Archive for the 'good things' Category

I was most impressed to find out real time there was a bomb scare near our office in Tottenham Court Rd – and well before it hit the news.

At 12.50pm the Fitzrovia Partnership emailed with a police notification explaining there was an alert and to stay in the building or head away from the area.

At half one there was an update to say move away from the front of the buildings but stay inside.

At half three a final update to say the risk was over but there was still disruption.

What a good use of commercial lists even if it did break a data protection routine.

Proactive communication like this avoids lots of queries, is straight from the horse’s mouth and minimises disruption as much as possible. One of the principles of “The Best Service Is No Service”.

data protection, good things, police, proactive | No Comments

One of the core Best Service Is No Service principles 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!

brilliant basics, customer experience, customer experience design, fast+simple, good things, taxis, the best service is no service | No Comments

Radio 4’s You and Yours programme picked up on our mission “how do we stop doing dumb things to customers” today and included our sound bite. How do you sum up the answer to customer experience in 15seconds?

The thing to do is to recognise that customers know what’s wrong, so listen to them and act on it. Short and sweet eh?

You and Yours are looking to reward good service by accepting nominations which they’ll broadcast on air. Today’s were:
Nat Savings & Investments’ call centre
A lady in New Maldon post office

To keep nominations coming in, they ask you send them via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/youandyours_contact.shtml

dumb things, good things, mission | No Comments