Jill got a letter today from Aviva from Sue Hendry, Head Of Customer Experience, Protection. It’s all about her Term Assurance plan that she has been paying for the past 10 years and is coming to an end soon.
The letter is addressed Mrs. Jill White and then starts ‘Dear Sir / Madam’!!!!!!!
It then goes on to explain in a very bland manner about what she (or should that be ‘he’?) needs to do next. No ‘thank you’ for being a customer for the past 10 years, just a dull ramble about her options.
Now, I’m not expecting them to send a completely ‘personalised’ letter that asks about how her garden is doing (nicely thank you!), whether her mum enjoyed her holiday (yes, she did, absolutely) and what she thinks of Sheffield United’s promotion prospects this season (this is the one, definitely!), but ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’?
Aviva are investing heavily in supporting our athletes for the Olympic Games, which is brilliant, but can’t help thinking that they could invest in improving their own customer experience too!
Hey, we’re all busy, and sometimes we can’t see the wood for the trees, but nearly all of us could (and should) create (slightly) better customer experiences – it just needs a focused approach. We often work with clients and their teams to do this, but you could do it without us!
Here’s how….
- Get a team together (a ‘mix’ if you can – front line people are often best!)
- Ask them to revisit all your ‘touch points’ with your customers.
- Work out which ones ‘positively’ reinforce it and which ones ‘negatively’ detract from it.
- Eliminate the ‘negatives’ and create and build on the ‘positives’
It’s simple stuff really, it just needs a little ‘investment’!
