting, I opened up my laptop and logged back in.
Sure enough, there was a reply from @easyJetCare: “easyJetCare @imptwo I will pass your feedback on to Liz our airport manager for Luton. Usually they move pretty quickly. Hope you had a good flight ^PH”.
A Wow! moment. Direct customer engagement from easyJet, I was genuinely impressed. I had to test how far this would go and so responded: “imptwo @easyJetCare thanks for replying – others around me were unhappy with the 1 hour wait too. It’s raining here – can u fix that too? ”.
Again a reply – in a couple of hours: “easyJetCare@imptwoI will follow up, it is essential that you are informed about your delays. I wish I could fix the rain but I’m not that good ^PH”. This exchange now had a real human feel about it, and, curiously, just getting a response did make me feel better.
Nothing had actually changed and I am pretty sure the experience will be repeated. And the defence that a low-prices means low standards only goes so far; there are minimum standards of treatment and respect to which everyone is entitled.
But, a simple human contact (albeit technology-mediated), tempered with a little humour and I am prepared to forgive – which I guess makes me the very epitome of a loyal easyJet customer. Do you think I should worry about myself?
What it does demonstrate is the powerful principle that delivering a service of any kind is a person-to-person transaction, and don’t ever forget it when designing customer experiences. Now, if only easyJet were to send me a “you said, we did” message to let me know what has changed as a result of my feedback, that would be a great end to the story ….
Have you ever struggled with technology? Software crashed, got error messages that make no sense? Didn’t know which button to press next?
Well, it seems it may not be all your fault. David Pogue (technology reviewer for the New York Times) has that story.
Many of us are guilty of not making our services easy to understand and simple to use. Intimidating and confusing IVR interactions, complex transactions and fragmented organisational structures all serve to frustrate customers.
Thank goodness not all customers try to express their feelings in song. But, it is no less important to listen out for customer feedback through all channels and touch points just because it comes in less entertaining wrappers!
As David Pogue rightly say, “simplicity sells” – a message none of us can afford to ignore.
#humap what if 360 reviews said "how I feel as a result of working with u" rather than "what I think of u"08:01:25 PM February 02, 2012from web
don't you just hate turning up the airport early for a flight that doesn't exist.... And apols to those I'm missing today due to deadlines08:57:52 AM February 02, 2012from web
#moutiers anyone any ideas how to get from the station at 1815 on saturday to les menuires. Buses and car hire stop at 18.0011:02:30 PM February 01, 2012from web
Leaders communicate endlessly
A Wow! moment. Direct customer engagement from easyJet, I was genuinely impressed. I had to test how far this would go and so responded: “imptwo @easyJetCare thanks for replying – others around me were unhappy with the 1 hour wait too. It’s raining here – can u fix that too? 
”.
^PH”. This exchange now had a real human feel about it, and, curiously, just getting a response did make me feel better.
