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Blog posts tagged care
Customers, who wants them?
October 23, 2009
The customer may always be right, but are they the right customers?
One of the customer’s of my company (Actinic) was incredibly picky about how their business wanted to use our software. We are a mass market, low price supplier and we’ve sold tens of thousands of products and services, so we normally can’t make changes for individual companies who typically pay a few hundred pounds each. However, this particular customer was very persistent. So one of our product managers contacted them, spent ages discussing their requirements and subsequently we agreed to make some changes. Responding in this way was exceptional and it cost us much more than we could ever make in sales from the particular guy.
But this customer isn’t at all grateful. In fact, recently they have become even more critical, and have continued to cost us more in support than almost anyone else. Would it have been better if we had said “no” in the first place?
Without sounding too critical, the customer in question doesn’t appear to be particularly successful, and I’m sure it’s not a coincidence. If someone can’t understand the business needs of their suppliers, they probably don’t know how their own customers tick either.
Some clients are very demanding, and whatever you do they are never satisfied. I’m not talking about customers upset with poor service, who need helping. Nor am I talking about customers that need a lot of handholding. Nor about customers who buy the wrong product, who should have their money returned. I’m talking about customers who fundamentally don’t understand the trade-off involved in human and business interactions.
Although the circumstances I’ve described are rare, they aren’t unique. My guess is that this applies to maybe one in two hundred customers. The cost in time and demoralising impact on staff makes it more difficult to give good service to everyone else. As a result, I am coming to the conclusion that for this small minority, we would do better to suggest that they do business with our competitors.
It’s critical not to provide our customer service team with any excuse for bad service, so there are some dangers in adopting such measures. However, applied incredibly carefully to a very small minority, surely it’s time to review the relationship with these sorts of customers?
Security, Client Service - or 'jobs for the boys' on the railways?
October 20, 2009
'Reduce your carbon footprint', they said. Travel by train to 'ease the strain' they said. So, with a meeting in London last Monday and trips to Leeds and Manchester for the rest of last week, I booked all my journeys (Banbury to London to Leeds to Manchester to Banbury) on-line. As a customer, I had to work really hard to get it all done on the web but nonetheless, so far, so good... tickets to be collected at 'starting' stations (don't risk the mail, eh?). I printed the booking references, which confirmed all the non-transferable train travel details for each journey and I packed them carefully.
Life got interesting at Kings Cross, Monday evening for the trip to Leeds. Rows of ticket collection machines were three-deep in travelers but I got to one, entered my details and tickets were produced - outbound ticket, booking receipt, and credit card voucher. And that was it. So, I waited 20 minutes for the platform to be called - only 7 minutes to departure - then hurried to the barrier.
At the barrier, I was told that I needed another ticket in addition to the ones I held. I said I picked up all that was produced; I showed the on-line confirmation. No good. I was directed back to the ticket machines for the missing ticket. I explained that would have been 20 or more minutes ago so even if I had missed a ticket, it would be long-gone and I could only travel on that train or forfeit the fare - no deal.
Not only could I not identify exactly which of the many machines I had used, the 'help desk' had 30 or more people already queuing.
Panicking, I found a security guard who found me a railway employee. He took all the tickets and the on-line confirmation I gave him; he hand wrote: date, train time, destination, seat number on a blue slip only from the detail I gave him. AND HE ADDED NOTHING NEW...! The guy at the barrier saw the blue form but didn't check any detail....
If I wasn't athletic, I would have missed that train.
So, why this procedure? Security, Client Service - or 'jobs for the boys' on the railways?
The blog is mightier than the sword
September 18, 2009
In the old days a quibble over a product or service not being up to scratch would be resolved through an exchange of letters with a customer service department. A swift resolution ensuing, the customer would be happy and the business might have gone beyond just saving face and reinforced its brand values, too. Today, this model is not quite so strong.
According to Webuser.co.uk, a holidaymaker has secured £600 in compensation for a disastrous holiday as a result of the prominent Google search ranking he achieved for the angry blog he fired off when a complaint letter to the holiday firm yielded no result.
The holidaymaker had originally penned a letter of complaint (ten pages of letter, in fact) detailing a depressing series of problems he encountered during a less than satisfactory Tunisian holiday. After six weeks, having only received an acknowledgment for his rant, the increasingly angry traveller went public and recorded his troubles on his personal blog.
In no time, he was getting lots of traffic – much of it from people who had simply typed search terms relating to holidays in Tunisia. In fact, the critical blog entry’s Google ranking was creeping ever closer to the summit on all the key search terms the travel company would rather see taking you to the holiday package they were trying to flog.
Once the holiday company became aware of the growing popularity of the blog post, blogs about the blog post and probably even blogs blogging about the impact of blog posts about the original blog post - such is the way the Internet feeds off itself - it became apparent that an “elevated” level of response was required. Compensation was paid to the blogger and an apology posted on his blog, to boot.
However, it may be too late for damage limitation – the rant, of course, has been widely seen and still exists in the public domain. The digital footprint of a blog post that would never have seen the light of day had the travel company responded sooner is now leaving the most indelible – and embarrassing – of stains on its reputation.
Nine sales and customer care facts
April 24, 2009
If your customers are not listening it is not their fault! It is your fault… you are not communicating in a way that they can hear your message.
Your sales presentations/offers and so forth are probably all wrong. Read on...
People have problems/hurts/needs that they want sorted out. You need to know what they are. Ask questions, shut up and listen to the answers.
Customers are only interested in how you can help them relieve the pain or get more pleasure.
People will buy from you if you are able to cut to the chase. Tell them what they will get… Don’t bore them. Be precise.
People don’t buy from you for what you do but for what your product or service will do for them (probably after you are gone). How will they be better off after you have gone?
Customers want you to make it absolutely clear what they will get by buying from you. Tell them how you will make things better for them.
Customers love it when you make it clear that you can deliver. So tell them: “We can do that” and give them some brief proofs or examples.
Customers love it when you shut up.
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