This week started unusually when Peter returned from a visit to India straight into a Monday morning meeting with David Cameron and Boris Johnson at our offices at Central Working. The topic was entrepreneurialism. A small group of entrepreneurs were invited to put forward their insights ranging across supporting growth, flexible space, banks, government schemes and red tape.
The final Budd animation has arrived and we are really pleased with the finished product! Have a watch and let us know what you think…
Leave a comment here or on the you tube page or get in touch, we’d love to know what you think!
Today we went along to the Responsible Business Convention in Islington – a terrific event and a real chance to see what charities, social enterprises and other companies are doing to make a change. Whilst we were there we bumped into Creative Connections (http://www.creativeconnection.co.uk/), a company we’ve worked with before at our Stop Doing Dumb Things Unconference in November last year and are working with at our future one in June (see the website for tickets if you haven’t already got one http://www.dumbthings.co.uk).
They are fantastic at taking an idea (aka pro bono) and making it really creative, here’s what they whipped up with our idea!
I was impressed today in Starbucks in Bangor. There was a little sign that said something like ” we noticed lots of our customers are buying extra shots with their larger size drinks. So we’ve added an extra shot at no extra charge. Tell us if you don’t want the extra shot.
That’s impressive use of data, interpretation of what’s being said ( Starbucks tastes like hot milk…) and doing the right thing for the customer at no extra charge. Impressive.
Anyone got any other examples?
I tried to log onto one of my credit card accounts today to check the balance. I rarely use the site as it was a 0% balance transfer, never use the card – don’t even know where it is. So, no surprise that I can’t remember my login details and password. I have a couple of goes recalling all my stock passwords (yes I know it’s bad practice and I’m encouraging identity fraud, but we all do it. Don’t we?). Anyway, no problem, I call up the number on the website and the guy on the phone is really helpful. Some basic security questions, one of which I get wrong so he asks me another and bingo, this time I’m right and he gives me my balance and offers me another 0% balance transfer. Nice touch…but I decline. Towards the end of the call I ask him to reset my login details so that I wouldn’t have to call in future. Strangely, bearing in mind he’d established that I was the real Tony Weimer and that he’d just given me my balance and some other details, he tells me my login name but says he can’t reset my password and that I have to do that on the website. OK, a bit of a pain and more effort required on my part but, he’s been helpful and I’m sure it’ll be straightforward. Wrong. Will I ever learn? I login using the name that he’s given me. Fine. I’m prompted for the password that I don’t know, so I hit the “forgotten password” link that takes me to another page to enter my credit card number (remember I don’t have the card but cunningly I find a way of getting the card number). I refuse to let them grind me down. Brilliant, plain sailing now. Wrong again. I now need to enter the 3 digit security code (that I don’t have). Scuppered. Unfortunately, I wasn’t cunning enough to record that anywhere.
Given that I had established who I was on the call, wouldn’t it have been easier for the guy to have reset the password for me? Not only for me but for them too. Next time I want a balance I have no option but to give them a call. And yes I can hear you all saying, “If you weren’t so dumb and had your card there wouldn’t be a problem”. I can’t argue with that and customers do do dumb things from time to time but that’s no excuse for companies using dumb processes that just doesn’t make sense, are counterproductive and leave me feeling frustrated.
At a recent Budd networking event one of our guests asked “we’ve had customer service, continual improvement, CRM and whatever the next buzz word will be, but do you really think customer service has improved over the last 10 years?” She had a point. As I’m just about to embark on our annual telco contact rate benchmark exercise it prompted me to question whether we would see any real change from last year. At that time we saw the continued emphasis on shifting customers from pre-pay to post pay, the widespread use of 24 month smartphone contracts and the advent of social media support. All against a backdrop of generally poor NPS scores. And, contact rate reduction had levelled out too.
On the surface it looked like another case of poor service and nobody really cares. As always the devil is the detail and on closer inspection it became evident that it is no mean feat that contact rates remained stable given that mobile phones are far more complex that they were say, 3 years ago and our propensity to call is greater than ever. By encouraging the shift to crowdservicing through the use of community forums and customer help customer support, the telcos have managed to maintain their service in the face of greater demand. I’m not saying service or the customer experience has improved and I still get incredibly frustrated when they do “dumb things”, but it hasn’t deteriorated either.
That brings me on to the best find of last year’s research – giffgaff (www.giffgaff.com). With their radically different business model based entirely on crowdservicing for support and crowdsourcing for new product ideas, they led the way and the big boys were following. They had managed to build a loyal customer base by engaging and rewarding their customers in a way that hadn’t been achieved, certainly by a telco, before. Known as the people powered network they integrated their community into the business from day one by incentivising them to recruit new members and provide support to the community.
I’m not sure I’m going to unearth another giffgaff, but I’m hoping I’m going to find some innovations that really are having a positive impact on the customer experience and who knows, might even have a positive outcome for the telcos too. Sadly, I’m not sure I will but I’m willing to be proven wrong. Watch this space.
I was inspired today by a most excellent Chef Customer Officer Forum. As one member just emailed: “a packed content day of exchange and learning. A truly not to miss event.”
One of the many nuggets came back to purpose and I wanted to share something I’ve been using from the England cricket team – well in their heyday at the end of last year. Apparently the coaches spent some time getting the players to explain, understand and brand themselves around their purpose.
So batsmen became run getters and bowlers and fielders became wicket takers. Simple, fundamental.
When did you last ask your staff what their purpose is?
Three examples from this weekend have me perplexed. #EDF. #Orange and #Land Rover.
Why perplexed? Because they break all the rules of “good” and yet I haven’t moved.
Let’s take EDF. Every now and then I have to do something because they keep bumping my direct debit up. I try to use web self service, it doesn’t recognise me, it doesn’t recognise my secret answers so I have to phone them. The voice recognition doesn’t recognise me and the member of staff doesn’t recognise my problem. I feel like we’re at opposite ends of a tunnel shouting to each other, drowned by the echoes and the dark.
Eventually I decipher how much money they owe me and they say give us a meter reading and we’ll consider giving you your money back. The self serve IVR for billing doesn’t work and I call them to give them a reading. They’ll probably say when we’ve given you a bill you can try again and we go round the loop once more as time elapses.
In all the process is so painful that I can’t get through it in time. And several years later, they are still getting my money. It’s called retention.
I once tried moving. To a new entrant with a new approach. But the offer was to match my current tariff and I had to fill in forms in pdf files that don’t let you edit….. Gave up.
Orange provide my other half’s broadband. It’s so slow that booking a flight can be impossible as pages time out before they load. She’s tearing her hair out so I tried. It was interesting.
The line speed is apparently 160k, a speed we can only dream of, we’d be happy with 16k. But luckily this was a problem since we’re paying for so and so megabytes. The router’s been replaced free of charge and doesn’t work at all. So I’m asked to take the cover off the socket and look inside – it isn’t what they expect so I’m expected to put it back and wait 2 or 3 hours for a magic moment to occur – I decline and ask for escalation. Escalation is apparently switching it off and on and waiting 24 hours. I decline. So it’s now escalated to become a fault and someone will ring back within 24 hours. That’s progress…..
No point changing though – out in the country the exchanges are all BT equipped only. That’s retention.
Land Rover is a funny one. I bought a nearly new expensive car. Sorry I can’t resist, I’m a petrol head. It went back in 3 times in the first week. It would have been 4 except the time it didn’t start we were parked in the Eurotunnel train about to enter France. Happy. Not.
Believe it or not this has happened before and the same dealer took it back and I bought elsewhere that time. They’ve taken the car back. Yet I just gave them an order for a new one. At a price. Admittedly they tried really hard to put things right and were suitably “bovvered”. Product over experience. That’s retention.
So what’s my point? Retention is complex. I’m the lazy customer, frustrated customer, daft customer all at the same time. Retention is important at every step – but barriers to change matter too. Can bad design of switch processes overcome desire to switch? Can product overcome experiences? Discuss
@petermasseybudd
We are delighted to announce this years Stop Doing Dumb Things Unconference!
At Budd, we feel customer and employee experiences are connected, so we invite you to join us at the Stop Doing Dumb
This unconference has been design to transform how your people treat these connections and what is great is that because we are an unconference you can leave and join discussions as you wish and tailor the day to fit your businesses needs.
Visit our SDDT Website for more information or dive right in and book your tickets here.
We look forward to welcoming you!
Happy 2012 to one and all!! We hope you have all had a good rest over the festive season.
We have had a busy start to the year already and with two newbies there is lots of change in Budd-land!
To those of you who received one of our lovely 2012 calendars we hope you are enjoying it! If you haven’t got one yet drop Katie an email katie.player@budd.uk.com and she’ll pop one in the post!
We thought that you’d like a little intro to our “Budd-ing” newbies so you can get to know them a little:
And with the above information we bid you a farewell for now and look forward to working with all our clients both existing and future ones!
