Archive for the 'Marks and Spencers' Category

Posted by: Peter Massey | 13.01.2010

Here’s a great example of the small things in a customer experience that end up costing serious money. They’d cost very little to fix. Sent with love as the clients at M&S Money and first drect are top people and their past experiences have been excellent – but they threw away the sales benefit of all that great history at the crucial point.

I have travel insurance with M&S Money so I received a renewal notice by post. It feels a bit steep having gone up 50% in 2 years. But I haven’t got time to muck about. I’m going skiing so I need to act. I also need to get buildings and contents sorted before I go. And I have a quote in my hand from NFU for 2 of my cars that needs renewing before I go, so I may see what they can do on that before I make another call.

The M&S Money renewal notice is 6 pages of paper, much of it not relevant to me at this point. Some of it about Axa who underwrite. But nowhere does it say how to renew automatically online. Nowhere does it remind me that they did a great job on a claim last year – a fact I forgot until later. The number to ring is there on page 2 so I ring it.

The number is obviously the same number as for new sales as it tells you get the best price, 20% lower, by going on line. So I select option 3 for that, thinking it was a strange way of getting online. It just sends you to oblivion. I just checked the number again but  its closed and advises you still to go online to get a best quote (despite the fact the website is down).

So I go online obviously seeing no end of googled prompts to go somewhere other than the M&S Money site. I get a price which is 8% lower, not 20% lower. Hmmmm.

Since the price is steep and not the 20% lower, I do a quick check before buying from the M&S site. Meerkats brand awareness is in mind…… so I “go compare” at their site. Its very fast and I get a list within a minute. I don’t recognise any of the brands but they are a good 50% lower in cost for the same headline benefits. I check out the site of the most likely one, Multitrip, since there are no creds on the Meerkats site. It shows its underwritten by Axa – the same as M&SMoney.  I remember at this point that it was Axa who did a great job on the M&S claim. It has a detailed list of benefits and features which seem comprehensive. I check the 6 page letter and it doesn’t have a list.

I then check the quote on the Multitrip site – its fast and lower again than on Comparethemarket so I buy it direct from Multitrip. Job done. Note how the brand trust has travelled from M&S to Axa to Multitrip.

Meanwhile NFU phone and I renew the cars without getting an alternative quote from M&S Money. Or anyone. Why not? They’ve always been lowest on any quote Ive got by a country mile on old Land Rovers. The souped up Mini is reasonable at £400 ish and so I know Its not worth chasing a quote. NFU has no functionality on line.

Now for the home and contents. I go back to the M&S Money site to get a quote and get the attached quote screen – the service is not available. So I ring the number given. Eventually I get to choose an option 5, yes 5th of 6, to get a quote. And what a wall of recorded messages I hit. I went from amused to fed up to giving “fed up” feedback on the IVR when I eventually got through. And then guess what – the agent’s system is down too, so I’d wasted all that time listening to messages for no use at all. The poor agent got more feedback about updating sites with relevant messages. And how I wasnt going to get a quote from M&S Money later, no thanks.

Now people at first direct may be laughing…. but don’t. I got transferred through to insurance sales after a routine transaction earlier in the week from a train. I would have asked for travel, car and home quotes. But the recorded “business prevention” message was so long that I just told the agent I didn’t have time for this that the message had so turned me off that I didnt want any quotes.

OK this stuff is hard to get right. But its not rocket science. Its attention to detail. Its inexpensive to fix. As one client said this week – “the brand IS the customer experience”.

Compare the market, Marks and Spencers, NFU, first direct, multitrip | No Comments

Posted by: Jo Sparkes | 8.11.2007

Whatever you do, if you talk to my Dad this week, don’t mention Marks and Spencers.

His church has recently had a lovely new extension, including a cafe and bar facilities. They were looking to furnish it with some good value but contemporary chairs and discovered that M&S were offering a £16 discount on a set of four dining chairs, an online offer of the month. Bargain – they ordered 6 sets (24 chairs). An email confirming the order was received immediately. Two days later, notification of despatch and an estimated delivery period was given. Brilliant – they’d all be there in time for the first hall booking, a 70th birthday party three days after the end of the delivery period – or would they…

Not having received any communication from a carrier by mid-day on the last day of the delivery period my Dad rang customer services to ascertain progress. That was apparently the wrong number to ring, he was given another number that dealt with furniture deliveries. On calling this number the agent couldn’t trace his order and Dad was given the name of the transport company. They did their best to help but could find no record of his order. This agent talked to her supervisor who informed her that they didn’t actually deliver furniture for M&S.

I could sense just a tiny bit of frustration in Dad’s voice as he called the furniture section of M&S again, only to be redirected to the first number he had called. On talking to a different agent on the customer services orderline number she again tried to redirect him to furniture. When he pointed out that he was now embarking on the same cycle of five phone calls that he’d just completed she promised to look into the problem and call back. To be fair she came back quite quickly but only to say that the items were out of stock and not expected to be in until the 4th November. No-one had any idea why he had an email telling him they’d already been despatched. Dad wasn’t exactly pleased but didn’t have much option but to accept it. Who needs chairs at a birthday party anyway?

Imagine his surprise at 7.00 the same evening when he had a call from HDN (Home Delivery Network – if you google that the results are also very revealing) informing him that they had his chairs and would deliver them three days later. Dad asked them why they couldn’t be delivered in the original time period and they said “Well, that’s only an estimate.”

Three days later the carrier turned up… with four out of the six packs of chairs!

The whole cycle of phone calls was repeated yet again. One agent was so insistent that he should speak to someone in furniture and not the customer services orderline that she transferred him mid-protestation. Dad’s had enough – 3 hours in total on the telephone and a letter to Customer Correspondence which hasn’t been replied to 14 days later. In actual fact it’s probably the carrier that let M&S down but at no point could an agent find out what had happened to the order or take control of the query.

Today someone at church just asked Dad to order two more packs…….

Marks and Spencers, complaint, customer experience | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 8.11.2007

I’ve been struck lately by the correlation between 2 things:

• The people who return (or have returned for them) their phone calls and their emails
• The type of experience given to customers in those same businesses

One of our Chief Customer Officers, who is excellent with his personal communications despite being very busy, told an interesting story of Marks and Spencers.

He had a bed ordered to be delivered on a particular day in a new house, because he had guest coming to stay. It didn’t get delivered when it should have been so he escalated it of course only to be told it couldn’t now be delivered and that, no, there was no one he could raise it with.

Not happy. Our man isn’t one to take that lying down (joke, oh do keep up !!). He was going to go through all the various folk needed to get what he wanted. Ultimately the fruitless trail led all the way to the customer service director. He was told the customer service director does not speak to customers! Imagine his fury and his vehement retelling of this story. Of course he, the story teller, does speak to customers. It’s part of his job to be responsible in person. And it keeps him real. Maybe that’s why he returns his calls. Because he cares even when he’s busy.

M&S came up again in our weekly meeting – interesting things that have happened this week. Jo’s dad spent Saturday afternoon on the phone to M&S….. I expect the customer service director at M&S is a nice guy or lady. They’d probably cringe at the thought that they “don’t talk to customers”.

To quote one of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos sayings: “Be very afraid of our customers. They’re the ones who have the money”. Perhaps the customer service director was very afraid…

So who is in charge of representing the customer at M&S. I took at look at their board. It isn’t clear that there is anyone. Lots of product and logistics and so on. Now that can be a great thing – the customer is everywhere. Or it can be a bad thing – no chief customer officer to listen to, aggregate and prioritise what customers want done across the business and represent doing the right things for customers.

I know, I’ll mail this to Stuart Rose. Now he does talk to people. He even responds to mailshots to say no thank you. That’s the kind of eye for detail, care of your brand and personal responsibility that makes great companies great. I bet he returns his calls or has them returned.

One cannot expect great customer experiences from your company unless one represents that ethos personally.

CCO, Marks and Spencers, complaint, customer experience | No Comments