A stitch in time...

A stitch in time, if you aren't familiar with the phrase, is not the most recent Dr Who episode. It is an ancient phrase which carries with it some ancient wisdom.
It means deal with the small problem now before it becomes a larger one: a small hole may require one stitch. Leave it and, as the idiom continues, you 'll end up with a hole requiring nine stitches (A Stitch In Time Saves Nine).

There is a lesson in this for those engaged in customer experience. If you can identify where customer's emotions are at their most intense in their journey and apply your efforts in real time at that point, you'll make the biggest difference. The effort required may be quite small - provided it is 'in time'.

This was evidenced to me last week in an experience with a leading online travel booking service. I'm not going to name them because even though I remained unsatisfied by the outcome I was impressed by the personal efforts of the CEO & President and hope he'll be taking on board the advice I am sharing now.

In May my wife booked our family a half-term break in Morocco. With less than 24 hours before our flight last week, the hotel sent us a confusing email which we took to mean they were shut and couldn't accommodate us. I informed the online booking service who we had used, who went off to find an alternative. But it didn't suit us. The long and short of it was I spent all day trying to find and book an alternative and sort transfers - all of which was last minute stress and actions no one wants and indeed most people expect all that stuff to be sorted by their agents with significant upgrading involved.

With an hour of the business day remaining I finally got booked and it took a series of emails into the evening (we were getting up at 1:30am) to confirm a transfer would be waiting for us when we landed the next morning.

I had asked The booking service to book and pay for the transfer. They told me they could not but if I kept a receipt they would meet the cost.

And so they are doing. But my level of stress when trying to get the transfers booked means that this 45 Euro 'apology' feels little more than a sop. Had they had the ability to book and pay for the transfer and simply tell me it was all sorted at the time I was in emotional flux, the impact could have been much more significant. That is, if they had done what I could do, what any human could do, but apparently not what this company's policies allowed, I think I would have felt much better.

In the cold light of day, after the emotional challenges, after the holiday, 45 euros just looks like money. It could have been a problem solved. It could have been the stitch that saved nine...

Being able to take real and meaningful action at the point of emotion is a critical part of the customer experience journey today. Too few businesses have enabled or trusted their Customer Service teams to think fast - to act like their CEO, to apply a stitch in time (one example is in my book The 10 Principles of Open Business)

The resulting costs in terms of additional customer support time, lost goodwill, damage to brand reputation and lost customers is worth considering by anyone at the helm.

Going Postal

I tried to track a recorded delivery on the Post Office website today.
When you Google 'Post Office' Track & Trace comes back as one of the four most important returns, as selected by Google, relating to the term Post Office.
On the Post Office site it is one of five (and listed at No4) of the Post Office Essentials.
Bear with me...
These to me are indicators of how important both the Post Office and its online customers view the Track & Trace function of the site.
So if you were looking after the Post Office twitter account you may think it worthwhile to stay abreast of its state of functionality - or at least have routes to hand to find out what the issues may be and the fix times estimated?
Or then again... you could regard it as someone else's problem.

This afternoon I tried to track a parcel and got the message that the system was down.
It gave no clue as to when it may return.
So I tweeted the Post Office.

This is how it played out:

1. David Cushman ‏@davidcushman  1h1 hour ago

   @PostOffice how long is your Track & Trace site going to be down for?

   0 retweets0 favorites
   

Post Office ‏@PostOffice  1h1 hour ago

@davidcushman Track and Trace is powered by @RoyalMail you may wish to tweet them about this. ~ Luke

4:49 PM - 20 Aug 2015 · Details

David Cushman ‏@davidcushman  1h1 hour ago

@PostOffice @RoyalMail It's on the PO site - one of the main links offered when 'post office' is googled. Perhaps in your interest to know?

Post Office ‏@PostOffice  54m54 minutes ago

@davidcushman That part is powered by Royal Mail, it would need to be investigated by them as it's their service.

5:02 PM - 20 Aug 2015 · Details

David Cushman ‏@davidcushman  9m9 minutes ago

@PostOffice Ah thanks. Does that get ticked as a customer issue resolved then?

In the mean time, I'd tested it for myself - and it was back online. I do wonder why 'Luke' hadn't found the time - I guess he was busy gathering evidence that my problem was nothing to do with him.
I was after a relatively simple answer to a relatively simple question. In return I was getting a lesson in organisational structure.
I'm sorry, but I do find this buck passing at the front line frustrating.
The Post Office and those representing it really can't take so little responsibility for what is clearly an important piece of real estate on their website - and a significant driver of traffic. Who cares who it's powered by - certainly not Post Office or Royal Mail customers.

Here's my advice for a quick fix: 1. Move the Powered By graphic above the fold (old newspaper folk will know what that means, it means in this case you shouldn't have to scroll down the page to discover the Powered By secret... 2. Add a link to Royal Mail customer service, if that's where you would like to point the traffic (aka blame).

Here's my advice for the right fix: Reorganise the business around putting your customer first, but I realise that may be a very large ask for a Thursday afternoon.

The restaurant that designed out customer feedback

So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for you...

To mark the end of term and the start of the Easter Holidays we joined some very good friends and our (between us) three children for an impromptu dinner at a family restaurant close to home.
The food was (mostly) adequate. It was the service that was shocking.

Our friends had been to this particular place some six months previous. Ever since it had been known to their kids as 'The No Pudding Pub'. This was because it had taken so long for them to get any attention to order a dessert that they had run out of time and had no option but to leave. Kids going home without a dessert leaves a lasting impression...

Once bitten - well sometimes you are prepared to try things one more time... lightning stikes once and all that...
But, you guessed it, the bolt from above struck again.

Put aside the failure (having been asked three times) to provide a straw for one of the kids drinks, the food being served at an interesting and not entirely satisfying range of temperatures, main course plates left uncleared for a good 30 minutes (we resorted to stacking them ourselves - see pic), desserts served without cutlery, one dessert not served at all (a fact the bill belied), the table next to us resorting to wolf-whistles and waving cash in order to get their bill... put aside all of that. We can live with things going wrong if there are channels allowing us to help you put them right for us.

What really bugged me about this place was that customer feedback seemed to be deliberately designed out.
At one point in our very long wait for any kind of attention I considered ringing the restaurant and asking them to come see us on table 40. But. Not a sign of a phone number, website, email address, name of manager, name of customer service lead anywhere on the menus etc at hand on the table.
Which opened my eyes.

There was nothing written anywhere which called for, mildly suggested or enabled in any way the customer to give feedback. For most organisations knowing what your customer thinks of your product, service or experience is gold dust - prompting you for it, essential.
This place had none of the 'we care about what our customers think' or 'rate our service today' forms with paper attached on tables. Not a sniff.

But the restaurant was full. Why? Value prices, good location.
So the coffers are filling - and (because they are hearing no different) the future must be rosey, right?
Of course not. Here is a business focused entirely on customer acquisition. It has no idea of whether you've been before and apparently no interest in whether or not you will darken its doors again.

When my friend kindly picked up the bill (yes we did get the missing dessert removed) he told his server why the pub had been renamed in his house (The No Pudding Pub, you'll recall), and how we were giving it a second chance, and what had gone wrong today. None of this was recorded, The person we think was the manager was in ear-shot but kept his head down and stayed away. Freely given commercial advice of the customer experience variety was being handed over in spades - and none of it was collected - Designed Out!
We were offered apologies, and more apologies. No discount. No incentive to return to give them a chance to redeem themselves (you'll note). Designed Out!

Later I tried registering my negative sentiment via their mobile website. I completed one of those nasty online email forms in some detail. And when I hit the go button, the screen went blank. Designed Out! I've no idea whether they got it or not. Frankly I don't care.
Today if your organisation does not make it supremely easy for me to provide you with feedback at source I'm really not going to bother going out of my way to help you make your business better. But I will tell my friends because I care more about them than I do about you. I will share my experience of your products and services via tweets and blogposts.

That's why I haven't named the pub until right down here - I don't want to make it easy for their search tools to gather this freely given feedback because they appear organisationally designed to do without what  the customer thinks.

But I'll happily tell you, friend. It's the Marsh Harrier in St Ives, Cambridgeshire. It's run by Marstons.

They need an extra pair of hands at busy times. That might slice their margin on the customers in on that night - but it'll give you a way better chance that the customer will return for you to make a margin on another time. Oh and by the way - I'm pretty sure you make a better margin on desserts than you do on main courses... you can work out what to do next, right?

BT holds its hands up and pays out credits

In my previous post I shared how I felt BT had got their CRM badly wrong - making an offer to current customers it then appeared reneged on. You can read the whole sorry saga here.

The very encouraging news is that after making my feelings known via twitter and blog, BT admitted it had got it wrong, said sorry, and has been brilliant at putting things right.

And for this we should heap praise. I publish this today to thank them for that - and to make sure others who received the same misleading mail-shot are empowered to benefit as I have.

Here's what BT had to say:

Having now looked into this matter in detail, I can confirm that we had two different direct mailings (DM) for Essential Extra [The extra channels and HD deal the letters promoted]. One of which was aimed at customers on our “free Vision Essential for one year” offer, and the other at customer paying the standard £5 a month for their Vision Essential subscription. 
We had an error on our mailing system that meant the latter group of customers were incorrectly sent the DM containing the claims “from just £2 more a month” and “£2 extra on top of your current TV subscription”. 
We appreciate that the overall impression of this mailing was therefore misleading for customers who are not currently paying for their Vision subscription. Please accept this letter as a sincere apology for our mistake. 
It is of the upmost importance to BT that we are clear and honest with our customers and to ensure that they are not misled by either marketing or customer service communications. We are in the process of reviewing how we target marketing communications to ensure that errors like this don’t happen again. 
We will of course honour this price point and arrange a bill credit of £60 should you sign up for Essential Extra (this being the difference of £5 per month, over the 12 month minimum term). You will therefore pay just £2 more a month, as was stated in the mailing you received. 
If you would like to go ahead with Essential Extra please let me know and I can place the order and arrange the credit for you. I hope you find this satisfactory but if you require any more help or information, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

And I have done - and the customer service team have been excellent at making sure everything has happened as it should have done.

Neil O'Shea and Colleen McElhatton from the BT Social Media Team deserve particular praise.So well done BT - it's great to hear you are reviewing how you target.

Other companies would do well to take note - getting your CRM wrong can not only annoy customers - it can end up adding hefty costs.

I've no idea how many more people will now be able to claim a £60 credit - but I'm guessing it'll be rather more than a handful.

The fool walks into the swamp with eyes shut

The fool walks into the swamp with eyes shut. The wise man takes a map - and a stick.

So stop. Stand still. Pause. Every organisation and business engaged in any form of social media activity... halt! The swamp is undiscovered territory. Fraught with risk for the ill-prepared. Stand still for a moment.

There are few areas of business life where we go to tactics - plunge headlong into the swamp - without knowing the strategic landscape.

Fewer still where we buy a map only to find we don't understand what it tells us - and carry on buying the updates without complaint.

Yet when it comes to social media it seems firms are happy to go tactical before they think strategic. And it's costing them millions and casting a shadow of fail over the social landscape. (Image courtesy jstephenconn )
"I stepped into the swamp and sank/got bit". Really? Who's surprised here?

They may conclude the swamp is somewhere they should never go again: Which is a little like giving up on attempts to find The New World because a fishing boat went down off the coast of Portugal - to mix my exploration metaphors.

Worse still, there are those who provide (and charge for) heaps and heaps of social monitoring data - without insight. It's the equivalent of the surveying guys with the theodolites giving you their scribbled latitude and longitude notes but failing to draw you a map.

"Ah - so this bit here is 29°16' N, 94°49' W. Er. Ok. So where do I go next?" you may well ask.

It's time the approach to social media strategy grew up.

And that means mapping the community landscape as it applies to you (understanding who is talking about what's relevant to you, where, how, who is influencing who in those conversations, where they sit in your purchase cycle even). That gives you the strategic landscape on which to deploy tactics.

And it also means auditing for and understanding the opportunities and blockages presented by your own organisation, your customers and other key stakeholders. From this you will develop a strategy and tactical plan for creating best value from social.

Do all this and I guarantee your action plan won't start and end at Start a Facebook Page.

It will deliver the transformational improvements required to make the org and its products and services the best (read most efficient and effective) fit with the networked world - with its customers and their needs.

Related articles

• 2011: The Year of Social Media Reckoning (markevanstech.com)
• Strategy vs. Tactics: Facebook and Twitter are not social media strategies (jaredhouser.com)
• Company Wide Social Media Engagement: A Bridge Too Far (socialmediatoday.com)
• Social Media Workflows Part 1: Awareness and Capture (chrisbrogan.com)
• Traits of an exceptional social media manager (holykaw.alltop.com)
• How To Map Out Your Social Business Strategy (customerthink.com)

Amazon acts exactly like a customer-centric org shouldn't

Amazon gets cut a lot of slack by a lot of people. It's held up as a paragon of the web2.0 age - a fabulous disruptor.

Its stated mission is to become the most customer-centric company on Earth.

Sounds wonderful.

But let's get the reality stick out.

Like so many people in a snow-affected UK, I've been let down recently by Amazon.

And when I've tried to email customer services I've found an un-usable form to fill which fails to send unless I complete an 'add your name' field - and there isn't one!!! (I generally use Mozilla Firefox for this - not exactly a rare interface with the internet...)

And when I've called, I've found a 'computer-says-no' attitude among staff - having to demand escalation to more senior people within a short but frustrating period of time.

Customer centric is as customer centric does, my friends; not as it says it does.

I'm an Amazon Prime user. At the moment.

Biggest let down for me has been a delivery of Christmas presents which I ordered to come via the 'First Class' delivery option.

Little did I know (and neither is it clear in the Amazon purchasing process) that when you order 'First Class' from Amazon they get to choose how they are going to send your item to you. I do wonder if trading standards have ever challenged this. Royal Mail ought to have a word, in my  view.

Amazon chose to send me this last package via CityLink. Now, I don't know about you, but for me and most folk I know in the UK, when I select 'First Class' delivery I expect delivery by the Royal Mail. Indeed the very last courier company I want deployed is CityLink because they have a 'local' depot furthest from me. And their website fails to record requests for redeliveries from their customers. And they don't answer the phone. And they close for pick-ups from the depot when the going gets touch. And they don't try to fix their backlogs by going out on Sundays.

No, Amazon, when I request 'First Class' I mean by Royal Mail - because if I'm not in when the the postie tries to deliver there is a depot I can go pick up from about a mile from my home.

So Amazon, I want a 'Not by CityLink (and for other folk not by x, y or z courier) option - at the very least made available to Prime users.

But why am I blogging about this rather than just dropping Amazon some customer feedback?

Well, first because that bloody email form keeps failing for me (I hate email forms with a vengeance, by the way - no record of what I sent and never a clue as to whether they are being picked up or dealt with).

Second because when I went looking for senior Amazon UK folk to make contact with they were, how can I put this, virtually absent from the internet.

The MD, one Brian McBride (you know, the chap who dropped you an email apologising for poor service a week or so ago), is not discoverable on LinkedIn even - let alone on google or any social media. It's alright for you to send your customers an email then Brian - but not to get one back?

You will find a few relevant and pertinent folk for Amazon UK on Linkedin - the Marketing Manager, for example. But their profiles are, for the most part, marked 'private' - not even a name on show.

Guys - you are operating in the exact opposite direction  of your organisation's stated aim. You cannot become customer centric when you don't listen and respond. You certainly can't listen if you don't engage in social media and you hide from contact with your customers.

No one appears to be monitoring and managing response to the deluge of outcry about your services on twitter etc right now. A real shame because there is one hell of a wikifixing opportunity happening for you right now.

You cannot become customer centric when you don't listen and respond.

Seriously, taking online payments and enabling user reviews does not a customer centric organisation make.

Step up - start listening, start responding, open your doors - then you can start leading the way to customer centricity.

In the mean time, feel free to contact me by any means you choose. I will respond.

Related articles

• Britain's Royal Mail adds routes to catch up on weather backlog (cnn.com)
• Royal Mail: First class stamps to cost an extra 5p in record price rise (dailymail.co.uk)
• Post workers make extra deliveries (mirror.co.uk)
• Royal Mail recruiting more staff (bbc.co.uk)

Open Pro-active Customer Service: A Social Media trend for 2011

2011 is going to be the year when making/creating/doing with social media begins to gain the ascendency over messaging/using people as a channel.
And it will be customer service that leads the way.

It's increasingly high on the agenda of many orgs - and many are starting to see the value of engaging in social media to ramp up their levels of service.

Open Pro-active Customer Service delivers both ROI and a powerful reminder of the convergence required. In reality customers don't neatly sort their intended interactions with brands or orgs to fit into your existing silos (eg customer service, PR, direct sales etc).

They never did.

Now that customers have the easy ability to publish their needs, complaints and intentions in real time (not always at you, but always available to you) you can identify the areas of critical convergence, surface issues and act to build better products and services in response.

Open Pro-active Customer Service means:

• Doing you customer service in public - Good service should be seen to be done. And it's harder to do bad service with an audience (which can always include the boss).
• Actively seeking out customer feedback eg searching all open conversations.
• Wikifixing: Creating dataflows to ensure when issues are surfaced they are flowed to the key part of the org for solution.
• Being Prepared for organisational change as the requirement for new roles and shared cross-departmental responsibilities become clear.

Related articles

• infographic by Get Satisfaction - The Fastest Way to Lose Customers (socialwayne.com)
• Why Social Media is Inseparable From Customer Service (socialmediaexaminer.com)
• "Best Social Media Customer Service" Finalists Discuss Their Success [INTERVIEWS] (mashable.com)

People Hater. The voice of First Capital Connect?

Oh dear. The curse of the employee who doesn't think customer service is part of their remit has struck First Capital Connect - the much maligned UK rail company.
While many previous rude employees have made themselves all too easy to track (as in the case of employees ranting about customers at a supermarket chain, on facebook, using their own IDs or the famous Domino Pizza video-making eejits who videod themselves contaminating food) this one is, quite sensibly, hiding behind a false ID.
This is a very unhappy First Capital Connect employee. Who says they are fed up of hearing all the moans from customers. Who realises this twitter account may get them some flack. But who wants to vent back. And who doesn't care about the consequences (except that he cares enough not to associate his real identity with the account... not quite so ballsy as the rhetoric then).
See below.

I scored out the name initially because, I thought - 'don't feed the troll'. I'm a First Capital Connect paying passenger. I'd felt the wrath (ah hem) of his sarcasm and decided not to respond. Instead I alerted First Capital Connect to the potential for PR disaster they were facing (Ninety10group.com is, afterall, in the business of monitoring and responding - as key tools of our strategic development for orgs - ad over).

This guy is stirring up rows with customers - which just generates more and more negative sentiment for @firstcc (as they are on twitter).

But having given this some thought, I'd recommend the best way to deal with him would be to publicly engage (rather than go on an internal witch hunt). And that means paying him (possibly her) some attention.
The name is also quite telling about his attitude. It is @paxhater (should you wish to observe) - pax being the term the people logistics industry uses for us pesky paying customer livestock.

So this guy hates the people who pay his wages. Nice.

But back to the topic in hand. What should First Capital Connect do about this?

My suggestion, engage - have an open dialogue. Publicly challenge his attitude to customer service and demonstrate a better way. Your more positive employees should be encouraged to do likewise - to see their role as customer service too, to also respond to customer complaints - with help and sympathy instead of bile and abuse. You have to hope FCC have more positive people it could empower to engage with customers compared to this (hopefully) rare misanthrope.

This is a formula for success EVEN if the account is actually not from an employee, but from a disgruntled customer attempting to make @firstcc and its staff look even worse (always a possibility).

Listening, really listening, to what your customers tell you delivers way to improve the service for all parties. Better service equals less complaints equals less disgruntled employees.

But of course if First CC was listening it would already have picked this up. If First CC was responding to that listening, it would already be empowering staff to respond to customer complaints via twitter and other online channels (@BTCare is doing it, Honda Europe (a Ninety10group client) is monitoring and responding and learning too.)


I have one nagging doubt about the account. It follows just one account - the one that ReTweets any complaint that references @Firstcc. If you're fed up of hearing moans from customers, why actively seek them - and only them - out? Particularly if you are really just a regular employee... I have my theories about that. You will have your own.
I'm quite happy to share mine with FirstCC, just as soon as they respond...

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to treat your best customers worst - by First Capital Connect (fasterfuture.blogspot.com)
• Top 5 Viral Customer Service Complaint Videos (mint.com)
• Anthony's Pizza Billboards Attack Domino's Ads (diet-blog.com)
• Fired Domino's Worker Allegedly Sets Fire to Two Pizza Joints [Disgruntled Employees] (gawker.com)
• First Capital Connect to keep its franchise (hertsad.co.uk:80)

Apology as a tool of revenge

The humanising of communication; the shift from one-to-many broadcast to many-to-many conversation, raises the opportunity for comms and customer service teams to perform damage limitation faster and with greater effect than ever before.
Research published in Dan Ariely's latest book The Upside of Irrationality reveals there is one very powerful tool in your armoury which is currently deployed far too rarely and warily: the apology.
Dan revealed a basic and very simple formula: one annoyance + one apology = no annoyance.
A basic and intransigent unwillingness to accept blame (for all kinds of legal 'brand' and ego-related reasons gets in the way of this. Yet, if deployed unfettered by these self-regulations, an apology can make the problem those rules are meant to defend against go away. (image courtesy tim ellis)
Social media has revealed the truth of this on many occasions. An apology served early and earnestly is a powerful thing in damage control.

But the multiple success of this strategy seems to have confused some.
They get that there is power in an apology but not that the power resides not in the utterance of the apology but in the allocation of blame.
They say things like 'we are sorry you are sorry' rather than 'we are sorry for doing the thing that has upset you'.
It may be (and I'd love to see Dan examine this) that an apology only serves the purpose of tool of revenge if someone is seen to be taking the bullet - accepting they were wrong.

In the moment of one side admitting guilt we get a kick of vindication which allows us to move on with a feeling - no matter how minor - of justice served/revenge taken.

And as Dan also points out - our desire for revenge is an essential (even useful) part of what we are.
If we don't feel justice is served we'll find other ways to take our revenge (which regularly means doing down the product/service provider to anyone who will listen).

My apologies if I made that a little long-winded... ;-)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why is Revenge so Important to us? (conversationagent.com)
• How to Say ‘I'm Sorry' (lifescript.com)
• A Sorry State: How To Master The Apology (crenshawcomm.com)
• Customer Excellence by Using a Sincere Apology (customerthink.com)

How to treat your best customers worst - by First Capital Connect

Many organisations, the UK Government included, are frantically herding us online to reduce the transaction costs of having to deal with us pesky customers.

The usual pitch to us is that it will either save us money or save us time. There are even some companies who will offer us both carrots.

Well here's a warning about the hidden sticks - direct from the commuter's friend First Capital Connect.
It's not just a warning to fellow commuters, it's also a lesson in how to treat your best customers worst.

For my sins, I commute regularly from Huntingdon to London. My options include car (way too time-consuming and costly by the time congestion charges and parking are taken into account, and not exactly good for the planet, either), cycling (er, no), coach (really, no thanks) or - there in a monopoly position; a season ticket with First Capital Connect.

I have a season ticket. I pay First Capital Connect over £4000 a year for my 4 x a week commute. I give them that money up front. The whole lot, in advance, for a year. In their bank account, not mine. For them to spend. Not me.

I could go on about how my 'gold card' as it's laughingly labelled should deliver a level of customer service that it doesn't; I mean I do get a seat most journeys so my commute is a shining beacon of joy compared to many I hear about.

I reckon my lining their pockets with silver a full year in advance makes me a very good customer indeed. I only wish 90:10 Group had customers like that. Wouldn't we all?

So, back to that being herded online thing. This year (last October) when my season ticket was due for renewal I took the bait. I think it two off-peak train journeys was the freebie on offer for ordering online. And I figured I'd save some queuing time.

So, for the princely sum of two off-peak tickets (during which times there are always seats free so the marginal cost to FCC is zero) I saved them time, cut down their admin etc etc.

And as one of their very best customers I expect some modicum of reward when I need assistance.
Today my Gold Card stopped going through the ticket barriers. May not sound much if you don't experience the rush of the commute, but boy that can be a tad inconvenient.

When it failed on my way in this morning I was advised to take it to the station I'd bought it at to get a replacement.

Foolish me, I'd forgotten I bought it online. Well, it was last October. I'd had one or two other things to think about since then.

So when I rocked up at the station this evening with my photocard and Gold Card in hand (yes, all the gubbins ready) I was surprised to find I could not get a replacement. I had to go back to 'where I bought it' - and the station staff couldn't tell me where that was.

So penny dropping, I'd bought it online, I had to go online to get a replacement (not that there was any advice on that coming from behind the counter).

That's a monumental fail. That's putting the inconvenience on the customer for whom convenience was clearly important - hence the decision to buy online.
It's a fail in the disconnectedness of First Capital Connect services. Apparently it's 'not the same company' that sells tickets online (via the FCC site, I'll have you know).

Guess what? Your very best customers don't give a damn which agency is between us and you. Every time we are dealing with a service related to you (and I don't think the ticket for the journey can be any more related) we're going to assume you should take some responsibility.

As it stands, it's down to me, your very best customer (ok, one of) who has to go back to the site, remember my log in details, log in - and print out what is effectively a begging letter to station staff - with the appropriate code - to issue me a replacement card.

Let's look at this a little closer. The station staff told me they couldn't issue tickets which didn't match codes for ones issued at their station as a fraud prevention measure.

1. That's FCC's problem not mine. No, seriously, make a better, less counterfeitable ticket - don't put the inconvenience on your very best customers.
2. On the website it says any ticket office can replace a season ticket issued by any other.

My Season Ticket doesn't work the entry or exit gates. What do I do?
Please return it to the station of issue (or any ticket office) where it will be replaced free of charge.

However, if you are one of FCC's very best customers, who both paid them in advance and saved them money in the way your bought your ticket...

If you bought your ticket online, log in to your account and click on apply to replace a damaged season ticket.

At which point you generate the begging letter I referred to above, which you have to print out (at your cost in both materials and time) and take to the station... again.

So, congratulations FCC - you have managed to disincentivize buying season tickets online with some truly crass disconnected thinking (and thank you for reminding me what an absolute nightmare process involving duplicate payments it was last October).

Miffed? Damn right - and angry that I have no choice but to return with my begging letter to get my replacement gold card tomorrow morning.

I bet the staff thank the management daily for saddling them with this kind of stress-generating stupidity. And I do hope the staff are reporting back how their very best customers are reacting.

But just in case - I'll be sending you a link to this post and awaiting your response with interest...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Consumer rights: 'I bought a ticket online - but it was a scam' (independent.co.uk)

Zappos Tony on the importance of happiness and culture

Tony Hsieh is a legend among the twitterati. He's built a legendary human-sized business in Zappos - designed very much on platform principles.
This video previews his forthcoming book. He's interviewed by Loic 'Le Web' Lemuer.
A great double whammy.

Less illusion - more reality

With the 10th anniversary of The Cluetrain, is it time to stop talking about marketing?

I mean, is it time to stop talking about marketing as a separate function or discipline?

I worry because thinking of it in this way makes 'it' difficult to be embedded in the processes that count.

You know, the processes that squeeze out turds long suffering marketers have to polish. (image courtesy)

I often tell orgs that every single person inside the org is responsible for customer service. It's not the job of the often lowly-paid to read out scripts by the often highly-paid. It's the responsibility of everyone who cares.

Of course that requires something to care about in the first place. And if you have that belief, your actions will attract people who care to join you in the first place.

Oh - and those outside the company too. (Gary Vaynerchuck, Mark Earls, Hugh McLeod can fill in the gaps for you on this)

Anyone who 'does' customer service (read: has conversations with customers) is in marketing as far as I'm concerned.

What is marketing for exactly? At its guts it is to connect people with what they need.

There are a heap of processes, sub disciplines, new and digitized, that we have come to believe have a part to play in that.

But by sticking a label on them and putting them in a box, have we started thinking of marketing as somehow distinct from design and production? Even, and way too often, as distinct from R and D/new product development?

So let's imagine a world in which no one has coined the term 'marketing'.

And into this world we parachute every marketer with their skills intact (but unlabelled)

Given their knowledge of the power of the network (grant me this):
What will they do? Who will they help? What will they aim to achieve?

How will they define and describe the part they play in changing the world?

Less illusion: more reality.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social media is about the steak, not the sizzle (econsultancy.com)
• Dedicated Social-Media Silos? That's the Last Thing We Need - Advertising Age - Jonah Bloom [del.icio.us] (adage.com)
• The Cluetrain Plus 10 - Networked Markets in 2009 (thecustomercollective.com)

I'm loving it. Macdonalds delivers!

Good service comes in human-sized packages. It's best served distinctly un-supersized.

My daughter likes a Macdonald's Happy Meal. She chooses relatively healthy options - tonight opting for carrots and fruit - which is more than can be said for her mother and father...

I used the local drive-thru. And when we arrived home to eat discovered that my wife's craved-for Big Mac was missing from the order. I'd definitely paid for it - I'd even kept the receipt.

So, I made a quick call to the restaurant.

This is not the first time this has happened.

In the past I've been asked if I can 'pop back to pick up another'. No. I can't. I'm eating my dinner.

Usually the best you can hope for is a credit against a future purchase - on the say-so of a name you get quoted to jot on your receipt (and who you are to assume will still be there in a forthnight when you may want your next fix).

On this occasion, however, when I was asked if I could pop back, and I asked, as I always do, "no, could you deliver it?" I actually got asked for my address.

This is a first, for me at least.

And within 10 minutes a Big Mac (and some fries thrown in gratis) were hand delivered by private car.

I told the member of staff I was impressed. And I am. So I'm telling you.

(And for the info of Macdonald's HQ I'm talking about the Huntingdon, Cambs, UK restaurant.)

I'd like to think this is a new policy being implemented globally (after all, at the end of the day when your order isn't filled and you are charged for it, Maccy D's pockets cash for something they haven't supplied).

But I doubt it. It's likely the decision of a local manager responding to local conditions. And while Maccy D staff feel they have the freedom to act like humans and not simply follow the company rule book, they'll go from strength to strength.

I am put in mind of Fight Club.

The rules of corporate customer service:

• No1: There are no rules of corporate customer service.
  

Related articles by Zemanta

• Mcdonalds says: I think you have had enough. (xanga.com)
• McDonald's is luvin' its recession profits (dailyfinance.com)
• Proactive Social Media Support (mfinch.ca)

Thank you Apple

Image via Wikipedia

I have been liberal with my complaints about Apple's poor responsiveness to iPhone issues raised through social media. It seems as if they aren't listening.
I'm pretty sure they must be - they just don't go in for all that messy responding stuff. Shame.
But, that said, when you run out of patience in waiting for a response via social media and take up an issue with the applecare team, it may take a number of calls and emails, a little time and effort, but the guys at the other end of the phone do make you feel like they are on YOUR side. Which is nice.
I won't bore you with how we ended up with Apple agreeing to send me a nice pink shuffle ( I reckon my four-year-old daughter is ready for her first ipod, she certainly thinks she is) and a very fetching Ted Baker leather case for my iphone, but they did - and they have.
And they've followed up to make sure they have arrived.
And now I'm feeling all warm about Apple again - particularly as the shuffle has worked so brilliantly with my pc this evening as I stack it up with High School Musical tracks... (I wish my iphone worked as well with my pc!)

So, thank you apple. But really this is a thank you to a human being, who by their human interactions has given me a new faith in apple. Thank you Sean Granville.

Roughly £70 worth of goods and a quality customer service experience has turned me from someone who may well never have bought another Apple product ever to someone who is likely to carry on cluttering their home with apple prods ad infinitum. Not just me, but now my daughter too.

You cannot place too high a value on human interaction!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone | Gadget Lab from Wired.com (tsurch.com)
• Satisfied and Tickled, Too (mkbergman.com)

How to kill a £10K per year relationship

Tesco. Love it or loathe it, if you live in the UK chances are you line their pockets. Big time.

If you do a £100 weekly grocery shop you spend around £5K each year. If you get your petrol there too, you're likely up to £10K - and that's without the occasional bit of electrical, homeware, clothes or even mobile phone or car insurance payments.

So you, as a customer, are clearly very valuable to them indeed. But only for your money.
It seems to me their customer-handling has all but forgotten that the gullet that consumes is attached to a human being.

A friend of mine recently received a polite but threatening letter from Tesco because she had parked in the car park at their aircraft-hangar-of-a-superstore at Barhill, near Cambridge, for more than the time Tesco had calculated it was reasonable to shop (I think their limit was/is 4 hours).

This is a car park that's shared with other retailers, by the way.

Let's think about that for a moment. Tesco used a camera to record her arrival and departure from this car park, a camera with numberplate recognition - and one which is presumably connected to a computer which can both generate nasty automated letters AND find your home address, based only on your registration number, to send the nasty letter to.

Did you know Tesco had the right to your address simply because you choose to drive into their car park? Neither did I.

Ok, so that's shocking enough. But given how hi-tech this process is, and given Tesco's famous clubcard scheme and all the information it records about your shopping habits, then the only excuse for the automation of a snotty letter is pure profit-motivated laziness.

How so? Well, first, let's consider things from Tesco's perspective for a moment. Why do they want to limit your car parking time to 4hrs? Perhaps they have an issue with commuters parking their cars at the superstore and hopping on a bus into Cambridge. It wouldn't surprise me.

So, first of all, the people it should be targeting are those who are NOT coming into the store and ARE repeating the behaviour of parking for entire days, day after day.

Both of these behaviours are discoverable through Tesco's electronic surveillance.

Had the system been written to check for repeat behaviour (that's an IF THEN line even in Basic!) then it would not be writing a snotty letter to my friend. This was the first time she'd ever been there for more than 4 hours.

Had the code been written to query transactions in the store (again, it's a simple IF THEN) then it would also have known she had made two transactions in the store that day, one before lunch and one after. Again - don't send the letter.

My friend was shopping for a kids birthday party, had a break for lunch (in the Tesco restaurant!) and a shop in one or two of the other stores sharing the the same car park. That's how 4+ hours fly by Tesco dudes - at least they do for your 'valuable' customers - ones spending money.

This system would be so easy to put right - even as an automated one.

But here's my suggestion Tesco: Since the average family is spending £10-£15K with you each year - and each one of these sent-in-error automated letters could cost you a customer each time - wouldn't you be wiser employing say, just one customer services advisor to speak human-to-human to those you fear may be abusing your free parking?

A little conversation would soon reveal the true circumstances. And you'd be much more likely to keep your customers.

Every time you send one of these letters without understanding the circumstances you risk losing that customer's £10-£15K a year - for ever.

And they are telling their friends...

Two pictures of customer service

Right: At Terminal 5, Heathrow

















Left: Sign in the window of the Grand India Restaurant, London.













It's not what you say... it's what you do.