Copy Unlimited » Customer service

Good lessons from bad service

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 06:00:15 +0000

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.

Find out more:

Butterfly mind. Are Twitter and Facebook affecting how we think? at the Daily Telegraph.
Wifi with wings. Get yourself a Starbucks card and you can surf while you sip.

Does your service go the extra mile?

Kevin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:00:17 +0000

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.

When things go wrong, do you get it right?

Kevin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:00:14 +0000

The ultimate test of customer service is how you deal with problems

My holiday in the sunny Dordogne is by now a distant memory.

Well, almost.

You see when I got back from France, I had a surprise. A nasty one. The car-hire charges came in at double what I was expecting.

It’s not the first time it’s happened.

Last year, I went to Rome with a friend. We decided not to pay the extortionate fee for a second driver, so it was just me at the wheel. But when I got back, I found I’d been charged for an extra driver.

I phoned them to find out why. OK, they said, let’s just pull up the record, and…oh yes, the second driver was called Kevin Walsh.

And the first driver, I mused? Erm, let’s see. That would be…Kevin Walsh.

I got a refund.

Circles within circles

This time around, there was no extra driver. To complicate matters, I hadn’t booked direct with the car-hire company, but with a website that promised to scour the web to find the best deals.

So my complaint went to them. They’d quoted a price that hadn’t been honoured.

Right, they said. You see we quote exclusive of VAT, and they charged inclusive. Even then, the figures didn’t tally, so they gave me a partial refund.

And the rest? That was for fuel, they said.

But I’d been told specifically to bring the car back as empty as possible, and I’d be charged €20 for what had been in the tank originally. I’d agreed to the €20. But what about the extra charge on top of that – another €110?

Fuel, they said again, as if I hadn’t heard the first time.

You see the problem.

And so, from the website (based in Ireland) to the rental company customer-service centre (based in the UK) to the local office (a franchise, based in France) my complaint has been batted back and forth.

I’m still waiting, three weeks on.

Mirror, signal, manoeuvre

Customer-service promises are easy to make. But the real test is what happens is when things go wrong.

When I was at Microsoft, I had one boss who had a novel way of dealing with people who’d been caught in the endless loop of customer complaints.

First, he’d assume they were telling the truth (it’s amazing how many people think all customers lie). Then, he’d call them personally and turn on the charm. He’d apologise, and listen. And then listen a bit more.

Finally, he’d ask them for their full postal address. Why? For the free software product he was sending them to make amends.

It worked every time.