Posts Tagged ‘customer service’

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One Person Does Not Equal “Everyone”

09.07.17

A couple of months ago I wrote about the challenge that communicators face in recognizing that we are not the same as our audiences. A similar dilemma sits alongside that for communicators engaged in social media: one person does not equal a majority.

Just as the fact that you think something doesn’t mean everyone does, the fact that one person complains about something online shouldn’t mean you go into crisis mode. One complaint doesn’t mean you have to change your business processes.

Caveat.

Social media can, and frequently can be, the canary in the goldmine. If you see a steady trickle of people complaining about something over a period of time, you should pay attention. That doesn’t mean you automatically have to change things, but remember: direct feedback is one of the most powerful benefits of social media.

Also…

One thing to remember: While one person’s moment of pain may not be something that requires serious change to your processes, you need to separate that decision from that of whether to engage with that person to solve their pain.

This is an area where experienced practitioners can help companies as they plot their way through the social media waters. People who aren’t familiar with the space may blow something completely out of proportion (or, on the flip side, not heed the warning signs when they are present).

So, next time you see someone complain about something online, stop and think: is this the canary in the coal mine, or are you about to cry wolf?

Posted in: social media

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You Aren’t Always Right

09.06.18

As our team does more and more online outreach on behalf of our clients, I’m increasingly coming to realize that you can’t expect to “win” every debate.

Interestingly enough, “you” in this case can refer to either side of the discussion.

Companies – you don’t have to win

As a communications pro, with inside knowledge of the company/companies you represent, it’s easy to get caught-up in your own story. I mean that in a positive way – the best job is one you’re passionate about, whether that passion is focused on your employer or a client. Still, it’s easy to get swept away by the great things you’re doing, by the benefits your organization can offer, and by the great story you’re telling.

Trouble is, other people have a different story.

Maybe they have a history with that company. Maybe they perceive the situation in a completely different way to that in which you perceive it. Maybe they’re looking to solve different problems to you.

As a communicator who listens and engages with your target market online, you need to remember that you don’t have to convince everyone every time. Sometimes it’s enough that you show you’re listening. Sometimes it’s enough to put forward an alternative angle. Sometimes it’s best not to engage at all.

Consumers – you’re not always right

Social media, and the increased voice that it gives to the average person, seems to have led to many people believing that one person’s issue means a company has to change course.

Reality check, people: no company is ever going to be able to make everyone happy. What’s more, most changes in business have a counter-effect:

  • Lower the price on one thing and the revenue has to come from somewhere else (or increased volumes)
  • Basic management theory explains that of the three basic elements of a project outcome – cost, speed and quality – you can optimize two but have to compromise on the other.

My point here is that you may not like something, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else feels the same way. The opposite is potentially true, too – just because you’re happy with something doesn’t mean everyone else is.

Don’t expect every single company to leap to attention because you, personally, don’t agree with fundamental aspects of their business model.

So, next time a company responds to your concerns but puts forward an alternative perspective or just doesn’t drop everything to make big changes to their business based on your feedback, consider:

Is it them not listening to their customers, or an individual not necessarily representing the masses?

Closing-out

Social media engagement isn’t an all-or-nothing game. Not from the customer’s perspective, and certainly not from the company’s.

Social media allows companies to reach out to customers, and vice versa. It lets companies listen to concerns; to answer questions; to help people; to develop relationships. It lets customers voice opinions; receive support; put forward ideas.

Just remember – whether you’re the company or the customer, you aren’t always right.

Posted in: social media

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Does Your Organization Have Multiple Personalities?

09.05.21

Whether you like it or not, your customer service is now part of your company’s public relations. In reality it has always been that way but now, with the variety of online tools that let individuals have a louder voice, many more people can hear about your customer service successes and failures.

Customer service is one of the many ways you can put social media tools to use – identifying customer issues early and resolving them to create happy, satisfied customers. Whether it’s through focused tools like Get Satisfaction or through a coordinated listening and engagement program, there are plenty of ways to go about it. On a daily basis we’re blown away by the power of tools like Radian6 for coordinating this kind of effort.

Respond to customers online and they can be blown away that you’re listening. Frankly, most people don’t yet expect it. We’ve seen from our own clients that the response you can get from effective online service is powerful.

What happens, though, when your offline customer service function doesn’t live up to the expectation for service standards you’ve set online? 

You end up with an organization with multiple personalities.

Online, your company is friendly, responsive, and goes beyond the minimum to set a gold-level standard. Offline, your call centre staff are assessed on turnaround time on calls, and are focused on getting you off the line as quickly as possible.

The person who gets prompt, friendly, personal service online one day and then the next day gets put on hold to a call centre in India for 90 minutes will have an even more negative perception of that phone experience due to that contrast. What’s more, they’re likely to continue to rely on your online service in future, by-passing the other options.

Is that the kind of consistency you aim for with your brand? I hope not.

What about the customers who experience this disconnect? As Todd Defren notes, the response is likely to be something along the lines of:

“Treat me like a STAR one day, and give me a nightmarish experience the next day, just because I’ve reached out via a different channel?  F* you!  I’m gonna tweet about this — you are a fraud!!”

If you’re starting to tune-in and listen to conversations about your company online, pay close attention to what people are saying. Are they consistently complaining about your offline customer service? If they are, while you stand to benefit from outreach through social media tools, you need to take a long, hard look at the rest of your customer service operation.

Posted in: monitoring, pr, public relations

Tags: , , , , ,

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8 Small Steps To Improve Client Relationships

09.02.17

Weakest linkWe’ve all experienced the client (internal or external) who, for some reason, you just can’t satisfy. It’s frustrating – you deliver excellent results but they’re never happy.

Sometimes you can put this down to poor expectations management on your part, especially if you’ve played the “yes man” role up until that point (e.g. “Yes, absolutely, I think your envelope opening has great media potential…”).

There’s another potential reason though.

Little details; big impact

Consider: has your client’s entire experience matched-up with those excellent results, or have you fallen short in some areas?

Your client’s perceptions may be equal to the lowest common denominator in their experience – the weakest link in the customer service chain.

Confused? Let me explain.

This past weekend, I took advantage of Ontario’s Family Day to whisk Caralin away for a Valentine’s weekend in beautiful Montreal. On our second night we went out to a lovely restaurant in Old Montreal. The food was exquisite, the service impeccable and the atmosphere relaxing. However, the hotel bathrooms were poorly decorated and sub-par.

Did that bathroom affect the quality of the meal? No, but it pulled my perceptions of the restaurant down. All that work on food, service and atmosphere was undercut by a small detail.

The little details can make a big difference.

So, rather than shaking your head and wondering why your client is being unreasonable, consider:

  1. Do you return emails and calls promptly or do you wait to do it until later?
  2. Do you show up for meetings early or do you always arrive a few minutes late?
  3. Do you meet deadlines or do you often push them back?
  4. Do you constantly keep clients updated on progress or do you check-in occasionally?
  5. Do you stay within your budgets or do you frequently exceed them?
  6. Do you deliver high-quality products the first time around or do you expect others to revise them for you?
  7. Do you follow-through on tasks without needing to be reminded, or do you need frequent prompting?
  8. Do you deliver the minimum required but never go beyond?

Sorry to say it, but if you’re falling short on the little things like this, then stellar results may not be enough to salvage your client relationship.

Think about it. Figure out your weak link(s), and find a way to strengthen them. Little improvements can make a big difference.

What can you do to make your clients happier?

Posted in: pr, public relations

Tags: , , , ,

24Comments

Branding Won’t Solve All Your Problems

08.10.25

Seth Godin wrote today about a couple of big companies that have re-branded themselves recently, with some scepticism:

I guess the punchline is: take the time and money and effort you’d put into an expensive logo and put them into creating a product and experience and story that people remember instead.

Man with a megaphoneSad but true: many companies seem to think that by launching a new ad campaign, changing a logo or starting a blog, they can fix all of their problems.

Wrong.

Organizations need to remember that just because they shout something loudly, it doesn’t mean it’s true.

I had a brutal car rental experience recently, waiting hours for a rental car despite having a reservation. Not surprisingly, I was a little upset and my Twitter followers got to hear all about it. The first line of the car rental company’s response to me (after an email to their head office) included their slogan in quotes, right down to an inappropriately-placed period from their trademark.

The company has definitely created a story. It’s not the one they want people to hear, though.

Instead of messaging and bureaubabble (please don’t lead a paragraph with the word "pursuant"), I might have been a little happier if the response had included the words "sorry," "improve" or "won’t happen again." It included none of these.

You can’t brand your way out of a poor product or poor customer service.

Posted in: branding

Tags: ,

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Four Lessons From Twitter’s Spam/Customer-Busting Episode

08.08.04

If you’re a Twitter user, you may have noticed a storm in a teacup erupting over the last few days.

On August 1st, Dave Delaney, a friend who I finally met in person at PodCamp Toronto this year, found his Twitter account suspended for no apparent reason.

Account deleted

As it turned out, seven people eight people, including Connie Crosby — another friend of mine — were caught-up in the Twitter crew’s latest attempt to reduce the growing amount of spam on Twitter. Their accounts were suspended with no warning and they were left confused and unable to access their followers, their past messages or any messages that people had sent to them.

To cut a long story short (you can check out Dave’s posts on it here), Dave and the others managed to get their account reinstated but the experience, especially in terms of communication with the Twitter team, left Dave in particular unsure of whether to continue on the service. As he said to me in an email to me earlier today:

“I truly felt abandoned. It makes me question whether I want to trust Twitter with a journal of my thoughts and communication anymore, not to mention the ability to hijack my 1,500+ followers. I have no way to export them, so how can we keep connected should this happen again?”

Connie Crosby had a similar take:

“For the record, I had no communication from Twitter that I was reinstated. No explanation, & especially no apology. Leaves me a little cold.”

I find it amusing but at the same time sad that Twitter, a service used by companies like Comcast, H&R Block and JetBlue for customer service, isn’t using its own service in the same way.

Why do I care about this? Firstly, because Dave (and Connie) is a friend, a genuinely good guy, and passionate about Twitter. Secondly, because companies can learn some lessons from this.

Lessons learned

Here are four lessons that companies can learn from Twitter’s latest customer-service episode:

Prepare for the worst

Mistakes will happen. There’s nothing we can do to stop that.

Surely someone must have considered the possibility that non-spammers would get caught-up in Twitter’s spam-control efforts. Given the number of people using Twitter it’s not surprising that they had a few false positives when doing this kind of work. In fact, I’m surprised it was only eight people. The problem was that they weren’t ready when it did happen.

Companies should prepare for events like this so that if the worst does happen they can catch it before it escalates.

Respond quickly

Twitter’s staff did respond, but it was a day after the initial complaint was posted on GetSatisfaction. The first time Twitter bigwigs Biz Stone, Ev Williams or Jack Dorsey mentioned the episode was around the same time.

At an event in December 2007, I remember Dell’s Richard Binhammer saying “If you don’t respond within 24 hours, forget responding.” Twitter has a status blog for just this purpose; a quick post on there early on may have solved this problem before it escalated.

Respond personally

After blogging and posting frequently about the problem, Dave Delaney received an email from a Twitter rep:

Hello,
I saw the thread on Satisfaction and noticed your @replies regarding your account problems.  My apologies for the confusion; I’m looking into your account issues now, and I’ll be in touch with more information soon.
Thanks,
Crystal

Andy Brudtkuhl — another affected user — received an identical email. Other people commented on the impersonal tone in the response they received. People don’t like being treated impersonally.

When you respond to upset customers, try to personalize your response. Prepared messaging is good, but copied and pasted emails leave a poor impression. At a minimum, try to put a personal touch on it. In this case, even the name of the customer would help.

Your customer service can drive your reputation

Happy customers will tell other people about you. So will unhappy customers. Your customer service can make the difference between people becoming one or the other.

Unfortunately, customer service people are often at the bottom of the corporate heap, isolated from much of the business and hence with little idea what’s going on in the big picture. Do yourself a favour and set your customer service people up to succeed — keep them involved and in the loop. You may find that they can give you some useful insights into what your customers are saying about you.

It’s a PRoblem

Notice a trend? All of the lessons above are PR-related.

A couple of months ago, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said this about Twitter’s PR efforts:

“Twitter is 16 employees made up of systems engineers and operators, product designers, and support specialists. We do not employ public relations professionals.”

I may be a little biased but I think it’s time that, if they haven’t already, Twitter re-evaluates that situation.

Posted in: public relations, Twitter

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Orderit.ca Delivers Excellent Proactive Customer Service

08.07.29

Orderit.ca logo Orderit.ca is a Toronto-based food delivery service. The service lets you order food from a wide range of restaurants in the Toronto area and have the food delivered to your door. A food delivery aggregator, if you will.

Last Sunday, as Caralin and I were settling down for a quiet night in, we ordered a meal from their website. After well over an hour of waiting, the food arrived. I wasn’t happy about the wait but didn’t say anything to the driver about it as the company doesn’t have a guaranteed deliver time. I accepted the food, made a mental note of what happened and enjoyed the meal. Case closed and largely forgotten as far as I was concerned.

Yesterday however, I received a letter from a Customer Service Manager at Orderit.ca that floored me. I’ve excerpted part of the letter below.

Remember, this was completely unprompted. I didn’t say a word to the driver, I tipped well, and I didn’t submit any complaints to the company.

Here’s the letter. Emphasis is mine.

Dear Mr. Fleet,

We owe you an apology.

We know that when you order a meal for delivery from Orderit.ca, you are entitled to receive your meal within a reasonable period of time. This past Sunday evening we did not deliver that meal to you within a reasonable period of time and for that we are very sorry.

[…]

I have been in contact with the management at [restaurant] as well as our Logistics department to reduce the chances of this occurring in the future.

It isn’t our intention to provide excuses for your poor customer experience; however we do feel that the situation deserves a proper explanation, and an assurance that we have made some immediate modifications in order to ensure that this type of situation is not repeated.

As a small compensation for your inconvenience Sunday evening, we would like to offer you a credit of $5 on your next order in hopes that you will allow us to serve you again, in our usual timely manner.

[…]

We thank you for your understanding and look forward to serving you next time!

Sincerely,

XXX

Customer Service Manager

I wonder if Orderit.ca’s excellent GPS tracking system helped them to identify the problem. As the IT Business article notes, “Orderit.ca draws a geo-fence around a 40-meter perimeter at each of the restaurants it services…” This allows them to see whether restaurants are preparing the food on time, or if drivers are late to pick the food up. It would also let them know that my meal took more than their one-hour target to reach my house.

Regardless of how they knew about my experience, well done to Orderit.ca. I’m thoroughly impressed. With one piece of proactive customer service they’ve erased any bad feelings I had about my experience and turned me into an ambassador for their company.

Posted in: miscellaneous

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WestJet Shows The Value Of Providing Friendly Service

08.05.26

WestJet plane It’s always a pleasure to write good things about a company. Today I’m pleased to do this for WestJet.

On May 23 I flew on Westjet flight 651 out to Halifax on my way to run the Cabot Trail Relay in Cape Breton (which went really well, by the way – our team, Cardio Arrest, came fourth and won the mixed category).

Throughout the flight our cabin crew provided excellent friendly service, but our “MC” really made the difference. She missed her calling as a standup comedienne. A few choice quotes from her:

“If you’re caught smoking, you’ll be asked to leave the plane immediately…”

“[during the safety demonstration]… oxygen masks will drop down from above your oh-so-naturally-coloured hair… you take the Miss Piggy mask and put it over your face…”

“…it’s really easy, unless you’re like my ex-boyfriend…”

“We’ll shortly becoming through the cabin with garbage bags collecting drinks containers, tissues, $100 bills…”

“We’re landing about six minutes early, due entirely to your wonderful cabin crew…”

How can you not have a good flight with staff like that? Air Canada and their like could learn a lesson or two from this.

Bravo, WestJet. You’ve secured me as a loyal customer and it cost you nothing to do it.

Posted in: miscellaneous

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