Tag Archives: Customer service

June 8, 2016 · 8:41 am

Telling Customers To Go FICO Themselves

Today’s screed is yet another instance of someone committing the grievous error of telling the truth about his organization’s bad behavior, and doing so in a public forum! Not surprisingly, this executive comes out of the cable industry, which is renowned for having a somewhat less than favorable reputation among consumers.  This guy isn’t helping.

Let me state upfront that I know plenty of cable executives.  I grew up in the TV business with some. Heck, I’ve even had them as clients (none of them are at the moment!).  I will categorically state that they are generally good business people and even better human beings, at least most of them.  I’m not sure why the cable industry has the generally lousy reputation among consumers, but facts are facts.  This statement, spoken by the CEO of Cable One might shed a little light on it:

According to company CEO Thomas Might, the Phoenix, Ariz.-based MSO has deployed a “very rigorous FICI credit scoring process” on its video customers since 2013.  “We don’t turn people away,” Might said, but the cable company’s technicians aren’t going to “spend 15 minutes setting up an iPhone app” for a customer who has a low FICO score.

Yes, you’re reading that right.  He’s happy to take the money of people with bad credit scores but he’s not going to service them to any degree.  As you might be aware, not everyone with a bad credit score is of lesser means.  Maybe you had a billing dispute so you didn’t pay it and the vendor put through a ding to your credit report.  Maybe you didn’t get paid by clients and you couldn’t pay some bills. Or maybe you just live in the “wrong” neighborhood.  In any event, Cable One isn’t going to service you even though you’re paying the same fees as the folks with sterling credit scores.

It goes without saying that  every one of these customers is signing the same contract with the cable company and, therefore, is entitled to the same support for the level of cable service they’re buying. Not in the CEO’s mind. In my mind, discrimination of any sort is a bad idea.  That’s not to say rewarding your best customers with “extras” is bad – it isn’t.  That’s not what we’re seeing here.  This is denigrating the basic support a customer can expect based on a measure of that customer’s financial stregth, and I think it’s wrong.  You?

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May 25, 2016 · 10:58 am

Ignoring 9 Out Of 10

I realize I’ve spent the first couple of posts this week on the topic of companies being less than responsive to customers. I was chatting about this with someone yesterday and they asked me if I really thought the two cases I cited were the norm.  After all, he said, how can companies really expect this kind of behavior to remain quiet when every person is a publisher?

Sprout Social

Sprout Social

Precisely my point, but since when does common sense prevail?  In fact, companies are getting worse at being responsive.  Maybe it’s just the increase in volume, maybe it’s the ease with which customers can reach out, but the common sense solution of staffing up and training to handle the increased load is nowhere to be found.  Since we believe in fact-based statements here, these facts are from Sprout Social:

90% of people surveyed have used social in some way to communicate directly with a brand. What’s more, social surpasses phone and email as the first place most people turn when they have a problem or issue with a product or service, according to Sprout’s consumer survey. Following this trend, The Sprout Index shows that the number of social messages needing a response from a brand has increased by 18%over the past year. In spite of the high volume of messages that require a response, brands reply to just 11% of people (a number that’s been stuck in neutral since 2015).

11%, meaning brands are ignoring 89% of the messages sent to them as consumers reach out. I guess they’re too busy misusing social media and other responsive channels as megaphones (so 1995) since the research found that brands send promotional messages out 23 times as often as they respond to a customer message. It’s not just social that requires our attention.  August 2015 research from Nice Systems and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that internet users in major metro areas worldwide used an average of 5.6 customer service channels.

I can hear you rubbing your temples as the headache comes on.  How will you support your customers in those places when you might be ignoring 9 out of 10 customer interactions now?  Beats me, but the question needs to be answered, and the organizations that do so will be the ones that win.  Make sense?

 

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May 23, 2016 · 10:48 am

I Got Trucked

I rented a cargo van and that’s when the fun started. I mentioned in another post that we’re preparing to sell Rancho Deluxe and part of the process is cleaning out 30 years of stuff. I booked a cargo van through Enterprise, a company from which I’ve rented cars in the past without issue. They confirmed my reservation but just to be safe I went to the local lot and examined the vehicle I was renting a week ahead of time to be sure it would serve my needs. It was fine.

At 2pm the day of the rental I got a call from Enterprise asking if I was indeed coming to pick it up. I said yes, the reservation is for 5:30 and that’s when I’ll be there. I asked if there was an issue. The guy on the phone said no, we have a van, it’s just not the one you saw. Hmm. Is it the same size? “No, it’s a little shorter.” “You mean less tall because I need height to get some items in?” “No, the length is less.” OK, not an issue.

5:30 comes and I go to get the van. It is quite nice but a miniature version of what I rented. It was no bigger than a minivan or large SUV, and not at all satisfactory for my needs. The customer service rep was very apologetic, informing me that the person who rented it last hadn’t brought it back, they’d been working all day to find me another one, etc. All well and good, but it’s 5:40, most other rental places have closed or will close in the next 20 minutes, and I need a van.

What’s the business lesson? First and foremost, be honest with your customers. Obviously, they knew there was an issue at 2 when they called. Why not be honest? I’ve been on the other end of this, running the NHL’s online commerce. One year we were completely out of hockey jerseys and the inventory system failed to turn off new orders. I told the customer service reps to be honest – we would not be able to fulfill the orders by Christmas and if the customers didn’t want a credit then a full refund should be offered. More than that, I asked our commerce folks to be proactive and contact the people immediately, since it is unacceptable that some kid wouldn’t get a gift due to our faulty inventory management.

Had they been open about the problem at 2, it would have given me 3 hours to find a replacement. They were also dishonest about the size of the replacement. It had nowhere close to the cargo capacity of what I rented. No, I didn’t take the replacement Enterprise offered me. I scrambled and was lucky enough to convince a U-Haul dealer to stay open an extra 15 minutes to rent me something like what I rented in the first place. It will cost me a few bucks more but at least I got what I needed.

I’m hoping this was an aberration on Enterprise’s part. As I said above, I’ve rented cars from them before without a hitch. Customers don’t expect perfection but they do expect to be told when there is a problem and to be told what you’re doing to solve it. I wasn’t told there was a problem until it was too late, and what they had done was to throw up their hands when they couldn’t find a replacement in their own inventory (ever hear of an airline rebooking you on another airline? Maybe get one from someone else?). The goodwill you’ll generate by doing so will outweigh the negative of the moment.  You with me?

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