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Customer service and the art of being cheerful
“It doesn’t cost anything to be nice,” said a friend of mine recently, over a caramel latte with wings.
What she didn’t add is that not being nice does cost something. Customer goodwill. And sometimes, custom itself.
A few days later, her observation was thrown into stark relief when I almost (though not quite) changed my mobile phone operator yet again.
Yes, yes, I know it only seems like yesterday that I changed to the oddly named giffgaff, but I was lured by the siren call of hundreds of minutes, texts galore and unlimited web browsing.
Plus the sexiest phone ever, with a 4″ touch screen, a 1GHz processor and a 5MP camera.
So why almost?
The answer is simple: service. With, and without, a smile.
The online mobile phone shop was busy, busy, busy. They didn’t reply to emails. They were unreachable on the phone, unless you were willing to listen to Total Eclipse of the Heart for 45 minutes (torture even in the 80s, when it first came out).
So before I even got my hands on that technological marvel and talked, texted and surfed, I was having a bad service experience.
Meanwhile, over at giffgaff Towers, things were altogether more laid back – and on the ball. A winning combination.
I logged a request for a PAC (Port Authorisation Code) so I could take my number with me. Then, I settled down for a long wait, my expectations set by the snail’s-pace service of my new provider.
Minutes later, a jaunty missive winged its way to my In Box:
We’re gutted that you’ve decided to leave giffgaff, however, here’s that all important PAC that you requested.
If you do, however, ever fancy a ‘second coming’ and want to rejoin giffgaff you are more than welcome to do so.
If you have any more questions or queries don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Kindest regards & good luck
Gutted. Second coming. Good luck.
Aah. Doesn’t it just melt your heart?
It did mine. And there and then, I decided to stay with giffgaff. So they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat by adopting a simple strategy.
Being nice. Even when I was dumping them.
Now that’s what I call class.
Loves me, loves me not
If only everybody was as gracious in defeat, they might not be defeated so often.
As part of my recent dejunking exercise, I’ve been reviewing how I use my time. And I decided that Lovefilm had to go – at least for a while.
Luckily, their site had just the ticket: a payment holiday. Yay, I thought. Up to 90 days when I don’t have to scratch around to find yet another film I don’t really want to watch but feel duty-bound to, because I have to clock up the requisite number of DVDs a month.
Sorry, it said when I clicked the link. Some types of subscription don’t qualify for payment holidays. Please call…
…an Indian call centre. Where I got the third degree and a half-hearted attempt to persuade me to stay by offering me a program for a games console (I don’t have one).
I walked out on that relationship without so much as a backward glance. And I was left with the bitter taste of a bad service experience.
Reaping and sowing
Sometimes, I lose work to the competition. Who doesn’t?
But when a prospective client tells me they’ve decided to go with somebody else, I always wish them the very best and hope it all goes well.
Why?
Two reasons.
First, nothing eats away at you like bitterness and resentment. Sure, you’ve spent time on the pitch, and yes, you could have spent the time more profitably.
But if you hadn’t put your all into trying to win the business, wouldn’t you have wondered ever afterwards whether you might, just possibly, have won it if you’d tried a little harder?
So try hard, and if you lose, be a good loser. It’ll make you feel better.
But second, and as important, people remember good losers. On more than one occasion, I’ve had people who decided not to use me for one project come back to me for another. Or recommend me to a friend.
Or even, in extreme cases, come back to me to re-do the original project they took elsewhere, only to see it badly botched. (And no, I never permit myself a wry smile, even on the telephone – it shows in your voice.)
So my caramel-latte chum was right – being nice doesn’t cost anything. And it might just be the best form of marketing you have.
So spread the love. Because one day, you’ll get it back.
Living in the slow lane on the information superhighway
My broadband was restored last week, after being down for three weeks.
Yes, that’s right. Three whole weeks.
But there’s nothing more tedious than a rant about bad customer service, is there? So I’ll spare you the ins and outs of the sorry saga.
Instead, I’ll turn it on its head, and tell you what it taught me about service – and about myself.
Service (without a smile)
Good service – whatever it is you do, whatever you sell – really isn’t all that difficult.
But it’s not one big thing – instead, it’s all the little things. And getting those right means having a plan, setting goals and making sure you meet them.
So if I were sharing a skinny latte with the Big Boss of my ISP, what would I tell him (or her)?
- Train your staff. Is there anything more trust-busting than being told by a second support person that the first person you spoke to was ‘new, and may have got it wrong’? Learning on the job is part of the job; learning at the customer’s expense is dangerous and damaging. So train them first, then release them into the wild.
- Tell the truth (even when you’d really rather not). The truth is your secret weapon – even when it’s bad. Hiding an embarrassing truth is worse than telling it with openness and honesty. An open-kimono approach works every time (metaphorically, you understand).
- Get your story straight (and stick to it). Do BT engineers work on Saturday and Sunday? Search me. I was told yes, then no, then maybe. Can support people talk to BT? Yes, then no. Would I get SMS updates? Yes, maybe. But not always. Not really. A simple story has a unique and winning quality – its simplicity.
- Organise your company around the customer. Yes, OK, they work shifts, and they’re sometimes off sick. And what if they get run over by a bus? Or they leave? All these things could happen, but it doesn’t mean teams can’t be organised into cells of 2-3 people who are instantly familiar with specific problems. It means that customers don’t have to endlessly explain their problems to a new person.
- Use technology. Especially if you’re a technology company. If I can see that my friend Sally is calling on my landline, why can’t they? Better still, why can’t my incoming number fire up their database and bring up my record? And why is the database so slow (I’m just waiting for the record to come up, sir)?
- Don’t pass the buck (even internally). No, it’s not support, it’s accounts. It’s our faults department. It’s BT Wholesale. It’s BT Openreach. It’s the exchange people. It’s the call centre, you see. Your company is a blob, Mr ISP – one big blob that I see as a brand. So make sure that Blob Inc. does its stuff seamlessly.
- Be pleasant, open and helpful – even when the shells are coming in and you want to hunker down in the bunker. Smile even though you’re on the phone. And here’s a thought: listen. Pick up on the signals and ‘mirror’ the language and tone of the speaker (yes, it’s an NLP thing – and it works).
- Communicate. OK, you’re doing stuff, and the problem’s in hand. But does the customer know? If not, why not? Send a quick email, update the support ticket, let them know about that stuff. Manage their expectations, and they’ll never be disappointed.
- Don’t forget the value of existing customers. New customers are expensive and difficult to find. So why alienate existing customers needlessly? Treat them well and they’ll stay forever.
- Don’t wait until people shout – because when they’re shouting, they tend not to listen. And other people hear. Shouting is what I did in the end, when I posted a damning message in my ISP’s discussion forum (it worked).
Warts and all
So what did I learn about myself? Well quite a lot, actually. Living in the slow lane of the information superhighway wasn’t all bad.
My three weeks of subsonic internet access taught me:
- You can’t do two things at once – though super-fast broadband makes you think you can. Multi-tasking is multi-stressing, and being forced to do one thing at a time made me calmer, more focused and more organised.
- Having a backup plan, like a nuclear deterrent, gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. You know it’s there if you need it. In my case, my nuke was my Nokia, which give me reliable, if slow-ish, access to the internet, used as a modem for my PC.
- Don’t get angry at bad service. If you do, you lose twice over. And no, I’m not going to say get even instead. Just accept it for what it is, and if you’ve got a problem, focus on the resolution, not the obstacles along the way.
- Think laterally. When I was dealing with the support team, I was working in a walled garden. Worse, a soundproofed (think Truman Show) walled garden where nobody could hear my screams. When I changed tactics and shouted from the rooftops in a public forum, help materialised as if by magic, and the problem was quickly resolved. Think laterally and you beat the system.
- Take a break – from the online world, that is. Offline really isn’t that bad. You learn to slow down, read more carefully, not flit from one thing to another. You concentrate better, feel more centred and don’t feel as frazzled at the end of the day. Since my broadband came back, my browsing habits have changed. I spend less time online, and get more out of my day.
So bad service wasn’t all bad. Even forcing myself to see the positive in a very negative situation (which goes against the grain in a serial moaner, I can tell you) changed how I see things.
I even discovered that with a Starbucks card, you get free wifi. So now I’ve got another reason to go for a grande skinny decaf extra-hot wet latte.
As if I needed one.
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High tech is so yesterday. Try low tech instead.
Recently, I phoned a friend of mine.
He runs a small consultancy: just him, a friend and a Burmese cat. Plus a big server, and a couple of phone lines.
He’s built a very successful business, based on personal service, attention to detail and the sort of creative ideas that have you saying Now why didn’t I think of that?
He could grow bigger, but he likes small. Small is good. No corporate politics, no form-filling, no strategy sessions with tedious flip charts and chunky multicoloured pens.
He and his partner come and go as they please, but are always reachable, available and ready to listen.
Except on the day I phoned.
Instead of bouncing Bill* with his jaunty telephone manner, I heard a creepy voice that sounded like Hal.
“Welcome to Acme Ltd*,” it intoned. “You now have four choices.” And he/it/the machine listed them, to my mounting horror.
I phoned Bill on his mobile.
“What on earth have you done?” I asked.
“You mean the telephone menu system?” he said, barely registering my incredulity. “Yeah, it’s so cool, isn’t it? And so simple to set up and manage. It’s got the best control panel ever.”
(* Names have been changed to protect the innocent – and the not so innocent.)
I am what I am
Not a week goes by that I don’t talk to somebody trying to appear bigger than they are (corporately speaking, I mean).
One-man (and one-woman) bands want to look like small businesses. Small businesses want to look like big businesses. Big businesses want to look like very big businesses.
And what do very big businesses want to look like?
Small businesses, of course.
They want to say We’re big, but really, we’re small – small enough to care about you.
Because ironically, it’s big business that understands that they really need to work hard to connect with the one person who’s watching their advert, reading their email or browsing their website.
They know that they have to go the extra mile to get up close and personal.
And here’s the thing: technology often gets in the way. We can blast out an e-mailshot, so we do. We can send an SMS to thousands of people simultaneously, so we do.
And we can head callers off at the pass with telephone menu systems. So we do.
It’s the relentless march of progress, we tell ourselves, and we’re right in the vanguard. It’s the way of the future.
Except it’s not. It’s the way of the past. Because the way of future can be summed up in three words.
People like personalisation.
Bzz off
Remember BzzAgent? I wrote about it a while back. They recruit people to test-run new products and services, and spread the word among their friends.
Well, keen as mustard, I signed up. I ran through the online guides, and waited for something to happen. And weeks – several long weeks – later, my welcome pack arrived.
And it looked like this:
Isn’t that special?
Just to make me feel really individual, they included my user name and my BzzAgent serial number. 52901. 52901. 52901. Kinda catchy, isn’t it?
I mean, 20 years of mail merge technology, and this is the summit of personalisation? Doesn’t it make you feel all warm and fuzzy?
No, me neither.
(Inside, by the way, there was a recap of everything I already knew from the website, plus pages and pages – and pages – of perforated invitations I could give to friends to join BzzAgent. As you can imagine, I could barely control my enthusiasm.)
I am not a number
Nothing replaces the personal touch. Technology might make things easier and quicker, but for whom? You or your client?
Do you want to feel special? Yes, me too.
And so does every client you interact with. High tech lets you reach more of them, but makes every touchpoint just that more impersonal.
A bit like my friend’s telephone menu system.
“So,” I said to him, lacing my words with as much irony as I could muster, “what do your clients think of your new system?”
“Dunno,” he said, his confidence sounding momentarily dented. “I haven’t spoken to any of them today.”
I rest my case.
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To work, they need to give as much as they get
I’ve just opened up my wallet and emptied all my loyalty cards onto the table. And I’m horrified. Am I that loyal?
Not really.
Consider the two cards above.
Caffé Nero is a chain of coffee shops in the UK. And here’s how their card works: every time I buy a coffee, they stamp my card. When I have nine stamps, my tenth coffee is free. So that’s a 10% discount.
But there’s something that niggles me: the name. A loyalty card suggests that I have to give them something (my loyalty).
And I don’t like that.
Book chain Blackwell’s sees things differently. They want to give me something: rewards. I like that. Rewards are good.
Here’s the thing, though: they only give me £5 back for every £100 I spend. So my discount is just 5% – half of Caffé Nero’s.
But my instinct is to feel more positively about them, simply because they’re seeing it from my point of view (rewards) rather than theirs (loyalty).
Card sharp
Loyalty cards (or whatever you call them) need to give as much as they get if they’re to work. In fact, they need to give more than they get.
And more importantly, it has to be less hassle having one than not having one.
Take Starbucks’ card, for instance. Here’s how it works:
- You take it home.
- You register it online, and charge it up with money.
- You use it in the shop if you have enough credit. If not, you have to use cash.
You see the problem, don’t you? The onus is on you to remember to charge the card. So that’s yet another thing to add to your burgeoning to-do list.
And if you charge the card and don’t use it, then the company has your money. In its bank account. Earning interest.
Take it or leave it
Whether they’re loyalty or reward cards, staff need to understand them and actively promote them. Without that, you’re sunk.
A while back, I went into another coffee shop (I know, I’m addicted – but it is decaf). And guess what they had on the menu?
That’s right – a loyalty card. I picked it up, twiddled it round, and asked the barista what the advantage was of using it. What goodies did I get?
“Nuzzing,” she said. “Personally, I can’t see ze point of it.” She flapped her dishcloth to ward off a hovering fly.
“In France,” she said, warming to her subject, “you ‘ave not got all zese cards…”
And she was off. Credit cards, store cards, easy credit, the pointlessness of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ consumer society. On and on she went, as she whipped up my frothy cappuccino.
I didn’t take a card. And I haven’t been back.
Double or quits
Meanwhile, down the road, one of the Caffé Nero baristas has discovered how to instil real loyalty in clients. It’s a simple technique, which involves ‘accidentally’ stamping the card twice when I have one coffee.
The top two rows are her work: three coffees, six stamps.
I like her thinking. Don’t you?
The little things that make a big difference
This week, I had the brake cables on my bicycle tightened. They now work better than they’ve ever done.The thing is, that’s not why I went to the bike shop.
Let me explain.
Two days earlier, my front mudguard fell off. Again. It’s one of those indestructible plastic ones, that can withstand heat, light, water and just about anything you can throw at it. It’s been stress-tested in wind tunnels and bent to destruction in the mudguard labs.
Unfortunately, it’s attached to the bike by the flimsiest of brackets, which breaks if you look at it. And I did – twice.
So I went to the bike shop. Now Cambridge has no shortage of bike shops - it’s the Beijing of England, with 50% of the workforce cycling to work.
It was closed. A small, grubby, handwritten sign said it would open again in two days.
So I waited.
I could have gone to any number of other shops, but I didn’t. Why? Because the guy who runs it is good – friendly, attentive, helpful and always trying to add value.
Two days later, I left the bike with him so he could fit new mudguards. They come in pairs, so the back one had to be replaced too.
“They finally woke up,” he said about the mudguard people. “People got sick of them breaking, so they’ve strengthened the bracket. Just look.”
And I did – at an industrial-strength, don’t-mess-with-me silver bracket that looked like it was the business.
I didn’t even ask the price of the mudguards. I didn’t need to – that’s how much I trust this chap. And when I picked up my bike, that trust was once again reinforced, with a little something extra.
This time, it was the brake cables. Last time, the chain.
And that’s why I keep going back.
How can I help you?
Good service is common sense. So why is it so rare? Keeping clients happy is a sure way of keeping them as clients.
I can think of two coffee shops I avoid if particular people are on duty there. What should be a relaxing experience turns into a stressful one. By the time my latte is handed to me, I’m just about ready to leave.
By contrast, I can think of another – more expensive – coffee shop where I break into a broad smile if I see my favourite barista grinding, pouring and skimming. I can’t help myself. She exudes enthusiasm and charm.
She knows my regular, and accidentally-on-purpose stamps my loyalty card twice when I buy a coffee.
As you can imagine, I’m the most loyal of customers.
The wheels of industry
Meanwhile, back on the open road, with my DEFCON 1 mudguards, I was struck by one business name that worked. And one that…well, sort of did.
The first I saw on a narrowboat on the River Cam. What a great idea. A doctor that does house calls. You’ve got to love it.
The second was along the same lines. But when I saw it, I just scratched my head. So where do the patients go, I wondered?
And then I got it. But it was too late.
Names either work immediately, or they don’t work at all.
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