Consumers Bail If Service Is Bad (...duh)

According to the 2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer consumers who have used social media for service tell significantly more people about their service experiences, and say they’d spend 21% more with companies who deliver great service, compared to 13% on average.
The survey reveals a sorry state of service in general, pointing that 93% of Americans surveyed say that companies fail to exceed their service expectations, while 55% walked away from an intended purchase in the past year because of a poor customer service experience.
Jim Bush, Executive Vice President, World Service, American Express, says “... delivering outstanding service creates impassioned advocates and can serve as a powerful marketing weapon for companies...”
People who have used social media for customer service at least once in the last year are willing to spend substantially more with companies they believe provide great service. They are also far more vocal about service experiences, both good and bad.  In addition, more than 80% of these consumers say they’ve bailed on a purchase because of a poor service experience, compared to 55% overall.

Consumer Attitudes About Customer Service
Service Topic	Consumers  Who Haven’t Used Social Media for Customer Service	General Population	Consumers Who Have Used Social Media for Customer Service
Additional amount consumers are willing to spend for excellent service	11% more	13% more	21% more
Have not completed an intended purchase because of a poor customer service experience in the past year	49%	55%	83%
Number of people consumers will tell about good customer service experiences	9 people	15 people	42 people
Number of people consumers will tell about bad customer service experiences	17 people	24 people	53 people
Source: AmericanExpress, May 2012

The “Social Top 5” activities for Americans who have used social media for customer service:

• 50% Seek an actual response from a company about a service
• 48% Praise a company for a great service experience
• 47%Share information about your service experience with a wider audience
• 46%Vent frustration about a poor service experience
• 43% Ask other users how to have better service experiences

However, 60% of this group feels companies have improved their response times through social media over the past year.
Social media is not the only way people are spreading the word about their customer service experiences, says the report. The general population will tell significantly more people about their customer service experiences than in 2011, highlighting the importance for businesses of treating every customer interaction as an opportunity to build customer loyalty and a positive brand image.

• Americans will tell an average of 15 people about positive experiences, up 67% from 9 last year
• Americans will tell an average of 24 people about poor experiences, up 50% from 16 in 2011 

According to the report, 61% of Americans feel companies have not increased their focus on providing better service, and of this group, 32% feel businesses are paying lessattention to providing good customer service, an increase from 2011.
35% of respondents report that they have lost their temper with a service professional in the past year.  When asked about the top customer service irritants most likely to lead them to switch brands in 2012, 79% cited one of these “Big Four Gripes”:

• Rudeness:  An insensitive or unresponsive customer service representative, 33%
• Passing the Buck:  Being shuffled around with no resolution of the issue, 26%
• The Waiting Game:  Waiting too long to have an issue resolved, 10%
• Being Boomeranged:  Forced to continually follow up on an issue, 10% 

The average consumer hits his or her boiling point after 13 minutes on hold, creating a golden opportunity for companies to increase customer satisfaction by beating the clock.  Similarly, Americans will wait an average of 12 minutes for in-person help at establishments such as banks, retail stores or restaurants.

Brookline Booksmith celebrates 50 years

Brookline Booksmith celebrates 50 years

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/how_they_get_away_with_obstruction/singleton/

Stop Ignoring the Needs of Mature Customers -- THEY'RE the Ones With the Money!

Mature consumers also complain that most stores are not only understaffed but also that the staff on hand is not trained well enough to help them. Most respondents, 63% under 70, and 75% over 70, say they would like to be able to sit down in stores. On the whole, mature consumers want and expect a sympathetic understanding of the realities of age, but they do not want to be treated as old or elderly. Read the entire story and report results at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/160330/older-and-wiser-mature-customers-needs.html#reply

The customer is Always Right? NOT!

http://bookshopblog.com/2011/10/10/the-customer-is-always-right/

Logging in

Why do companies that run websites and want customer interaction make it difficult to do so by compelling customers remember a user name and password?

The answer, of course, is that the login requirement comes from the registration requirement that allows the company to collect data about us, its customers and prospects. And while I'm sure many people, like me, use the same password for everything so we don't have to remember 100 different ones, more often than not, the user name I wish to use is already taken so I have to come up with some variation of it that will be "allowed" yet still easily recalled.

The point is that if I see something on a site that I want to make a quick comment about, I have to jump through hoops to make that comment. So the bottom line is: companies, and media, would rather have our information so they can design marketing messages to try to talk us into something we don't want or need -- marketing at us -- rather than learning what we think or want or feel, so that they can inform us about the products and services they have that will benefit us; that is, market to us.

VistaPrint Falls Twice in Two Weeks

DEaling with an online printing company which I'm happy to acknowledge has been pretty good about customer service for the last couple of years, and from which I've received some very good quality products.... but two recent incidents are infuriating.

1) I have an email account for my author marketing group set-up with VistaPrint. A couple of weeks ago I suddenly couldn't send, only receive messages. I called customer service. After a few minutes the CSR (customer service representative) came back on the phone and said someone else had to talk to me because she couldn't find the problem. She promised he would call back in an hour when he arrived. No call back, so I had to call the next day. Someone else did figure out the problem -- that I had been reported for spamming, which was untrue (I pass along email messages about author and book marketing to group members). More importanmt is the fact that I was never notified -- they just cut of my email-sending ability.

2) And this has happened before: I emailed customer service about a problem (specifically, the tracking number they porovided me for a recent order was, according to UPS, invalid). The response? A link to the same invalid tracking number in the form of a form letter.

Perhaps I shouldn't be complaining since many of the VistaPrint products I've ordered over the last two years are free. I have, though, paid for many others, and in fact this order totaled more than $213 with S/H. But whether free or not, the promise is to deliver products (and services, in the case of the email account, which I am paying for) and provide the service to back them up.

5 Ways to a Remarkable Customer Experience

Customer experience is everything your brand does. It can make or break your business. "From the store windows, the store touch-points, the website, social media or a magazine: it has to be one pure customer experience, not just to gain market share but to gain mind share" Angela Ahrendts, CEO Burberry. Customer experience as a concept has been around for over ten years now but it is still often confused with CRM or considered to be a fancy new name for customer service. In fact, as the research for our book "Bold- how to be brave in business and win" shows, the brands that are transforming markets are doing so because they see everything they do as part of the customer's experience. Never have consumers had so much choice. You can buy whatever you want, whenever you want from hundreds of suppliers. Because of the fierce competition and the efforts of organizations to improve their performance over the past few years, service is generally good too. But good is not good enough. To get the "share of mind" that Angela Ahrendts talks about, you have to be different to your competitors-in fact, you have to be dramatically different. Only then will you create an "indelible memory" to quote Tom Ford, that puts your brand at the forefront of your customers minds whenever they need the kinds of products or services that you offer. The challenge for organizations is how to design and deliver this kind of experience so that it works every day across every touch-point. The bigger the organization the harder it is. So how do the "Bold" brands do it? 1. Be very clear what your brand stands for and make that as distinctive as possible. As Robert Stephens, the founder of technology support company the Geek Squad advises; "This is where companies go wrong; they don’t take a bold enough point of view. That’s what brands are for, to make you distinct from other entities". The Geek Squad does this through their employees who they call "Agents" These employees are dressed in a distinctive "geek like" uniform and carry police style badges bearing the company promise "We’ll save your ass". Ads by Google 2. Deliver the promise through a customer experience that creates iconic moments for your brand. Blandness is the enemy of creating a memorable experience so it is important to choose to invest in creating touch-points that become hall-marks for your brand. Six Senses, the luxury resort operator frequented by celebrities, promises "Intelligent Luxury". By this it means luxury that is natural rather than ostentatious; more "conscientious consumption" than "conspicuous consumption". A brand hallmark is when guests arrive at the resort their designated host will invite them to take their shoes off and drop them into a bag labeled "No News. No Shoes". For the duration of their stay guests get to enjoy walking barefoot on the powdery sand even in the restaurant and bars. And by the way, the "no news" part means just that-unless guest particularly request it they will not have their peace disturbed by CNN or newspapers. That is true luxury if you usually live in the full glare of the media. 3. Empower your people to deliver a consistent "experience" not a formulaic response. The fundamental benefit that a brand bestows is predictability. If you want to really upset your customers provide them with wildly different experiences from location to location, day to day or between one service provider to another. The response therefore, from many organizations has been to seek to control the experience by standardizing it. In many cases these service standards have been set at the level of the lowest common denominator and thereby created robotic service encounters. "Have a nice day" has become a symbol of this "design by numbers" approach to customer experience. The right answer is to keep a tight control over what your brand promises and the design of the experience but to give freedom to your people to behave in a way that will meet individual customer needs. Burberry has approached this by buying back franchises to have greater control over the brand whilst investing in training its people in the "Burberry Experience" so that they have the knowledge and skills to deliver the desired experience. 4. Make the marketing of your brand a dramatic experience. Ever been stuck behind a tractor? Not the fastest or most exciting things are they? Unless they’re a JCB that is. This manufacturer of industrial vehicles was so excited about the powerful diesel engines they had developed for their range of diggers that they wanted to create a customer experience that would dramatize the benefits. How? By building a vehicle that would use their diesel engines to break the land speed record. With the fastest man on earth, Flight Commander Andy Green, at the wheel, Dieselmax reached 670km an hour on the salt flats of Utah. JCB also puts on "Dancing Digger" events around the world where these 8 tonne machines perform synchronized balletic displays to showcase their manoeuvrability. Sir Anthony Bamford, JCB’s Chairman, calls it "selling the sizzle" and it has helped them achieve sizzling results. 5. Align marketing, operations and HR around the customer experience. In many organizations the customer experience is fragmented. One function owns the contact centre, another runs the retail operation whilst marketing communicate new propositions forgetting to first ensure the front-line can deliver them. Worse still, management announce a new customer experience initiative only to back-track at the first sign of pressure on the share price. One organization that understands this need to take a sustained approach is the mobile phone operator O2. It is the market leader in the UK and has achieved the highest level of advocacy in the segment. It has done so through aligning its marketing, operations and HR function behind the brand promise of "Helping customers connect" The brand realizes that in order to deliver this promise it has first to ensure that it is lived internally. As Ronan Dunne, O2’s CEO says: "When you embark on the journey you can’t stop halfway and say, "You know what, I believe in customer experience, but I’m not going to do that" or "we can’t afford to do that", because it only works when it all works."

Don't you just feel like an invisible speck when you walk up to the checkout stand of a store and the clerk is talking to a co-worker, and he/she doesn't even acknowledge that you're there? He/she just starts scanning your items, stops talking just long enough to say "$31.55" and put his/her hand out for the money or card? 

Didn't these people's parents ever teach them any manners? Didn't their bosses? Worse yet is when the two co-workers are cackling over some stupid joke.... or gossiping about another co-worker... and worse YET, poking fun at the previous customer!

Five Commandments of Customer Service

by Bob Massey

Recently I was with some friends lamenting the closing of yet another area business. Let me clarify that -- they were lamenting. I was rejoicing. You see, I had been a customer there -- and vowed never to be one again.

Don't get me wrong -- I want businesses in my community to thrive. It's just that some of them don't deserve to.

If I ask you to list your company's assets, will you rattle off items such as inventory, office furniture, computer equipment, etc. -- and neglect to mention your customers -- which is your single most important asset? If so, you wouldn't be alone. Yet your business exists only because of your customers!

I work for a high-powered, full-service advertising, marketing and public relations agency. The Miami Herald has listed us in the top 15 such agencies in South Florida. There's a helluva lot we can do to get customers to visit your business. But there's one thing we can't do: We can't convince customers to come back again and again IF you've ignored them, lied to them or been disrespectful to them (or even if they perceive that's the way they've been treated).

You can avert certain disaster by putting customer satisfaction at the top of your "Things to do today" list. I'm not Moses, so I'll give you just five commandments that, if ignored, may not result in your business being struck by a lightning bolt -- but you'll probably suffer a customer drought of apocalyptic proportions.

Acknowledge thy customers
My wife lost her cell phone, made arrangements to pick up a new one at the store. The problem wasn't that we spent so long in line because there were only two employees -- it's that those employees IGNORED us. Only one of them attended to the customers -- while the other concentrated on paperwork! And this while there was a line of impatient people forming! No one even bothered to say, "Sorry about the wait. Someone will be with you in a few minutes." We might as well have not gone into the store. And we won't, come contract renewal time.

Honor thy customers
A government office planned a lunch meeting with a dozen local bigwigs. The administrative assistant -- I'll call her Kathy -- contacts a restaurant a few days before to make certain they can provide sandwiches. Kathy tells the caterer she needs the food by 11:45 a.m. No problem, she's told.

By noon on the day of the meeting, no food has arrived ... so Kathy calls. The restaurant staffer doesn't think the sandwiches will be delivered anytime soon because a larger order -- for about 150 sandwiches -- came in. Kathy explains that she made arrangements way in advance for the restaurant to provide service. Now she has people arriving for a meeting who need to eat lunch -- and she needs her order immediately. No can do, she's told. Kathy asks to speak to the manager. Of course, the manager's unavailable ... but the restaurant staffer says she'll see what she can do.

The meeting starts. The meeting ends (about an hour later). No one has eaten. Kathy is apologizing all over herself. Shortly thereafter, the restaurant manager calls. She's got the sandwich order ready and will be delivering it pronto. Kathy explains that she no longer needs the sandwiches -- or the restaurant's business.

Moral of the story: Don't sacrifice your integrity for the sake of greed. Treat customers as though they're second class, and they'll reward you by patronizing your competitor.

Forgive thy customers
A few years ago, I took my family to Disney World. I remembered to pack everything -- except the tickets! I panicked, ready to make the two-plus-hour ride back home to get them. But Disney's Customer Service people assured me there'd be no problem, and provided me with new tickets -- without a hassle and without making me feel stupid -- or, worse, like a criminal who was trying to sneak into the park. I was so impressed, I told my friends (thus producing "word of mouth" advertising -- one of the most powerful tools in any marketer's arsenal).

Bend for thy customers
I purchased a book of coupons with two-for-one deals at local restaurants. One sandwich shop -- clearly listed as a participating establishment -- refused to honor it. The manager said she didn't agree to be represented in the book, and I should call the company that printed it. I was embarrassed.

The deal would have cost them a paltry $7. Not only did I leave, taking with me the $35 I would have spent to feed the rest of my family of seven, I also decided we would boycott their business. So we did, for about a year -- easily costing them more than $400. Do the math.

 Repent to thy customers
Three years ago, I pick up a pizza at a place we patronized (past tense) nearly once a week. Take it home, open the box -- wrong topping. First mistake. Call the pizza parlor ... the staff tells me to drive back to get a new one. Second mistake. Take it home, open the box -- burnt to a crisp. Third mistake. Another call to the pizza parlor. Staff tells me to drive back AGAIN to get a new one. Fifth mistake. (No, I didn't miscount. That mistake was so obnoxious, it counts as two.) In essence, I paid for their incompetence with my time and my gas -- and the worst part is: Not one person bothered to say, "We're sorry." Haven't been back since. Again, do the math.

These are just a few personal examples. I'm sure you could cite several of your own. Point is: If you don't make customer service a priority, your business will likely fail. And you'll deserve it.

Bob Massey has won state and national awards as a business writer, and is Account Services Director for the Florida Gulf Coast Office of KSR, a full-service marketing agency. You can contact him at (941) 255-1055, or e-mail bob@ksrteam.com. 

Contact Us?

So, why do companies list "Contact Us" information if, when you do contact the company via that information, no one responds?

What's Missing? Simple Courtesy

Unfortunately, this is more the norm than the exception anymore:

From Ray Edwards blog 8/31/10

 

 I ordered a sandwich this past week at McDonald’s, from the drive-through window.

After pulling out of the drive-through lane, I discovered that my sandwich was cold. The bacon was uncooked. I circled back through the drive-through lane, and explained my dilemma to the young lady at the window. She distractedly held out her hand, reaching for the bag, looking away from me as she muttered, “Pull around front. We’ll get you another one.”

I understand that these things happen, especially at a restaurant run by children. I wasn’t really upset as I returned my sandwich – I just wanted it cooked properly. But I can’t help but reflect on the different feeling I would have about McDonald’s right now, if that young lady had bothered to look me in the eye and simply say something like, “I’m sorry about that. If you pull around front, we will be happy to get you another one. And this time I promise we’ll cook it correctly.”

That would’ve made all the difference-just a simple bit of courtesy. It’s magic, especially in business transactions.

Customer Service is Crucial to Repeat Business and Profitiability

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=132166

Being a Customer is a Real Workout

(from Still Speaking Daily Devotional by Pr. Lillian Daniel)

There's a new gym and rec center in my town and they are trying to recruit members. So my neighbor brought my daughter and me along with her to try it out. Presuming the first visit was free, we arrived in our gym clothes ready to try a class, stopping at the front desk to check in. And let me admit it, we were running a little late.

First, the lady at the counter discovered that my neighbor had brought her daughter's membership card instead of her own. That took a few minutes to work out. Then she realized that we were guests and brought out multiple forms for us to fill out. Okay, I can understand paper work. But then she charged us $10 each and we had no cash. By now the class had started.

After paying by credit card because we had no cash, we made the mistake of grumbling that by now the class was half over. "Oh, you didn't tell me you were trying out a class," she said. "That will be another $6!" After settling up this next transaction, there seemed to be less paperwork to getting married than to trying out this gym for an hour.

At that point my daughter did the math and realized that we were about to spend $32 for a day, when a three-month trial membership was $90. "Can we just sign up for that instead?" she asked. So I asked if we could just go to the class first and then join for three months. She looked at us like we were insane. No, we had to join as members first. After ripping up the old forms and filling out all those new forms, she concluded, "Everything's official and now you can go to the class just as long as you have copies of your birth certificates." Like we keep those with us in our wallets.

By then the class was over, our tempers were hot and I felt like an absolute idiot for wasting all that time. I don't ever want to see that gym again. But here's the good news. All the rules had been followed.

Are You The Predator?

(from Ray Edwards Email Updates 7-22-10)

Maybe you’ve seen the new movie, Predators.

The plot is simple: humans find themselves on a planet that is a game preserve, and the humans are the prey. They’re being hunted by aliens for sport.

This is how most of us feel about marketers. We feel like we are the prey, and the marketers are the hunters. Merciless, weird hunters who are not really interested in our pain, our fear, or our lives.

That’s why people are drawn to marketers who actually care about the people they sell to. It’s why company’s with high standards of excellence, customer service, and integrity enjoy long-lived success.

From the marketer’s viewpoint, it look like this: it’s the difference between being a predator – or being the shepherd who protects and cares for the flock.

Which one are you? And if you don’t like the answer, here’s a follow-up question: which one will you be today?

Beverage Charges at Old Country Buffet, Country Buffet, Ryan's

A letter to Country Buffet/Old Country Buffet HQ:

I see that you are now charging for beverages at Old Country Buffet. Interesting that only a couple of years ago you were loudly advertising the fact that you DIDN'T do so when all your competitors did.

It's really disappointing when a retailer (that includes restaurants) attempts to resuscitate corporate profits by sticking it to their customers, especially in tough economic times such as what we're ALL experiencing today.

Instead of helping your customers through the down times, you focus on your bottom line and think only of how to squeeze a bit more cash from customers' wallets.

In terms of marketing that tactic seems rather foolish -- if people are scaling back on dining out, why would they come to OCB if they will be paying MORE for their meal?

We're all in survival mode, but some businesses handle it better than others. Had you any sense or understanding of the marketplace, you would surely realize that offering diners even a temporary price rollback or something extra as thanks for patronizing your restaurants when they should be eating at home to save money, would bring you many more customers and immeasurable good will.

I and my family will no longer be dining at OCB, although we had enjoyed doing so for many years. Along with the ridiculous price increase we saw the last time we visited, your now additional charge for beverages just priced you right our of our budget and more importantly, out of our desire to patronize any merchant who shows such disregard for its customers.

While our "boycott" of OCB won't make a bit of difference to your bottom line, I am certain others will come to the same conclusion we have. I hope that in the end, though you may not lose any money from having fewer customers (you'll make it up in those beverage charges) your image will be tarnished enough so that when people do have greater disposable income for dining out, they'll remember the policies you and other retailers initiated to prop up drooping revenues and patronize those who instead partnered with consumers to weather the storms together.

ONE Is All You Get!

I recently placed an ad for a client in a special section of a local newspaper. The quarter-page ad cost $365. The issue previous we had run a half-page ad, for $725.

When I requested a few extra copies of the most recent special section from our ad rep, so that our staff could include them in their presentation portfolios, she told me they "had not received many copies of the newspaper" so she could only give me ONE copy.

ONE copy! We spent $365 on an ad that we can only get ONE print copy of.

I guess this is all part of the cost-cutting measures being emo,oyed by the newspaper industry, which too late figured out it missed the digital train and are now trying to catch up on foot.

Or more like crutches, with service like this.

Who Cares?

[from Seth Godin's blog]
At the post office the other day, a guy wearing a beautiful handmade scarf finishes his transaction and starts away from the counter.

A small nail holding the molding apparently isn't hammered in all the way. It catches the scarf, pulls the threads and ruins the scarf. The man turns to the counter, looks at the postal worker who took his money and says, "There's a loose nail here, it just ruined my scarf."

Tim, the postal worker, beaten down, tired, given up, stands behind the counter and barely makes eye contact. "Oh."


When you allow (yes, allow) all humanity to be stripped from your day, all day, then what?

Price Tags

While I don't expect thrift stores (secondhand stores, Salavation Army, Goodwill, etc.) to provide Nordstrom-like customer service, a little common sense certainly seems in order.

My biggest beef is employees' complete lack of thought when it comes to placing price tags on merchandise, especially because those tags are usually designed to prevcent price switching (understandable) and therefore require a nuclear weapon to remove.

By placement I mean putting one of these to-the-end-of-time permanent price tags on the most visible/delicate/easily marred/conspicuous part of the item; i.e., book covers, the front of a picture frame, the side of a ceramic vase, directly on the cover of a rare newspaper or magazine etc.

Even worse: stores that use grease pencil or permanent, bold black markers, the ink of which can only be removed from glass, reserved primarily for fine fabrics and non-glossy paper.

It almost seems as if they knowingly, even painstakingly, mar the merchandise with pricing to make us "pay" for getting such a good deal or punish us for having to shop at a thrift store instead of paying full retail.

Let Me Out!

Today's customer non-service scenario comes from my local thrift store, which has installed metal gates at the exit door to be sure shoppers cannot take their carts out of the store.

Just trying to keep their costs down by not losing carts and having to pay someone to schlep out to the parking lot to round up the wayward metal, right?

Maybe so, but it presents a challenge to anyone purchasing more than a small bag of items, which many people do, especially when they have a half-price weekend sale. People purchase several large bags of clothing and toys and there's no way to carry them all by hand, so you have to leave someone to stand guard over the ones you can't carry while you go gt your car.

If you're shopping alone, you have to leave your bags right inside the store and make more than one trip to the car, or right outside and hope someone doesn't drive up to the cub and make off with your purchases.

I've tried going out the in door, but there's no handle on the inside (they thought of everything!) to pull the door open. And for elderly shoppers, it's even more of a hardship.