Tag Archives: Customer service

July 3, 2012 · 9:20 am

Surprise!

“Surprise” is a loaded word.

Mega Surprise

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We delight in surprise parties (well, maybe as long as we’re not the one being surprised) and we dislike surprise hairs in our soup (particularly if they’re not our color).  It’s a powerful concept, although I guess the scientists would tell you that it’s not the surprise itself that’s the issue – it’s the emotions that follow the surprise event.

Surprise is a concept of which we need to take full advantage in business while simultaneously avoiding it like the plague.  When a customer can’t find something in the store, we can take joy in their surprise when a store employee digs around in the back until they find an item thought to be out of stock.  This happened to the Mrs. just this past weekend. She’s now a customer for life and has been telling the story to everyone.  Earned media indeed!

On the other hand, when you advertise a product on sale and are out of stock an hour after the store opens, customers feel as if they’ve been lied to – it’s hard for them to believe you haven’t pulled a classic bait and switch to get them to the store.

Managing people often involves surprises of both sorts.  There are little ones like a key person calling in sick and big ones like them resigning.  On the other hand, sometimes we’re surprised by pieces of business those employees find out of the blue or by their achieving a higher standard in their work.  Yay!

I guess what it all means is that we need to manage expectations constantly both to avoid the bad kinds of surprise and to increase the impact of the good kind.  No, we shouldn’t have people thinking that a hair in their soup is permissible – that shows a need to manage something other than expectations – but we can make sure that when we set standards we adhere to them.  Customers and employees notice.  Our job is to surprise them in the good way.  Given how few organizations are able to get to their own professed standards, it shouldn’t be that difficult a task.  You agree?

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June 21, 2012 · 8:32 am

The Social Hot Potato

An interesting read this morning from the folks at Genesys (with a hat tip to Media Post).

1 and a half russet potato with sprouts. Slice...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Genesys conducted a study that surveyed more than 798 senior executives worldwide about customer communication and found that the social and mobile channels are not yet aligned with customer service.  Shocking, I know.  Some key points:

  • Fifty eight percent of C-suite Execs see the CEO as responsible for the social media and mobile channels, but only 28 percent of middle managers agree. The disconnect between top-level and mid-ranking executives might be explained by the novelty factor of social media.
  • When it comes to driving the customer conversation, the marketing department, not customer service or the C-suite, is driving the response to new channels with 44 percent of executives saying the marketing department has dominated the dialogue between company and customer.
  • The report also found that 43 percent of companies only began using social media in the last year and only 11 percent of businesses have been using social media to communicate with customers for three years or more.
  • Customer Service has not been a priority with new communications channels. Only 42 percent of organizations use call centers to communicate with customers and just 6 percent see customer support/service as the main purpose of new communication channels.

A few thoughts.  In larger, more mature companies, the CEO is generally someone my age – well over 50.  One might wonder how familiar your stereotypical CEO is with social channels and what sort of daily (much less hourly) use they make of them.  No wonder the middle managers are a little skeptical.  The implied turf war between marketing, PR, and customer service over who is in charge is no surprise.  Nor is it a shock that companies that appoint a single person, instead of a team, to manage all communications were more successful. Thirty-three percent of executives within companies that have appointed a team to manage social media/mobile channels felt that there was a disconnect between teams that touch these channels. In organizations that had appointed a single individual to manage new channels, just 9 percent perceived the same disconnect.

Social media as a communications channel is a huge disruptor.  Those sorts of hot potatoes aren’t welcomed into most corporate environments.  As the study show, the social round peg isn’t fitting into any of the existing square holes.  The companies that are doing well are the ones that have drilled a round place.

Thoughts?

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May 30, 2012 · 9:09 am

Another Great Service Experience

Yesterday I wrote about how AT&T wireless treated me to show how some companies are putting the “service” back in customer service. Today, I’d like to present another great example and it comes from a different perspective.


The company is Carl’s Golfland, an online retailer. At least, I thought they were just an online retailer.  Turns out they’re one of the oldest golf retailers around and they were chosen for the 27th consecutive time as one of Golf Digest‘s Top 100 Golf Shops. Carl’s is the only off course golf store to be named 100 best every year since the inception of the award.  I suspect this might have had something to do with the service.  More about that in a second.

They were recommended to me by a golf buddy who knew I was looking for a golf show that’s difficult to find, at least at a reasonable price. I went to the site, placed an order (great prices!) and received a confirmation mail almost immediately.  Very good ordering and communication experience.  However, the next day I got another mail – the shoes I had ordered had, in fact, been out of stock when I ordered them.  As happens sometimes, the computer inventory hadn’t kept up with the physical inventory (I had this happen every so often when I was running an online store – it’s tricky).  The note I received could not have been more pleasant and included a few proposed solutions – same shoe different color (with a link to it), a discount on a better shoe (with a link), or wait a few days for the inventory to restock.  Since I needed the shoes quickly, I chose the different color (which I actually like better now that I have them).

The series of email exchanges were not with “customer service” – it went to an individual’s email box (thanks Tim!) and he promised me he’d make sure they got to me quickly (which they did a day later – no charge for what I suspect was upgraded shipping).  They turned what might have been a big negative (first time customer, incorrect inventory, delayed order fulfillment) into a positive (I will be ordering from Carl’s again and have already recommended them to another golfing buddy).  I suspect that their main business is still in bricks and mortar has something to do with this.  It’s hard to look customers in the eye and blow them off (especially if you’re not in NYC or another big city).  The fact that the store is rated very highly makes me think they emphasize the customer and this has carried through to their online store as well.

That’s something to think about – do you treat customers you know from cyberspace differently than the ones you’ve met in person?  Why is that so?

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