Do Your Frontline Staff Look At Things From The Customer’s Perspective
Recently I travelled to Tasmania on business and stayed at the Mid City Motel. I was there for 2 nights and the motel room itself is quite well appointed. The lady on reception was a little bit vague when I checked in. I got up to the floor and the swipe cards that had been presented didn’t work but housekeeping were there cleaning out other rooms and let me in and were quite friendly. I went back downstairs thereafter and the check in lady (reception lady) corrected the cards. so this point in time I’m still neither extremely happy or in no way could I say that I was unhappy. In the room it advertised that breakfast was a buffet breakfast available in the restaurant on the ground floor.
The next day I went downstairs to the restaurant and I couldn’t see the buffet breakfast so I asked the lady present and I was told no we don’t have buffet breakfast you just order al-a-carte. I’m thinking to myself that this is a little odd as it was contrary to the information in the room. But then it started to deteriorate from there. I was asked as to what room I was in and I stated the room 506 and she went off to her computer and came back to me and said nobody is in 506. I said well I am and showed her the envelope with the swipe cards in it that quite clearly showed that I was in 506. She asked for my surname went off and came back and said “No, you’re not in 506 you’re actually in 603.” I said “Well I am in 506, but obviously your computer system is saying 603.”
The upshot of the conversation was that this lady did not in any way believe that I was in 506. So that I could actually enjoy breakfast I signed the voucher as 603 and I’m thinking the poor person in 603 is going to end up with my breakfast bill, but I’ll go to reception straight after breakfast and sort it out. So after the breakfast I went to the reception and I was told by the person there that I was in room 603 despite me quite clearing saying where I was and the envelope. But they continued to disbelieve me.
The next day at breakfast again I thought “No, I’m not going to go to the motel’s breakfast service.” So I went off to a restaurant elsewhere to have breakfast, rather than argue which room I was in; so the business lost that service. Then I came to checkout, which could have been … well a tad intriguing. And once again I was told I wasn’t in 506, but 603. To which I then asked “Was there a difference in room rate?” And there was – $20 a night difference, so then an argument ensured to prove I was in 506 which after a few minutes they finally amended the bill to reflect that I was in 506 and I checked out.
The upshot of all this is that at no time did anybody that I dealt with try to actually take the situation in hand and resolve it. Customer service was not even in the consideration. The computer must be right, the customer must not have a clue as to which room he is in.
So the little thing of the sign in the room about the buffet breakfast became a big issue, because suddenly you are looking at everything.
Now I am telling the world and using the experience as an example of poor customer service. The attitude from the people was not of trying to help but rather it was “customer get away, you don’t have any idea, you are a pain”.
They did not even try to look at it from the customers perspective.
Do your frontline staff look at things from the customer’s perspective? How many clients are you annoying because of your systems and processes? How many customers are you turning away? Not because of necessarily hugely bad service, but just because of an attitude of ‘we are right, the customer is wrong’. I think lessons can be learnt from this example that in no way did they try to distinguish themselves from other accommodation in the town, but rather had the attitude of the customer is wrong. Suffice to say, I won’t stay there again and suffice to say that I’m recommending to everybody else to look at alternative accommodation.
Word Of Mouth Has Become More Powerful
Social Web
The world is changing because of the internet, an obvious statement if ever one was made. What I am talking about is word of mouth has become more powerful than ever before. Numerous businesses particularly small businesses know that word of mouth is one of their best ways of garnering new clients. Unfortunately too many businesses don’t do enough to focus on this. They don’t systemise the process of ensuring that their customers do talk to others.
Presently Google is by far the most dominant search engine on the internet but it is also clear that with the advent of the rise of the various social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc that what we know is real time search is becoming more and more important. We know that for a large number of service providers e.g. accountants, doctors, medical specialists etc we talk to our friends and family to determine to get their recommendation on who to use. The rise of the social media sites and also a large number of review sites e.g. Tripadvisor.com etc that we are putting out to these forums and asking people for recommendation for service providers, hotels, restaurants etc.
There is no doubt the internet is driving us more and more into recommendation based searching. I have utilised Twitter to ask for people I communicate with their opinions on things on microphones, monitors and other software tools. I have utilised this advice to then search further based on some of the links that have been sent to me and it has definitely affected my purchases. The likes of Tripadvisor and other websites that are providing reviews on hotels and restaurants etc these are having a profound impact on the various service providers people are selecting.
Unfortunately businesses aren’t necessarily what are happening because of the power of the internet. They are still locked in to the traditional way of marketing themselves by talking about their product and feature and trying to put up a glossy image or front as to what they do or provide. But the bottom line is that people who have experienced your product or service are writing reviews on websites and are telling their friends in a way that is so much easier than ever.
A business must focus more on being what they want to be rather than saying what they want to be. The future in this recommendation based internet search is for businesses to recognise they must provide phenomenal service to their customers, systemise the word of mouth marketing process and then drive the recommendations through the internet to other people.
Search is changing on Google to the utilisation of these other sites to review recommendations. It’s not just simply the book reviews on Amazon, these are reviews of restaurants, motels, hotels, airlines etc real-estate agents, plumbing, electrician every service provider you can think of.
Word of mouth marketing if it wasn’t important before has just become more important with the development of the web. How are you marketing to your customers? How are you providing fantastic service? How are you systemising the work of mouth marketing process? How are you reviewing the reviews of your products and services on the internet? Get ready for the recommendation optimisation internet. Not the search engine optimisation.
Photo by tobiaseigen
Are Putting Your Customers Through Unnecessary Processes?
In the last post I covered the issue of the unnecessary fees and charges that are being imposed by businesses small and large. Further on this line of thinking, too often businesses are making their customers or clients go through processes which may make sense from the internal operation of the business, but in no way make sense to the customer.
Recently I had to get a washing machine serviced and also an air conditioner fixed. I had a look at a website of a particular company (a small Brisbane company) that stated that they had a division for washing machine repairs and also air conditioning repairs.
So I contacted them and mentioned that I had these repairs and I was put through to the air conditioning division, where I then spoke to a person about the air conditioner and then I said “I need to also book in somebody to come and have a look at the washing machine repair.” To which my reply was “That’s not my division, I will need to transfer you back to the main switch.”
So back to the main switch I went and it was like calling for the first time. I then got transfered to the washing machine division and I go to go through all my information again because this was the washing machine division.
I had given all my personal contact address details, phone numbers and everything to the first person, but I was asked to go through the process again because their internal operations were obviously separate and they couldn’t, in any way, merge the two. It was an unnecessary process and this just happened to me very recently so I am highlighting it. However, there are many examples that I could utilise.
We need to think of business from the customer’s perspective. We need to understand what is success as judged in the eyes of the customer; how are they experiencing our business?
It is only through a deep understanding of the customer that is both understanding of the behaviour of the customer, through observation, but also understanding the numbers that come out of dealing with our customer base. We need to understand exactly what they don’t like about our processes and redesign it to remove the unnecessary processes. The end result of unnecessary processes is customers who are not completely satisfied.
The repairs to my washing machine and air-conditioner have been completed successfully. But what is the story I am telling people – it is the story of the first contact.
Unnecessary Fees And Processes
Invoice
Recently I have been noticing a rise in fees that have been added to various accounts with some amusing names (handling or processing fee). Telstra last year tried to implement a fee where you had to pay extra to pay over the counter your bill. This fortunately was removed by the public pressure.
Some banks charge you more to use the over the counter services than the electronic services. Other organisations also have fees and charges that appear on the bill and they don’t have to be the large public companies that are mentioned earlier.
These fees and charges are possibly being seen by some of the internal accountants and financial officers as ways of raising additional revenue without increasing the price of the good or the service.
But the impact from the customer point of view, far out weighs any benefit that these unnecessary fees and charges incur. It is not just the large companies that are doing this practice. Many small businesses seem to be adopting the practice but be careful.
Recently I had my car serviced and when you look through the bill there was four separate little fees, none of which exceeded $5, that were added on after the labour component and the parts component, etc. It leaves a sour taste in your mouth as a customer. The additional revenue that the business has charged adds up across all customers, but what is the impact on the customer.
Instead of the service or the experience being remembered, the little fees and charges take a bigger significance. It is always the little things in business that have a big impact and unfortunately these little fees are having a far bigger impact than most businesses are crediting.
So have you gone down the path of imposing some little fees, service charges or levies on your clients? If so I would seriously reconsider these and just consider increasing the price and accordingly, increasing the experience the customer has.
Price is Not based on Cost.
Recently a graph of relative prices of various liquids was posted on ReflectionOf.me blog. The graph shows that HP Black Ink is the highest relative price with oil being the lowest. The comments people are leaving are also interesting. A lot are railing against Hewlett Packard and there is a discussion of the cost of the various liquids.
But PRICE is NOT based on COST.
Price is set by the value the consumers perceive. Price is affected by the competition and sometimes by the heavy hand of regulation.
So why would HP Black Ink so higher relative to other the liquids?
Remember price is a marketing tool. The price of the ink needs to be taken with the price of the underlying printer. For the consumer level printer HP make nothing. They have set the price low to get the printer into your house or office and then they can sell you the ink and make the profit.
But please price is not set by the cost of the item.
How are you setting your prices? If you are not differentiating your product or service from everybody else then you will be lead down the both of lower price. HP are differentiating their printers from the competitors which then leads to the ink sales.
Price is a marketing tool
The Mysteries of Business
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a piece called Open Secrets for the New Yorker. In this amongst other things he talks about how a lot of the demise of Enron could have been read from the publicly available data and that some analysts did. Malcolm goes onto talk about Gregory Trevertons work of the distinction between puzzles and mysteries. With a puzzle there is information missing and to solve the puzzle the missing piece is needed. Mysteries though the information is all there the answer just needs to be found.
Roger Martin writes in his great book “The Design of Business” about ‘the knowledge funnel’ where things start as a mystery and then move to heuristic and finally to an algorithm.
It is my belief that too many people in business rely on false heuristics to lead and manage. As a result they do not get the full efficiency gains that can be obtained from measuring what matters.
Additionally there is the biases and assumptions that we all have which can lead us down the wrong path. Too often information is being collected from clients that really is only vanity information. It is not useful information to truly understand the customer.
True understanding of a customer is not done by a view dorothy dix questions on a survey but rather by observation of their behaviour.
Firstly it is necessary to start with the strategic objectives. We can not be all things to all people. What is the direction of the business? Armed with this we need to understand our customers and prospective customers. With this we will know what is success in the eyes of the customer. The information is there the business needs to have a culture of not making assumptions, removing biases and looking at the information. From all this we can then design a set of metrics that can direct the business. There will be mysteries to solve both inside and outside the business but this process will direct the value creation.
In this blog this year I will be exploring further the mysteries of business. Mysteries of the customer, of the team, of management, of leadership etc. Let the data tell the story.
“Differentiation is the custodian of profits”
On Monday night I was at an Australia Institute of Company Directors dinner where Don Meij CEO of Dominos Pizza was the presenter.Don impressed me with his passion and enthusiam for the business. Also he knew the numbers. They put a lot of work into knowing what the consumer is likely to be eating next year and five years out. Through this investigation and knowing the numbers they are striving to make decisions with the best facts on hand. A great example of evidence based leadership rather than just relying on gut feel.
One of his slides was titled “Differentiation is the custodian of profits”. This is a great statement. Whilst we have heard this before in different contexts or way it is something that is often forgotten or neglected in business. Domino’s are the market leader in Australia and still they are after differentiation. For any business who is not the market leader in their sector it is even more paramount.
If people are given nothing else to compare you on then they will compare you on price. How does your product or service differentiate you from your competitors. Remember the point of difference often is the little things that surround the core product or service.
Another interesting fact was that the internet is driving 28% of their business. Eighteen months ago it was under 5%. Within that internet business though sales from the IPhone are responsible for 14%. Dominos have an IPhone app which has only been out a short while and is driving this much business to them.
We need to be more even more conscious of how the internet is affecting our business. Also not just the internet on a desktop or laptop computer but the mobile market. If the IPhone is responsible for that level of business to Dominos at the moment where it grow to you. Having these facts in front of you enables you to consider the future direction of the business.
For instance coffee shops, takeaway stores need to get onto the internet and also look at the IPhone application for their business. There are lots of other businesses that need to be mindful of this as well.
In all a great presentation and thought provoking. How do you differentiate yourself? Have you the facts on where your market is going in the next 12 months or 5 years.
How Ritz Carlton Measures Success
There was a recent article in Forbes where the CEO of Ritz Carlton was interviewed. The Ritz Carlton is and unparalleled luxury brand. It has done this my rigorously adhering to its own standards. Its unique culture starts with the motto “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen”. It has 38000 employees throughout 73 properties in 24 countries. To learn more of the success of the Ritz Carlton I refer you to and excellent book by Dr Joseph Michelli – The New Gold Standard.
In this article in Forbes the CEO was asked “How do you measure success?. His answer was interesting and there are lessons for many businesses in it.
They measure success from the customer side and from the employee side.
With respect to the customer side they employee Gallup do to phone interview, asking two types of questions :- functional and emotional. On the function side they ask : How was the meal, Was the foot hot?, How was your room service?, Was your room clean. Through careful analysis they have determine and indicator question – that is a question that if answered 5 out of 5 then all the other questions will be answered positively. The functional indicator is “The room was clean”. On the emotional side the indicator is “I had a sense of well being”. They know that they have to pass the functional question before the guest will focus on the emotional question.
So what functional and emotional questions are you asking your clients / customers? What is the indicator question that will reveal the customers opinions?
In respect to the employees the most important metric they measure is “voluntary turnover”. This is an indicator of talent acquisition and training. They have very precise standards in who they hire and then spend a significant effort on training of the people.
Ritz Carlton realise that it is only with enthusiatic team that you will have loyal committed clients. Therefore they are measuring success from both aspect. Also they are measuring the emotional responses as well.
How do you measure success in your business?
Not all customers are equal.
Do you treat all customers equally? But not all customers are equal.
Even in businesses that have offered different service offering eg Platinum, Gold, Silver etc I still some blurring of the lines. In businesses where they don’t have these distinctions all customers get very similar treatment.
Why is this so? Why does it matter?
Treating all customers equally means that
- clients that are marginally profit are getting the same service as customers who are very profitable.
- we are not tailoring our service offering to the customers needs.
- we have not taken the time to understand the customers in detail
- there are not KPI’s in place to ensure that this behaviour would be detected.
- there are not adequate systems and procedures in place
We hear the blanket statement from business that we provide great, awesome, fantastic (some other adjective) customer service to all our customers. But unless they have taken the time to carefully select the customers they deal with and also have taken the time to understand in detail their customers then this statement would be of little use. Now I am not saying you give poor service to the marginal customers. I am saying that if you decide to keep them as clients then they need to be educated on what to expect and it can not be the same level of service as the very profitable, high referring advocates.
Remember not all customers are equal.
A Real Brand – Real Customer Loyalty
I love to hear of stories of great companies who have built a real brand. This is a brand that has a loyal customer base and when the brand is mentioned people can tell you stories (great stories) of this brand. Recently Peter Day of the BBC interviewed the CEO of WD-40. Yes those distinctive blue and yellow cans with that spray we use to solve all sorts of problems.
As Peter stated in his notes – ” it starts off as a lubricant and then generates all kinds of other uses, most of which give the users the wonderful feeling that it’s their cleverness to spray on the WD–40, rather than the product’s versatility.”
Originally WD-40 was designed to stop space rockets corroding. This formula was the 40th attempt to come up with a water dispersant. However as some of the people who worked for the company started taking the product home it started to gain other markets.
There are a number of lessons that can be learnt from the business.
It has been a business significantly built on sampling. They give a sample to someone to try which has led people to purchase. From this word of mouth has done a lot of the business building.
But this word of mouth has been helped by the company. It you visit their website you will fine a fanclub and a page devoted to 2000 plus uses of the product. The 2000 plus uses are full of stories that people can tell each other, try out and otherwise create word of mouth marketing.WD40 ask people to continue to send in examples of how they use the product.They are fostering the word of mouth.They are creating a tribe around a spray can.
The brand has a promise of being able to solve all those little lubricant issues around the house or business. But more than that even keep squirrels from climbing a pole. Read some of the 2000 uses for some crazy examples.
Also it is interesting how little detail is important. The smell that comes with the spray is added. It is not necessary to make the product work. But the smell is important for us to remember the product.
WD40 really take the time to understand the customers need and how their products can help.
So the lessons in summary -
- how are you fostering word of mouth
- how can you allow your customers to sample your product or service
- what little details can you do to your product or service that will leave a memory eg smell, touch etc
- how can you really understand the customers needs better.
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