"Hi, How May I Offend You Today?"

As an American consumer, chances are that you have been offended in some way by a company this year. It hasn’t always been that way. Before the current era of mass-everything, there was a real connection between proprietor and customer: a connection that continues to be the envy of most businesses today.

Let me take you back to a time when the customer and business had a real – not artificial - relationship.

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

“Jim was spending a typical fall Saturday working on a never-ending list of home repair projects. Ever since he bought the little two-story fixer-upper, he has been a regular down at the corner hardware store. Earl, the sole proprietor, was from the old school. He didn’t believe in fancy systems or gimmicks; he just liked helping his fellow neighbors. Earl knew everyone by name, and as any good businessperson should – he knew what one of his best customers, Jim, was up to today.

When Jim walked in the door, Earl recognized him like an old friend and immediately asked him about his latest project. Within minutes, Earl had found just the right product and tool that would help Jim get the job done. Earl made a sale as well as a very happy customer.”

That scenario just doesn’t happen often enough anymore does it? Perhaps it was easier back before quaint neighborhood stores were overrun by the big-box retailers and the mass-production of, well, everything. Neighborhood storeowners developed real relationships with their customers; not a relationship defined by a customer record stored in some computer database.

BAD SERVICE - MASS PRODUCED

Unfortunately, in today’s environment of mass-produced products and services, companies rely too heavily on a rapidly changing employee base, and a less than adequate customer database. As a result, it’s far too easy – and common – for companies to offend their customers.

If we were to replay Jim’s scenario in today’s environment, it might go something like this:

“Jim jumped in his car for the second time this Saturday to make the 20-minute drive to a strip mall where the big-box home improvement store was located. On his first trip, the young assistant didn’t really understand what Jim was trying to do and had sold him the wrong product. Now, Jim had to return to the store to exchange it for something else.

Upon arriving at the store, nobody greeted or recognized him, and when he finally tracked down a store employee, he had to re-explain his entire project and problem. After a long deliberation, Jim finally had a replacement product and was ready to check out. But without his receipt for the original product…”

You probably know how the story would go. Too many consumers have been treated just this way. It’s no wonder that many consumers say that customer service across the board is just plain bad.

THE REMEDY?

Unfortunately, we live in a time where mass-produced products and services are the norm. If you work for one of these organizations, you have to make the most of a difficult situation: multiple locations, multiple channels, changing employees, and rising customer expectations. Many companies turn to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions to bridge the gap on poor customer service.

Although CRM solutions can stem the tide of poor customer service, they often can’t achieve the level of customer intimacy that some customers require. CRM solutions do a great job of tracking customer information, transactions, and interactions, but I would argue that a CRM system is only as good as the customer-facing individuals using it.

Ideally, your CRM system should help your organization to keep track of all pertinent customer information:

• Customer Information: This should include all of the basic identifying information for your customer including name, address, email address, telephone number, sex, age, etc.
• Transaction History: This should include a record of all transactions associated with your customer including the transaction dates, amount, products or services purchased, payments, receivables, returns, refunds, etc.
• Interaction History: This should include a record of all contacts made with the customer including telephone calls, emails, newsletters, direct mail, invoices, service calls, etc.

Armed with all of this great information, customer-facing employees should be well prepared to provide excellent customer service, right? In a perfect world, they should. However, there are several factors that can hinder the best intentions of any CRM solution:

1. Employee Behavior & Discipline: Poor customer service can continue even with a CRM solution in place when employees don’t utilize it properly or consistently.
2. Data Quality & Accessibility: A customer database can help to collect and aggregate critical information, but it won’t help if the data is incorrect or inaccurate, or if your employees can’t access it when and where they need it most.
3. Single View of the Customer: CRM solutions in your company are like debt; more is not necessarily better. Too often, multiple CRM solutions arise in an organization, which creates silos of customer data. That can prevent your company from ever getting a single view of your customer – a scenario that can perpetuate poor customer service.

Bad customer service doesn’t need to become a habit. We may never return to the time of quant neighborhood stores, where intimate customer service just came naturally. However, companies can begin to improve their customer service by taking a more customer-centric view of their CRM systems. CRM should not be viewed as the end-all solution, but rather as a enabling tool that, if used properly by your employees, can help to develop a more meaningful relationship with your customers.

You can improve your own customer service by getting the Customer Experience Solution Kit; a complete collection of methods, tools, and advice used by some of the largest and most well known companies to improve their customer experience.

The next time I walk into a business that I frequent, I’d like them to remember me. I’d like them to recall that I just bought something from them last week, or that I’ve been a regular customer for more than a year. I’d like them to ask me how I’m doing, or how they can help me with my latest project – which they should know about. Nobody wants to be greeted with an all too common mantra: “Hi, How May I Offend You Today?”

Inside Jobs, September 26, 2007

Inside Jobs, September 18, 2007

Would You Put Your Customers Through This?

There has been a lot of talk over the years about managing the Total Customer Experience. This is a Utopian view, of course, given the span of control that would be required to truly influence the myriad of events, factors, and third parties that make up the total customer experience in most industries.

Let me explain.

The travel industry, perhaps an easy target for criticism, is a perfect example. In order to get from one city to the next, we engage several entities, each one serving its own unique purpose. We need them all to accomplish our mission, yet none of them are necessarily motivated to work together.

You see, I’ve experienced these challenges firsthand. Admittedly, I am a frequent traveler and have logged an embarrassing number of airline miles and hotel points over my 20-year career. I’ve had my share travel miscues over the years, but a recent trip from San Diego to Kansas City this past weekend really highlighted the problems associated with any attempt at managing the total customer experience.

In this case, the total customer experience began when I checked myself, my wife, and three kids out of our hotel. It would end when we arrived safely at our home in Kansas City. Along the way, we would interact a hotel, a rental car company, two airlines, the transportation security administration (TSA), an airport terminal bus, and a parking lot attendant. In short, it was less than smooth.

Mysterious Beginnings. We began our day by trying to check out of our hotel in San Diego. Amazingly, the front desk said they had no record of our reservation, nor did their system have any record of anyone staying in our room. Apparently, we didn’t exist. Confused, we piled into our rental car and raced to the airport to return our rental car.

The Bad. We returned our rental car, full of gas, and void of any new scratches or dents. Hurray! But when we received our bill, they had not credited us for the coupon we provided for a free weekend rental day. Simply put, they made the offer – they should honor it. With little time to argue, we continued on to the airport with the issue unresolved. Needless to say, our experience wasn’t good so far.

The Ugly. Upon arriving at the airport at 7:30AM (have I mentioned the challenge of getting 3 kids out of bed at that hour?) we checked in to find out that our American flight had been cancelled due to weather in a city nearly 1,500 miles away. Obviously the airline industry can’t control the weather, but it impacted our customer experience greatly, to say the least.

The Good. American Airlines was able to book us on a direct flight (our original flight included a connection) on Midwest Airlines. Now, if you’ve flown Midwest – you know that this was a major upgrade; All seats are first-class leather seats. Although the flight departed nearly 4 hours later than our original flight – we took advantage of the time. We enjoyed a great Mexican breakfast in Old Town San Diego, and toured the Marine Corps Museum at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) before returning to the airport. Fortunately, we were able to make the most of our setback.

The Bad. If you’ve ever changed a flight at the last minute, you know that your ticket will be flagged for extra security screening. Now don’t get me wrong, I completely respect the TSA and personally thank them for the job they are doing. But the extra attention we received with three young children in tow added a bit of extra anxiety to our already bumpy customer experience ride.

The Good. We boarded our Midwest Airlines flight after confirming that they had meal service on this nearly 3 hour flight. In the air, however, they sold out of meals before we were served. Our kids didn’t seem to mind since they filled up on the warm chocolate chip cookies that followed. As you can imagine, dining on only cookies can have a potentially undesirable affect on any child. The pilot’s announcement that we would arrive 10 minutes early was a very welcome sound, indeed.

The Bad. At Kansas City International (MCI) airport, we arrived at a different terminal than where we started our trip, so I was required to jump on the terminal transfer bus that is supposed to run continuously in front of the terminal. After twenty minutes of standing and waiting, the first and seemingly only bus running, arrived to take us to our original terminal. This was just another weak link in a long chain of events.

The Ugly. We were ecstatic to see our own car and quickly loaded our luggage, anxious to get home. But not so fast. We pulled up to the parking lot toll booth and handed over our parking ticket and a credit card. I won’t go into details, because I don’t want to rehash the amazing incompetence we experienced. To cut to the short of it, our car idled at the booth for a full 25 minutes. No exaggeration. No apologies from the parking lot operators. No offers of rebates. Just an indignant notice that they were having ‘technical difficulties’ and that we would have to proceed to another toll booth to pay and exit the lot. There are a lot of four letter words I could have inserted here, but I bit my lip and proceeded on.

We did eventually arrive home safely, happy to have made the trip, albeit a full twelve hours after it began in San Diego. You might say our customer experience was less than ideal, but the point here is that there were many unrelated factors, entities, and third parties involved that all contributed (or detracted) from our experience.

In this example, the total customer experience was comprised of multiple independent links in a long chain. In order to manage the total customer experience, all of the entities would need to be well coordinated and tightly integrated. In addition, each party would need to share a common goal of optimizing the customer experience.

I don’t see that happening any time soon.

In the meantime, it’s the customer that must just grin and bear it.

Inside Jobs, September 11, 2007

Music Tames the Savage Family

Customer experience; it’s a topic we’ve been featuring prominently at ClearBrick.com for some time now. But what does it really mean to me personally? As it turns out - plenty. Especially when it comes to taming the savage family that routinely stampedes to our dinner table each and every evening.

For those of you parents of school-age children, I’m sure you can sympathize. We have to fight through the din of sibling rivalries, unfinished homework, and the never-ending rush to get our kids to the next soccer/football/baseball/dance practice session. Perhaps it’s a miracle that we have time to take on food at all!

Despite the seeming chaos, we make every attempt to get the entire family to the dinner table. Granted, this task may seem akin to herding cats, but we try it anyway. It is one of the few times we can all sit down as a family and see everybody’s shining faces – even if on some days it is for only ten minutes of speed eating.

So how do I make the dinner chaos a bit more bearable? Personally, I focus on the customer experience and I’ve found that sometimes, it’s the little things that can make all the difference. I tame our savage family with a little music.

It’s amazing the difference a little music can make. I often don’t care what it is; blues, rock, pop, or lounge music – a bit of background music can change the mood of our dinner table. Our kids seem to slow down long enough to talk to us, we get fewer complaints about the food, and fewer sibling arguments.

In addition, we’ve found that pairing music with food is a lot like pairing the right wine. For example, a little Italian background music can turn my canned spaghetti sauce and pasta into a gourmet Tuscan meal. Salsa music can make my southwestern dishes appear a bit more authentic. And softer music can help make even leftover chicken seem a little bit romantic.

In a good year, we’ll eat hundreds of potentially forgettable meals at home. It is easy to forget these events when the experience becomes mundane. Eating is a requirement of survival, so we go through the motions to get the job done. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can make each meal a little special by adding something as simple as music. The same principles can be applied to your business.

Now, I’m not suggesting that adding elevator music will make a difference in your business. In fact, please don’t! The point here is that you need to transform a potentially mundane customer experience into something that is special.

Our world is already full of mundane activities. Don’t let your business just blend into the white noise. When it comes to customer experience, being average just won’t cut it. You have to make it special and meaningful to each and every customer. Give them what they want; a memorable customer experience.

After all, if I can do it by adding a little music to the dinner table, you can too.

To find additional tips on how to improve your customer experience, get our booklet called Make Your Customers Sing!