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Lucy’s Correspondence      Dealing With Disappointment   Seth Godin on Social Networking    Seth’s Blog

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Institute Of Customer Service report           ABTA customer complaints      Previous 3D Thoughts

Hear how Asda handled this complaint:

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It was a worldwide study, and the figure for the UK small businesses was 33% compared to 52% inIndia!

It’s clear that many businesses ‘get it’, but it’s also true that many obviously don’t! Clearly, there’s no ‘one thing’ to ‘get’, but if you are one of those who hasn’t yet, perhaps you need to start looking!

Amazingly and totally coincidentally, as I was writing this blog post an email popped in my inbox from Smarta which featured a video by Doug Richards talking all about this. Even more coincidentally (and a bit spookily!) he explained that he’s running a 2 day workshop all about it…..on my own doorstep, here in Sheffield! 

Made In Sheffield looks great! Think I might be booking to help me ‘get more of it’!

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I know for a fact that I am also among the two thirds of us who have, according to the report, walked away from buying something because we weren’t prepared to wait.

It’s a great example of ever increasing customer expectations – people just won’t stand for it anymore, literally! I believe it goes further than that: it’s not just queing, it’s waiting for the phone to be answered, it’s waiting for people to get back to us, it’s the time it takes for a webpage to download – we want things quicker, we want them NOW!

In my presentations and training, I often suggest people ‘stand in their own queues’ to find out what it’s like to be a customer of theirs. By that I mean, ring up your own business, go into reception, email an enquiry, visit your own website, request some information and find out what it’s like to ‘stand in your own queues’.

So, why not do that yourself? How do you measure up? Would YOU stand for it?

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When asked, UK customers said: ‘Customer Service Experiences Generally….’

• Exceed Expectations – 2%
• Meet Expectations – 62%
• Miss Expectations – 32%
• (4% weren’t sure!)

The American Express Global Customer Service Barometer shows that on average, UK consumers will pay a premium of 7% for the privilege of good customer service and 70 per cent state they would do more business with an organisation that offered decent customer care. Interestingly, in the US, it’s 9% and it’s 11% in India!

So, as ever, the message is a simple one – do all you can to ‘exceed those expectations’ and ‘delight’ your customers! It’s clear that many still aren’t doing it which means that’s an opportunity for those who do!

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You know we call them ‘Sales Prevention Officers’, and they clearly aren’t going away!

When asked if they had stopped doing business with a company within the last six months due to a bad customer experience, 24% said yes.  The reasons? You can guess most of them:

• 23% Unfair fees or charges
• 22% Poor product or service quality
• 19% Rude or disinterested employees
• 12% Couldn’t get hold of anyone to deal with my problem
• 7% Discounts for new customers but not for existing customers
• 4% Inadequate return or refund policy
• 5% Out of territory call centres
• 1% Inadequate environmental policy
• 7% Other

OK, there’s nothing new here, but that’s the point isn’t it? Why aren’t businesses getting the message?

Having put all that time, money, resources and effort to win customers, for goodness sake, look after them!!!!

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Podcast #6 contains:

• Organisational Stupidities! – Daft things that exist in your business that are ‘holding you back’. find them, and eliminate them – fast!
• Rework! - A brief review of a great book
• Websites Worth Wandering On To! – 3 websites I like!
• Get back To the Future - A simple process for  business improvement that anyone can use

You can listen to it here: 

You can also download it to your ipod by clicking here or on the itunes icon at the top of the website

Related links for this podcast:

Rework! – Buy it here from Amazon

Websites Worth Wandering On To…

Customer Collective and sister site The Social Customer

Smarta

Management Issues

Keep your eyes (and ears!) open for our next podcasts – we’ve got some great interviews lined up – watch (and listen to!) this space!

Better still, subscribe at iTunes or subscribe to the podcast RSS here so you never miss another!

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No, this is not a ‘political’ rant on behalf of one party or another. It’s an attempt to see what we as businesses can learn from the politicians, and maybe more importantly, what they can learn from businesses (not actually sure that they are listening though, which in itself would be agood first lesson – successful businesses ‘listen’ to their customers’!)

I use a model when working with clients that demonstrates the relationship between customer expectations and customer experience as follows:

Creating 'Devoted' Customers

Customers with ‘low’ or ‘no’ expectations who have a ‘great’  experience are ‘delighted’! It was far better than they expected. It’s a great start and should be the aim for any business. Perhaps Nick Clegg ‘delighted’ his customers (or ‘potential customers’) because they had low / no expectations of him? That’s not a criticism of him, it’s just the situation he is in (and many businesses are too!).

The  challenge is clearly to build on this, and that what Nick Clegg has to do. By definition, ‘expectations’ will be higher for the next debate – if he ‘delivers’, then that becomes more impressive, and perhaps, impactful for the Lib Dems.

My ‘gut feel’ is that Brown did ok, because again, expectations were relatively low? Expectations for Cameron on the other hand were reasonably ‘high’ and perhaps he ‘disappointed’ because the ‘experience’ was not seen to be as ‘good’?

By definition, this model is very ‘subjective’, and I’m not here to say ‘who won’. I’m trying to illustrate the model and help people perhaps relate it to their business and their customers.

‘Delight’ is a good start, but has to be built on. ‘Devotion’ is built through consistency and takes time.  ’Disappointment’ has to be dealt with quickly and proactively if ‘Disaffection’ is to be avoided. Disaffected customers are difficult (impossible?) to win back. I can’t help but feel that there are lots and lots of  the politicians’  ‘customers’ (regardless of the party) out there who are ‘disaffected’ because of consistently low expectations and ‘poor’ experiences in recent years. 

As a result, they won’t even have watched the Debate. Just like we ‘switch off’ from the marketing messages sent to us by businesses we’re ‘disaffected’ from, many people have done the same with politicians. Getting  ‘customers’ to even watch the next Leadership Debates is a challenge for all of them.

What they actually ‘deliver’ will always be judged by our ‘expectations’ of them. Expectations of Nick Clegg are going to be higher. Just a like in the ‘real world’, if he gives us another ‘great experience’, he could be ‘in business’!

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“We interview people for culture fit. We want people who are passionate about what Zappos is about–service. I don’t care if they’re passionate about shoes.”

Tony Hseih, Chief Executive, Zappos

I blogged a bit about Zappos last month. They are the incredibly successful online shoe and clothes retailer in the US who have an amazing reputation for customer service. There are a lot of people over here in the UK who are not perhaps as familiar with them as all their ‘raving fans’ in the United States.

Their Chief Executive  Tony Hseih puts it down to their culture – they strive to ‘deliver happiness’ and do some amazing things to create and reinforce this culture. He encourages his call centre staff  ‘to be themeselves’ and says “The best way to have an open-door policy is not to have a door in the first place”. He doesn’t have an office – his workspace is out there ‘just like everyone else’s!

Started in 1999, this is not a little business – turnover is over $1 Billion! They are a great example of a small business that’s grown massively and maintained its culture – something that so  many fail to do.

A fundamental basis for maintaining their amazing culture are their ‘core values’ – You can read and watch here about their core values.

Here’s an article about them from Inc. magazine that gives a bit of an insight into their approach. Equally, it’s well worth simply exploring their websites to get a real ‘feel’ for what they’re about – Zappos.com and Zappos Blogs

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Podcast #4contains:

• Thinking in 3D – Steps to help you develop a Dramatically and Demonstrably Different Business
• Make Innovation Work For You – An interview with creativity expert Jonny Douglas
• Build Trust – 20 ideas to help you build trust with your customers
• Plus other rants, raves and recommendations to stimulate thoughts and actions  

You can listen to it here: 

You can also download it to your ipod by clicking here or on the itunes icon at the top of the website

Related links for this podcast:

(re)thinking in 3D ebook - Click here for details and the FREE download

HSBC 100 Thoughts - Download the first 25 Thoughts and sign up for the remainder

Jonny Douglas website and Jonny’s Blog

Recommended podcasts:

Duct Tape Marketing

37 Signals

The Bottom Line

Obviously you can sign up for these at iTunes (as you can the Compete Or Get Beat podcast – simply click here to do that)

And finally, don’t forget to leave us a comment below on a) what you thought and b) what you’d like to see more / less of in future podcasts – all ideas, suggestions. recommendations (and criticisms!!) welcome!

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