Archive for the 'dumb things' Category

The insurance industry is a perennial favourite for generating stories about bad customer experiences. Particularly car insurance, and especially policy renewal.My wife’s car insurance is currently up for renewal. For many years we, like lots of others, had used and trusted a broker to secure us a ‘good deal’. This despite the fact that we moved 100 miles away from them more than 20 years ago!Again like lots of others, the Internet has now replaced the broker for our research, or at least to find confirmation that the renewal quotation we have received from the current provider is competitive. As a I work within customer experience, I naturally offered to do the work, and surf the web. As a marketer, I am also observant of smart advertising – and went straight to a price comparison website. On this occasion, comparethemarket.com.The process of entering all our details into the many pages was straightforward and I quickly got lots of quotes! A number of them were significantly cheaper than our current provider and I chose one that seemed particularly appropriate for our needs – by no means the cheapest but offering the better overall value.Satisfied with the experience, I was surprised to receive a phone call a few minutes later resulting from my visit to the website. The agent calling offered me the possibility of an even better deal, as a result of one insurer wanting to speak directly with me.My reaction to the opening part of the call was a mixture of shock and anger. Shock that what I understood to be the source of the best deals (the website) might not be – completely undermining the comparethemarket.com proposition. At that moment, the first reputation died.The anger resulted from feeling hoodwinked. I realised that somewhere along the way I would have agreed to being contacted – but it had not been obvious. And the speed at which it had happened so soon after visiting the website only compounded the sense of somehow being betrayed. The information is actually on the home page, only in very small font at the very bottom.Back to our story. The agent checked some details that I had entered in the web forms and then offered to put me through to this particular company that was so keen to have my business that it wanted to speak to me immediately. I declined when the name of the company was mentioned, as they have a poor reputation in my mind.Incredibly, and by an amazing coincidence, there was a second firm also ready and waiting to talk to me – Allen and Allen (I presume The A&A Group Ltd). By now, professional curiosity had kicked in and I was keen to see how the whole process would be concluded, and so I agreed. It was explained that there was no ‘cheesy’ or irritating hold music, but there was a long silence before a new voice came on the line.The silence was broken and news was not good. What the agent actually said was that no-one was available and  could they call back later? But what I heard was the death rattle of a second reputation. Incredible! Here I was, a living, breathing prospect on the point of purchase (a perfect opportunity you would have thought) and no-one was available? Except of course the guy who spoke to me no-one was available … only he couldn’t sell me insurance!Our passion is to help clients stop doing ‘dumb’ things to their customers – and believe me I was, by now, very very passionate … just not in a good way.When reflecting on the call, I realised that the original agent had not identified the company that they were calling from – I had assumed it was comparethemarket.com but a little more digging on the Internet suggests that it was probably LeadX Ltd (a comparethemarket.com trusted partner). Frankly, based on my experience, I wouldn’t trust them. Others seem to view them in the same negative light – a third reputation bites the dust.I realise that I am only a single customer and it is very unlikely that any of the companies are interested in my feedback,  but if anyone from comparethemarket.com wants to talk to me about this, then please get in touch. I know you know my phone number.  Killing three reputations in single phone call really is quite an achievement.17/7/09 update – just received a follow-up call from LeadX, so they obviously have not read this blog!

WOCAS, complaint, customer experience, dumb things, insurance | No Comments

Hi Lynn – not sure what to say. My inbox is already filling with industry people who feel misrepresented – yet again. There’s so much good stuff in the industry, so many people trying very hard to fix what’s broken. Ok Paul made that stance at the start but it wasn’t explored.

I feel particularly disappointed at the editing. The juxtaposition of customer comments with extracts from conversations eg the American “have a nice day” with a first direct agent – it so misrepresents what first direct do.

It looked like “which clips can we use to illustrate the point we want to make” rather than any insightful journey.

dumb things, first direct | No Comments

That was the response I had from Carphone Warehouse this morning.

I’m on month 14 of an 18 month contract and yes, I know what a contract means – but over the last few months, having missed some important emails when out and about, I thought I might move up in the world to a Blackberry or XDA. Blackberry have just brought out a girly pink Pearl and since I have girly pink laptop, thought this would do very nicely.

However, even when I offered to consider a penalty, upgrade to a contract more than double the monthly value and lock myself in to them for a further 18 months – the computer said “No”. You can only upgrade when there’s only two months left on the contract.

So if I’m very desperate for a pink Blackberry, or to prove a point, I’ll now have to go and get a contract with someone else and end my contract with Carphone in 3 months time. It must make some good business sense to someone at Carphone – but sending your customers to another supplier when they say “Hello, I’d like to spend more money, for much longer than I intended to” - has never been top of my list of things to do!

Customer satisfaction, dumb things | 1 Comment

Now that the Royal Mail has implemented its ‘Revenue Loss Prevention’ handling charges on any all odd sized, over heavy, under stamped post, it must have stopped quite a few people getting it wrong.

But of course people still make mistakes. Last week we received a note in the mail bundle saying a letter was being held at central post office due to lack of correct postage and no-one in to pay excess. I actually took the mail bundle (we share offices with 6 or 7 other businesses) from the postman that day, and guess what? no mention of excess to pay on any letter.

So I walk to the post office address advised on the form, hand the form over and wait for results. The chap behind the counter had evidently had a bad day. I tried smiling, did not work, tried chatting, did not work. Oh well can’t have everything. Hand over the form, off he goes and comes back with letter. That’s £1.24 he says. I look in my wallet; see I have only a £20 note left. In typically British style I hand it over, apologising that it is all that I have got. The chap behind the counter eyed it dubiously. “Can’t take that, would take all my change, you’ll have to come back tomorrow” with strong undertones of ‘how can you be so stupid as to try and palm off a £20 note, do you think we are running a public service here! So being British, I slink off.

Next day it was back to the post office with lots of loose change in my pocket. Obviously a better day, as really nice cheerful man goes to find the letter. “What security do you need?” I ask. “Just something with your name on it” comes the reply. But the letter is addressed to our business with no mention of my name on it. “Oh that’s OK as we accept anything with a name on it if you are paying excess.

So with thoughts of security rattling through my mind I go back to my office and open the letter. And now comes the real reason for writing this blog –

It was a direct marketing campaign from Monster on line recruitment and they had conveniently forgotten to frank the envelope

So I had wasted at least 1½ hours going to and fro from the post office, it had cost me £1.24 (it’s the principle of the thing) to get a letter that went straight into the recycling box! Miffed, definitely 

So come on Post Office, get your processes right, and make your staff more focused on looking after your customers

And Monster, how many other people have had to pay for your marketing campaigns, is it a ploy to keep your costs down? Not very conducive to make me use your services if you cannot get a mailing right.

Customer satisfaction, customer experience, dumb things | 1 Comment

Why is it that when we try and fix problems we tend to forget it’s the little things that make a difference between good and bad customers experience. Monday last week was a case in point. I travel up from the South coast into London Victoria on a fairly frequent basis. The train I catch is the 6.57 that goes all the way and ours is the first (or last, depending how you look at it) stop on the line. Most mornings I’m usually to be found sat in my usual seat (predictable, I know) working away on the PC. Now all praise to Southern Rail, they have significantly improved services over the past few years with new carriages, more frequent services at peak times and they normally run on time. This Monday was different, a broken down train somewhere around Hayward’s Heath was causing utter chaos. I arrived at the station to see a train pulling out that should have gone ½ an hour before, so I knew I was in for some travel problems that day.  The digital indicator board was still saying my train was OK, although the ticket sales guy was muttering he did not know what was going on.  So, out onto the platform into a cold, misty and wet January morning. Just the type of day to really enjoy waiting for the train.As you can imagine not many passengers where too impressed. They became less and less impressed as the conflicting and confusing updates came over the tannoy and occasionally from the ticket office man. From the tannoy came the “we are sorry to say….” dutifully repeated every 10 minutes. Occasionally informing us that “The train for…” was delayed. From the ticket man a message informing us that “a broken down train is causing a blockage, not sure when it’s going to be cleared”. From the digital information board – 1^st train due, 2^nd train due, 3^rd train due. So everyone hung around, hoping for the best, as you do. My train, the 6.57, was kept on the digital indicator board, although others were clearly shown as cancelled. Even though the message came up delayed till 7.13, then delayed till 7.20, delayed till 7.25, delayed till 7.30 I still had hope, because the message was still there! Then it disappeared off the screen, no note of cancellation, just gone.At this point I became frustrated of Seaford and went to join the queue of people trying to get info from the poor ticket man. No hope there, so reclaimed my ticket cost (which took the poor man a considerable time although he must have got faster by the end of the morning with all the refunds he had to do, good practical training there!). So what caused all the confusion? All the elements were there. Good visual indicator boards, clear audio announcements, local presence in the ticket man.  But none of them told the same story (actually the ticket man was closest, and I should have listened to him). End result were deep rumblings of discontent the next day that could be heard from my, now thawed out, fellow commuters.All the good things that Southern and National rail have put in were forgotten, to be replaced by the most recent event now linked to every other time something had gone wrong.  Effective communications, always difficult, are even more important when things go wrong. If the man on the spot had been kept informed and in turn kept us informed, if he was able to ensure consistency of information over the tannoy and information boards, he could have potentially turned a negative situation into a positive one. 

Customers will put up with a lot when asked to, and trains break down. That’s part of life (well a commuters one anyway). It’s when people are confused or kept in the dark (and rain!) that it becomes a problem. And at that point people always remember the bad, not the good.

So come on Southern, get your communications plan in place and staff trained and supported in handling adverse situations. Then we can all focus on how well you have done, rather than on the occasional failure.

Uncategorized, dumb things, train | No Comments

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

Remember the old movies when a guy taking a picture used to say ‘watch the birdie’ and everyone promptly stared at the stuffed bird held in the photographer’s hand?
Usually it was only for a very short time, then with a bang and a flash it was all over and hey presto you had a beautiful picture (well something in sepia anyway) to keep the customers happy

I sometimes wish delivering customer service could be so visual and dramatic, where you could wave a magic wand and it would be fixed instantaneously to the customers delight. How different it is in real life

Normally it is down to the detail of how you respond to, and manage, peoples expectations, being able to meet changing demands and thinking on your feet

A small event happened to me this week that emphasised the need to keep an eye on your customer at all times and remember that the customer is the primary reason we are here (they hold the money after all)

I made the mistake of driving to Gatwick Airport and trying to park in the short term car park. This is always very busy, irrespective of time of day, and has a row of automatic barriers where you take your ticket, the barrier machine waits for a period of time, obviously doing some detailed electronic analysis of you, your car, number plates, painting it’s electronic nails etc and then lets you in to the hallowed sanctuary of the car park

Well on Monday one of the barriers had broken and the attendant was trying to fix the machine. A lady in her mini was stuck at the barrier entrance as the bar would not lift, and the weight of traffic rapidly built up so she could not reverse. The traffic then got so bad it started to block the entrance road. Chaos and tooting horns, very embarrassed lady (not her fault) grumpy commuters going to miss the Gatwick express to London and general travellers lost at the start of their journey. (It’s amazing how bad tempered we become when something gets in the way of our routine commute)

But back to the attendant, who at that time represented NCP. Did he let the lady through? Did he try and manage the traffic? Did he call for assistance?

No. He did the very human thing of doing what he was most comfortable with, trying to fix the machine, then as the pressure got worse, carried on trying to fix the machine and ignored the increasing chaos around him. It was much safer with the machine than trying to calm a load of frustrated customers of NCP!

Simple message, but get it right it’s a powerful one, train and enable your staff to look after the customers first, not the machine or the process. You can (normally) fix them afterwards. Think of the positive impression that attendant could have created if he had taken control of the situation and kept the traffic flowing. Those people involved would have praised NCP, not muttered some of the comments I heard!

customer experience, dumb things | 1 Comment

My daughter has an O2 phone. She’s been waiting for the 12 months to end for the last few months to get a new phone.
Its finally out of contract so we called to try and get renewed with the phone she wants.

After simple security q&a (see more later), the best the sales agent could do was to increase her contract in money and length to get a free phone.
I try for the best deal I can get – which isn’t any deal, so we decide to go elsewhere

My daughter looks on the various websites and we find various better deals ( she wants more text) but she doesn’t want to be without service and I don’t want more paperwork
We then find the same phone on the O2 website, free on a 12 month contract, so we try to do that, but of course that means a fresh contract and we therefore need to go back and cancel the old contract. We might as well try for a “common sense” saving of effort (for both of us and O2) whereby we don’t cancel and they just give us the online deal

We phone again, abandoned once on the “thinking of cancelling” option. Eventually got thro and then get transferred to the “right” person. She wants to know our security question, not the security answer, the question. Well 12 months have passed….you know where this is going. She says it’s a DPA regulation – I tell her its not. Its more than my bank (first direct) want. Slowly we negotiate different questions. The tariff we’re on. Its on the bill. Well it isn’t. (subsequently find a second page of a bill later with it on). Eventually we spend several minutes debating info before I find a bank file and give her bank details instead. I’m very wound up by now to say the least !

She cant do the common sense deal. So we need to cancel to buy again. She can’t cancel us, so she transfers us to “retentions” not cancellations.

I explain why we want to cancel. Cancel and not buy again, since the whole experience has been so dumb and annoying.

We now get the offer we wanted to start with – a free phone, a 12 month contract. And we get a load of free texts. No paperwork.

So we get to where we needed to be.

A waste of my time and the four agents we spoke to. And O2 are giving away money. 4 contacts and a give away. Expensive way to renew. That’s ok, they’ll say – we were retained.

We were churned, we were retained, we cost money in time and giveaways, in brand damage.

I asked both the last 2 agents if they could take customer suggestions about how to improve. The first said no, I’d have to speak to customer services. The second said yes she would. I wonder what it woudl say if you could see what she captured compared to what I offered as feedback.

Anyone at O2 there?

O2, dumb things | No Comments

I sit writing, bleary eyed, having just taken off from Milan very early this morning after an excellent night on the tiles at Stream’s annual user conference. The conference circuit has been taking its toll on my blogging of late….. In the last 30 days, its been ECMW, a telco CRM event in Lisbon, our own Chief Customer Officer forum, then Dusseldorf and Paris with LimeBridge external events, LimeBridge’s 10th global gathering. This week it’s been Milan and the British Bankers Association. Finally next week I chair Advanced Customer Management in London and the “season” finishes. I probably need to buy an acre of Brazilian rainforest to offset the flights and the midnight oil that has been burned.

There’s at least 10 blogs to back date from the interesting things I’ve heard people talking about, Prahalad, Eisner. Updates on how LimeBridge is jumping to its next iteration etc – I’ll catch up at the weekend….may be.

What just caught my eye was an article in the FT titled “In the pursuit of happiness”. The story goes that the long held premise that happy staff make happy customers is not backed up by the evidence. Crumbs, I just noticed I know the journalist – will have to shoot him – Alan I know where you live !

On the conference circuit I’ve been talking a lot about our passion of “how do we stop doing dumb things to our customers and people” and trying hard to get people to feel the feelings that customer facing staff feel when they deliver dumb things in what we call the “stupid factory” of poor processes. How it feels when they are not supported by management, and worse when they are controlled by management practices and measurements. And how they perform when they are supported rather than managed (see the blogs on red nose day, and on the 4 questions that Happy use). I’ve been working hard to recognise that change in attitudes starts with them, not someone else. How they respect people by saying hello in the morning, how they listen to their frontline staff who know what customers are saying. How they are as managers and designers of the operation around them.

There’s also a fundamental that people won’t get off their backsides for money, to make shareholders another million. But they will for a real purpose, for a passion that matters. When we did the CCO forum we calculated that about 30 million customers and 90,000 staff would be affected by how the influential people in the room drove their businesses – that matters. Not how much more money their businesses would make as a result. I realised I had to shout this from the roof tops when I heard a colleague of mine say he thought our passion didn’t make our sales proposition clear. Bollocks to propositions, its not about business – its about how frustrated and fed up we’re making those 90,000 people and 30 million customers. And how quickly can we stop it happening.

So as you see the FT article got me going! It refers to the seminal HBR article “The Service Profit Chain” (you can read it in our library at http://www.budd.uk.com/ ) and how the authors now admit its not that direct a linkage from satisfied staff to satisfied customers to higher profits. That’s its not that linear. Of course it isn’t. But that doesn’t mean that happy staff don’t deliver better results.

The article falls into the trap of measuring results only in shareholder terms ie profit. 21st century business is also about measuring social returns on customer time wasted, staff lives wasted and natural resources wasted from paper wasted on junk mail to midnight oil burned trying to get your laptop to work with all its new software and PDAs and printers. This matters far more to people. It gives purpose to what businesses are for.

In fairness the article does touch on the need for both dimensions, the process and the motivation, to be right in order to deliver a good result for customers. And it emphasises a key thing – that workers should redesign work, not managers or consultants. They already know what’s broken – you just have to free them to change what happens. It’s managers “managing by getting in the way” LINK that’s the problem with the Service Profit Chain logic, not the service profit chain itself. And the article does emphasise the Gallup 12 questions ( see previous post) bringing out that its your direct manager who affects most how you feel and therefore how well you perform

Alan must have been reading our blogs when he put his FT article together, given all the things he mentioned!!

Well that’s another half hour lost to ranting, but I feel better for it! A bientot

chief customer officer, dumb things, managing, people | No Comments

brilliant basics, dumb things | No Comments