Archive for the 'self service' Category

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.

Customer effort, IVR, customer experience design, insurance, self service, success factors, the best service is no service | No Comments

5pm in an airport Sunday. Started work at 1.30 and in 3 hours work I have achieved very little.

a) Not started on real work tasks

b) Eventually downloaded all email attachments to prep a board meeting next week after some resends and an hour of waiting. Not had chance to read any.

c) Not booked car parking for next week – no log on ability on main screen and I know if I try to book it will reject me as my email address is already in use. So I have to book, fail, then log in and book again.   (Gatwick)

d) Not printed air tickets for tomorrow (Easyjet) as access failed after trying my passwords. So tried for new password and but email hasn’t come so I suspect it was a site error rather than password error. Trying later shows this to be so. Tried tweeting them as no route through help to resolve.

e) Not entered supplementary details for another air ticket ( Easyjet) for next week so I can print them – why does France want my passport details, its not Spain or Portugal – looks like a lazy process for flying abroad.

f) Tried at airport and failed to make macbook connect with phone as bluetooth connection is failing.

g) So couldn’t connect to personal bank and pay bills and make Jan 31 tax payment.

h) Cant connect to business bank and make authorisations that have been waiting since Friday as it kicks me off half way through

i) Cant update to blog – saved text til later.

j) Cant update weekly work and comms tasks in work wiki

h) Cant download and read the research papers I need for tomorrow.

i) Cant get into Twitter, Linked In and Facebook to check and update

I did manage to renew my travel insurance – well done Multitrip – an actual low touch service. Fished out email from a month ago. Clicked on link which had my sign on & password below it. Copied password and entered site. Chose renew. Checked all cover features ( and could have selected/deselected each feature. Entered card details. Renewed. Choose to print papers or just leave online. Very little customer effort and really well thought through.

Contrast this process from first direct to pay my tax bill this evening when I got home ( and yes I’m a fan and dont like slagging them off but heh its been a long day…) I make the payment online, it  insists I phone them to confirm after making payment on line. Fair enough but when I have to done so to confirm, they insist they ring me back tomorrow to do it again. I tell them thats dumb but if they insist if they do that then its after 1.30, on my mobile and with a good reason why. Two minutes later the same guy tries to get thro by mobile which has zilch signal at home. I call them again, pass security again and they say they still need to call me back again. They haven’t got my home number so I give it them. They phone me on it – so how secure is that.  I go through security again and get no more info than on the first call. Talk about dumb. I gave the poor lady feedback. Directly.

I sometimes feel my internet time is at a premium between meetings, at airports, interrupting just being at home. At home in Kent, or in County Down, in the office, or through my mobile – I rarely get a fast service anymore ( and yes, all checked, it isn’t the laptop or software). Last week I travelled all the way from London to Bristol without getting any service fast enough to download the last minute papers for the meeting I was going to – its no better by mobile.

So here I am another 75 mins later. And still not started work.

Customer effort, customer experience, first direct, insurance, self service | No Comments

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.

Customer effort, airlines, contact rate, customer experience design, reduction in contacts, self service | 1 Comment

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?

brilliant basics, broken websites, customer experience, customer experience design, fast+simple, quality, self service | 2 Comments

I was asked 3 questions about contact centres for a website recently and I thought I’d share them with you:

1)         What was the biggest challenge facing the contact centre industry in the last 12 months and how did they overcome it?

Whilst there are sexy new things we’re doing like customer help customer, analytics and new ways of knowledge sharing, its really about  the same old challenges to brilliant operating basics that should be the focus for managers who are making big strides.

TOP OF THE LONG LIST OF INTERACTING BASICS ARE :

• a) Why customers have to contact you at all
• b) How the business model changes to focus on removing unnecessary contact, driving excellence in self service and engaging the whole business in removing root causes of frustrations and listening to feedback and intelligence from the contact points
• c) Operating effectively to meet demand
• d) Understanding what knowledge the website and staff need to answer customer needs
• e) the role of contact centres in providing feedback and intelligence to the rest of the business; and how to get the mountains of customer feedback gathered around the business to be useful

 2)         What are the key issues you expect the industry to be tackling in the next 12-18 months?

• a) Embedding new business wide processes that remove at least 20% of unit costs every year  by using feedback and what front line staff know to drive change
• b) The move to customer help customer model causing the role of contact centres to change rapidly
• c) The same ones as before on brilliant basics of running contact centres and self service channels

 3)         Could you give us some insights on how companies can stop doing stupid things to their customers and the benefits it is bringing to their organisations?

Our mission is “How do we stop doing dumb things to our customers and our people?” so we have lots to say on this topic. If I can paraphrase the question – the most successful businesses are removing things systematically by installing and embedding new company-wide management processes based on a different kind of data. The least successful businesses keep kicking off analysis and then generating projects to fix things: we call this “it’s raining projects”. The least successful businesses are swamped with the feedback they request from customers, but don’t act on. For more contact peter.massey@budd.uk.com or take a look at www.budd.uk.com

Customer satisfaction, Voice of the Customer, customer experience, feedback, listening, mission, self service, the best service is no service | No Comments

Virgin Airlines bag drop queues are a joy ! (see photo). You check in online before traveling to speed up check in, save trees, know you can sit together and leave home later. Sounds great but as the photos show, Virgin hasn’t worked out how to avoid queues to “not-check-in” in the year since I last flew with them. The bag drop queue being longer than the check in queue. 2 simple things to do – forecasting the relative number of checked in vs check in customers so the spread of desks is matched; alter the process at the desk. There’s no recognition of anything you did online. Same questions, same process as if you hadn’t checked in. To cap it they still give you an extra paper folder marked tickets to put your boarding card in. Come on Virgin you can do better than that !

airlines, self service | 1 Comment