Custommerce

Loyalty, Advocacy and Beyond!

2012-02-23T12:37:00.000+05:30

Companies today talk of how customer advocacy is key to thegrowth of their brand. Loyalty programs are expected to retain customers andpush them to advocate their brand to new or undecided customers. Stopping at this can be enough for most brandsbut not pushing for something beyond that can be a missed opportunity. Yourmost loyal customers, quite possibly know your brand and services much betterthan most employees in your organization. Using this priceless knowledge and miningit to its best can become a game changer for you. The idea that immediatelyemanates from this is to bring your customer in as an advisor. Use her to helpyou know your brand from her perspective and give you ideas as to how processescan be improved and customer service in turn, made more efficient.

Restaurants have been known to ask customers for opinions onnew dishes being introduced. The risk of asking certain loyal customers fortheir opinions can lead to skewed feedback which cannot always be translatedback into the business. But when a restaurant takes that risk of introducingthat dish on its menu with the feedback from its closest customers, it’s notonly a tremendous show of faith, it also is a statement of how valuable loyalcustomers are to them. Companies may not find such a program easy to executeprimarily because executing all that these customers ask for, may not betenable. But even telling them why it’s not possible is a grand gesture intaking the relationship further.

So ask yourselves if you can execute such a program. Askyourselves what will stand in the way and if the problems seem difficult, thinkof the value of a small army of your most loyal customers backing your everymove. That should be enough reason to get you started.

God of small things?

2012-02-17T17:19:00.000+05:30

A brand’s greatest service challenge may actually manifestitself before your customer even walks into your store. A million factors cancontribute to changing a customer’s mind from wanting to enter your serviceenvironment. This can range from a perennial long queue to a badly locatedstore. The impact of these factors on designing your service strategy iscritical. In the process we create an acute condition called ‘unsatisfieddemand’ wherein we lose a customer’s business before him ever getting fullyintroduced to it. So how can the scourge of unsatisfied demand be sorted outwith a well crafted service design?

But before you start drilling down to find an answer, youneed to understand the kind of incidents and severity of them which are causingthe aforementioned, unsatisfied demand. Incidents that will talk about howcustomers have turned their backs on long queues and in the process a brand.Walking into an ATM with the air conditioning turned to minus 20 and receiptsstrewn across the floor can leave one scarred about the brand, quite literally.Your day can go quite pear shaped when you spend an hour looking for parkingoutside that new restaurant while your stomach goes on a disobedience movement,demanding justice and some food. A badly lit coffee shop which is neitherromantic or understated but just plain cheap, makes that immense need for a coffeedisappear and attraction towards a brand too. The examples are countless yetare so simple and avoidable. These are just the few details brands forget toinclude in their service design which lead to a very forgettable experience fora ‘could be’ first time customer.

Taking stock of this and then acting upon these situationsis not as easy as it seems. Customers can get turned off by very differentthings and identifying them and tackling them can be the game changer withtoday’s unpredictable customer. Companies need to ask themselves a couple ofquestions to get them started down this road. When I walk into my company’sstore, is there anything that inhibits my interest to enter? How can I makethat first visit as comfortable as possible for my customer? In the answers tothese questions, quite possibly lies the key to never losing a customer evenbefore you get to show them what you got.

Blueprinting the Service Design

2012-02-10T17:19:00.003+05:30

When we experience exceptional service, we are instantlytaken by the person who delivers it and give some amount of credit to thecompany. We talk about it to friends and family at tea parties and tell themhow a certain guy changed our day with some great service. We talk about it atevery opportunity and gradually the story becomes the story of the heroics ofone service representative. In the process we often forget to give enoughcredit to the company who set the right conditions for such an act to beperformed. You might just have overlooked a very well planned service designwhich is in play to provide you that memorable service. So let’s explore thisidea a little further.

Southwest Airlines is miles ahead when it comes to a wellplanned service design. They have manuals and instructions for every actionthat seems so unique and memorable to you. Southwest has designed things insuch a manner including their training formats that allows any newcomer toembed themselves in the Southwest service culture. At no point does a welldetailed design take away from employing the right kind of people. But identifyingthe right set of people in a market where they are in incredible demand makesfor a challenge of a very different kind. Building a service design that allowsan employee to adapt and deliver can be the key to providing that elusivecustomer satisfaction your brand is expected to deliver.

A couple of questions you might want to ask yourself as companiesare: Do you already have a design in place which is not adequately defined? Doyour employees fully understand it and is it being audited from time to time?Are there any loopholes in your design which allows employees to under deliver?Does your service design need a revamp to manage your brand’s currentexpectations? A plethora of questions, but ones that need pointed answers.Answers that can help you design that memorable service experience that yourcustomer would talk about at that next tea party.

Standardized Personalization?

2012-02-03T12:49:00.000+05:30

In a time when customers have become all powerful, finding away to please them all individually has become a gargantuan task. Customersknow that in today’s networked, ‘Facebook before breakfast’ world they have theoption to take companies to task at their discretion. At the same time, theyhave become extremely choosy about every element of the product. Customizationcan be blamed and so can companies’ need to impress and retain customers. Butthe end result is a customer who is exposed to many choices, wants more andwants it now, leaving companies with a very difficult question; ‘How do webuild a customer service strategy that is personalized yet standardized andeffective?’

Marketers on a daily basis deal with reams of customerintelligence telling them what homogenous sets of customers want from theirproduct and base decisions on this research and deliver a product which islargely accepted. As long as the product satisfies a majority, they have a hit.But customer service is a wholly different ball game. Where a freebie may workfor one customer, a cashback and a lifetime supply of the product may stilllose you a customer. Standardization of customer service in such an environmentis no more an option.

Delivering experiences which resonate with a customer’sbehavior, needs and desires has become paramount.

The need to come up with personalized strategies for allyour customers may be an uphill task but at the same time generalizing can besuicidal. So the questions companies need to ask themselves are: Where can yourservice strategy differ? At what stage in the sales cycle can you affect thechange? How do you find smaller sets of similar customers to whom personalizedservice can be standardized? Where does it all begin? Marketers need to start lookingat customers from a very different lens then they used to before, becausecustomers are no more a set of people with similar needs and rights. They arenow deciding before you react and demanding before you produce.

So how are you going to deliver aone to one strategy?

80/20 Service Myopia

2012-01-10T17:29:00.001+05:30

Many companies today follow the timeless Pareto Analysiswhere they believe that 80% of their business comes from 20% of theircustomers. On the basis of this, companies have become myopic in the way theyhand out service to their customers. By providing differential service to theirprofitable customers they are possibly creating a very dangerous divide. Thereis no doubt that treating profitable customers differently in terms ofincentives makes sense. Loyal customers have to feel the warmth in return. Butcustomer service should be inclusive and doled out with the same consistency toevery customer. At the end of the day, customer service is not only a hygienefactor for a business but also a promise made to a customer.

Organisations need to start showing courage in notdistinguishing their customers when it comes to service. The condition hasbecome endemic because companies are refusing to see the long term ills of sucha move. Bad customer service across industries is the reason for customermigration. The telecom industry, for example, has made Bedouins of normalcustomers with their appalling customer service tactics. Often frustrating,often numbing, we have reached a point where customers have purely given up onthe idea of good customer service. In an environment such as this, to havecustomers know that they are being treated differently can lead to nothingshort of disillusionment.

Many companies especially some in the hospitality industryare very good at providing indiscriminate customer service. If a customer walksthrough their doors for the first time or the tenth, the service remains aconstant because the true potential cannot always be realized in the first fewinstances. Over and above, a customer’s potential can be increased in time byproviding consistently exceptional service. However, a brand that is truly inthe business of customer service would never let such a situation ever arise.Don’t forget that as a company you have no clue what the potential of a customeris after his first few interaction with you. Differential customer service onthe other hand on the basis of profitability, or a lack of it, can assure youthat you will never see the full potential of that customer.

This is what we think, what do you think?

Vendor Stakeholder

2011-12-28T17:35:00.001+05:30

Nearly every company in the world pumps in millions ofdollars into serving their customers better and even further millions to repairthe wrongs committed on them. But very few seem to have the same attitudetowards their vendors. So when a company has one strategy to bring in customersand a completely counter-productive strategy towards its vendors, the questionreally is – Who is winning?

Companies take great effort in understanding the needs of acustomer, learn to talk their language and help deliver a product which in turnwill bring them revenues. Why can’t they do the same for a vendor too? Afterall a vendor also helps in bringing in revenues. In fact better relations witha vendor can result in more leads, better support,greater engagement, protection in key accounts, and recognition that can help acompany generate more business.

Consequently companies should look atways and means of building strategies to maintain relationships with vendors asthey would with customers. A simple strategy would be to just replicate yourcustomer sales cycle with your vendors and in the process make your vendor, a stakeholder. Such a strategy can only helpforge a relationship of mutual benefit that in turn can be routed back to acustomer in terms of price, product features and overall service.

And in the process, everyonewins!

Creating a First Day Experience

2011-12-15T16:41:00.000+05:30

Chris Brogan, a prolific blogger on the use of new media inmarketing indulges us with a very interesting thought. A customer experienceidea that seems to have evaded most of us. In his own words:

‘How often do we buildexperiences such that we’re welcoming of new people? Do we work enough on that?Do we help people get connected and involved? Do we make them feel like werealize it’s their first time and we’re here to guide them?’

Through this he introduces us to the idea of creating a‘first day experience’ for new customers. New customers join a companysomewhere in between the evolution of a company. Customers need to be invitedon board with a story that helps them understand the company and feel a part ofit at the same time.

Even though Brogan talks of this idea in an online context(Read more here: Every Day isSomeone’s First Day) the power of this idea can truly be tested if it canbe replicated in a brick and mortar situation. New customers walk into a storeeveryday and identifying them no doubt is an improbable task. But if retailstores can find a method to the madness it can create loyalty and in anincreasingly congested market, differentiation.

Stores can explore ideas ofputting up the story of their birth, pictures of how the store evolved or evenhave a ‘First Day’ officer who can help customers with a few additionalservices. Stores need to figure out what lengths they can go to and thebandwidth available to them. But an endeavor in this direction can beinvaluable.

So how would you create a First Day experience for yourcustomers?

Signing On

2011-12-07T17:35:00.001+05:30

A company’s signature experience is what it does especiallywell. It’s the odd or unique process that makes your company stand out inpeople's minds ( (Read this HBR article). Most companies, in time, always end up providing a signatureexperience. They may either not know about it or may know and use them asfoundation to their positioning. Either way it’s something that needs to beharnessed because in that special moment of delivering something different maylie the key to attracting and retaining customers.

Companies need to search their organization and look across theircustomer delivery structure at possible signatures they are leaving on theircustomers. If companies can pick three such experiences and package them andsell it consistently, they may have a winner on their hands. Linking these experiencesto its brand can help reinforce their brand image. For example it will give more tangibles to customers to associate with the brand promise.

Most successful brands have distinct signature experiencesthat they leave behind in a customer’s mind; it is these experiences that arespoken about to other customers. Bringing together these voices under the bannerof your brand as a signature experience could be your next brand building move.

Tell us about some signature experiences you have comeacross with the companies you interact with.

With great power comes great responsibility

2011-12-02T17:48:00.001+05:30

A good day in the office for most of us involves meetingtargets, cracking that tough code or just making sure your boss is happy. Butwhat if your job description involves bringing a smile on a customer’s face?

Imagine walking into your favorite breakfast place in themorning and encountering a smiling staff who responds to your requests,proactively helps you and gives you top class service. On occasions such asthese even the quality of the food can be overlooked to an extent. This can setthe mood for the rest of your day. At the same time, I’m sure you can imaginethe opposite. Not a pretty picture at all, therefore I shall not paint it.

Customer Service representatives need to realise that theyhave great power in their hands to lighten up a customer’s day (As seen in this video) By doing this they can ensure loyalty to notjust a tangible i.e. the product but also an intangible which is the service.Companies need to understand how strong a differentiator this can be and deviseways and means of getting their employees involved.

How can companies help set the tone for the day for acustomer?

Take the 'easy route'

2011-11-25T17:26:00.001+05:30

Matt Dixon and Lauren Pragoff in their HBR article ‘Call Center Confidential: TheUnderbelly of Customer Centricity’ remind us of the following 3 statements youalways hear when you call into a Contact Center

Excerpt

· "This call is beingrecorded for quality and training purposes"

· "Is there anythingelse I can help you with today?"

· "How satisfied areyou with the service you received today?"

When you hear them, these phrases are good warning signs thatyou're dealing with an organization more focused on internal priorities than onwhat customers actually care about.

The true problem here is that these questions help in determiningcertain metrics which are religiously churned up but never converted intoanything concrete. Companies concentrateway too much on numbers which are really internal measures and not looking atspecific customer needs which begs the question – ‘Are you reducing effort andmaking interactions easy for your customer?’

Companies obsess over metrics such as post call CSATs, qualityassurance ratings and call closure. They have people working on just improvingthese stats but rarely is anyone working on making that conversation, whichgenerates these stats, easier for the customer. Efforts need to start shiftingto reducing customer effort. A customer should admire a company for quick responseand resolution time as it is surely, what they want.

There is an urgent need fortop management to start looking at metrics that indicate ‘ease of use’, ‘lackof effort’ and the like. They need to realize that customer centricity can beabout metrics such as reducing customer effort and that driving these numbersup can also considerably improve service delivery.

So can customer serviceleaders begin to usher in an era where ‘Ease of Use’ becomes the definingmetric?

Oshawa's Customer Service Strategy

2011-11-14T17:39:00.001+05:30

We as consumers are tuned to demand good customer servicefrom product vendors we deal with. Yet never seem to expect the same from ourgovernment and municipal bodies. We resign with an attitude that ‘this cannever change’. This sentiment holds true across the world. We always seem toexpect a lower standard from our government bodies. When we go to pay ourutilities bill or enquire or complain, the response is far from satisfactory. Generally,having several contact points or multiple locations offering government servicemay cause a barrier to efficient service delivery for citizens. As a result, service delivery strategies thatworked in the past need to evolve to reflect changes in attitudes andexpectations of customers. So why aren’t we demanding better service? And moreimportantly are our elected bodies looking for solutions?

The city of Oshawa in Canada is an exemplary example of acity that made customer service a priority. The city hired RBosch Consulting toexecute this impressive plan. A study was initiated through interviews with theMayor, city councilors and a Working Committee instituted for this purpose.Using data from these interviews, RBosch designed a set of guiding principleswhich define Oshawa’s customer service. They identified opportunities forservice improvements and finally delivered a roadmap for them. Goals were drawnup which would be assessed time to time and a plan for a Contact Centerimplementation was also put into place to enable a centralized service deliverymechanism.

Many elements came together for the city of Oshawa to get itright. The critical success factors for this ambitious project were:

Senior Management and Political Support
Adequate Resources
Staff Buy in and Communication
Clear Vision
Enabling Technology

The above points are important for any customer servicestrategy implementation irrespective of the scale and scope of the project.This initiative by the city of Oshawa isn’t unique because it is a city municipalbody realizing the importance of good customer service, it is because whenexpectations are low on that parameter, they still went ahead and executed astrategy that can only improve customer satisfaction and goodwill in the longrun. That is true vision, something many service and product vendors need tolearn.

So why is customer service not as important a priority forcompanies jostling for market share and mind share today?

Making your Brand All Pervasive

2011-10-10T12:10:00.000+05:30

In the HBR article by AnandSubramaniam, ‘Six Ways to Build Your Brand Through Customer Service’highlights the manner in which companies seem to forget brand building, as anexercise, at the customer service level. Building on this thought, he furtheroutlines steps which can be taken by companies and the next ten minutes ofreading shall, hopefully, take this thought to its fruition.

Expensive advertising, flashy brand ambassadors, thousandsof minutes of prime time television space and ‘shout at the top of your voices’ambient campaigns seem to be the only way companies believe a brand can bebuilt. They cannot be blamed for this view as it as an approach that has workedeffectively but only in the short term. Companies do not realize that the onlysignificant outcome of the above measures is creating excitement and not necessarilybuilding the brand. So how about using ‘customer service’ as a game changer foryour brand building efforts?

To build your brand using customer service, aligning yourbrand intent to a strategic intent becomes imperative. A company needs to lookat its overall strategic direction and brand related communications. From thereit should look at its available resources and develop a plan around itsexisting customer service practices to ensure the brand spends more timebuilding itself in the customer service stage. To do this a company has to put certainchecklists in place.

- Companies need to ensure they can build brand aligned processes into thevarious touch points accessible to the customer. This can start from a quickresponse system to customer complaints to even human assisted customer serviceover self service in case of high touch brands. Care of this magnitude willalways be rewarded with greater brand recognition and loyalty.

- Companies need to follow up the above measureswith brand aligned metrics thatallow them to judge success and work on improvements. Brands which are high touchneed to look beyond routine customer service metrics to numbers that can helpmap service intent to the brand intent.

- Unifying knowledge bases and customer servicetouch points can be another valuable step in aligning brand and service. By brand aligning your touch points acompany can ensure similar treatment of customers across channels whichguarantee the customer hearing the same brand message across channels.

The above measures mainly emphasize the need to align yourbrand with all customer service related activities. By doing that a customercan easily connect with the brand, instead of just connecting with the product,which in the long run builds stronger brands with defined brand commitments andnot just flashy flirtations.

This is what we think, what do you think?

What I took away from Chapter 7

2011-09-28T17:17:00.000+05:30

Just done with the two day CustommerceNational Convention Chapter 7. Wonderful event. Good speakers and some keyinsights.

Experience is clearly here to stay. Heard from the speakers: “Business ISExperience”. Focus on growth, scale andacquisitions, probably drives attention away from delivering critical andpromised customer experience. Data presented to establish the co-relationshipbetween great customer experience and bottom lines. The focus on customerexperience is a new way of doing business. More data and some hilarious anecdotalevidence showing how companies promise an experience only to deceive.

Bruce Temkin first articulated the thoughtof experience as a differentiator in 2007. Having said which generating adesired experience and using that to differentiate is as old as marketingthought , as old as positioning, as old as differentiation itself, or any ofthe core tenets of marketing. Closer to home Servion articulated the thought ofcustomer experience as the key differentiator at the time of creating itscontact optimization model.

Employees are critical to the process of creating a differentiated customerexperience at the service point. The examples were uplifting particularly inthe case of the Taj employees under attack on 26/11. There is a moment in everyconference where the entire crowd is caught up in it mind heart and soul – andI must say that that moment belonged to the Taj. Much is spoken and writtenabout employee engagement and empowerment in this space – there has been littlemeasurable action on the ground. Seniormanagement sit up and take notice. Pushingout the vision around the desired experience to the employees and translatingit into behaviour on the ground is YOUR job.

Sub context – that of alignment. Every partof the organization needs to align to the thought and goals of the thought ofcustomer experience. Enough examples ofgreat copy and tag lines and completely divergent behaviour on the ground. Notsurprising – each of us as customers experiences this dissonance every daybetween what the brand promises and how we get treated by our serviceproviders.

Last and not least was the thought aroundchange. Change IS the only constant. Lotof insights around changing generations (X,Y,C), changing ecosystem (connected,mobile), changing information/media eco-system (ability to blastdissatisfaction across thousands in seconds) Increasing disloyalty. Startlingfact – 75% of SATISFIED customers changed their brands! Scary!!

Going out on a limb: “the changing nature of the human being” issomething that is wrongly ascribed (IMHO) solelyto all these ecosystem factors and changing technology. Mostly we(businesses) TEACH customers to be disloyal! Every day in every way most of my serviceproviders tell me that I am in NO way benefitted by being an old and loyalcustomer. “Change brands as often as you can” - they tell me. And who am I toresist?! J

Reflects the core points made by all thespeakers. Too much focus on scale, growth, acquisition and practicallyeverything at the cost of experience. Disengaged,un-empowered employees consistently fail to internalize and deliver thepromised experience. Non-aligned(desirable as a mechanism of foreign policy perhaps, but here, disastrous!)structures, systems and processes. Teacheslittle old me to be disloyal!

Check out thepresentations – lots of data around these points!

The views expressed are mine, ONLY mine,and nobody else can be put in jail for them!

G.Shankaran Nair

President - Corporate Strategy

Servion Global Solutions

Service? What service?

2011-08-11T16:43:00.002+05:30

What's the problem with customer service — money or the lack of empowerment?

All of us are consumers and some of us are service providers and every consumer is different in her own way. Some of them are constantly teaching us a thing or two while most of us obstinately refuse to learn or change. Having made some dramatic statements that run the risk of sounding pompous, let me cut to the chase and to my own story and see if there is any learning. It started on a Sunday afternoon, which, incidentally, happened to be the third day of the Nottingham Test which was at an interesting stage. At least, it was, when I was watching it at the airport waiting for my flight to be called. England and Bell were just turning it around.

I am sure you are asking me why any sane guy would travel on Sunday evening, particularly on the third day of an important Test match. But then I am a committed executive (!) serving his company and (hopefully) his clients in the bargain and more importantly because I wanted to start a training programme at 9 a.m. the following day. At times my own dedication shocks me!

But less of me and more of my travails as a customer, as I flew into Mumbai on the day that city received the maximum rainfall this year.

King, pauper or in between

As I am a King Club Member, I flew with the “king of good times”. After all, who wants to be a mere passenger when he has the option of being a guest at Mr Mallya's house? The flight was on time, which was great news to a passenger to whom delayed flights are as common as Praveen Kumar's altercations with umpires, who are reluctant to raise their fingers to fervent and frantic appeals. But that was later. Before that, I settled into my seat ready to watch a third-rate Hindi movie as has been my habit for several months now. I kept pressing every button in the seat and kept looking anxiously at the screen as a teenager might at the bill when he takes his girlfriend to an expensive restaurant. There was no light at the end of the television screen and there was neither a C-grade movie nor a news channel which might have the score at the bottom of the screen. I almost lost it.

But then I remembered I was on good behaviour (which my family might not believe). I have these bouts of geniality, which, sadly though, are not all that frequent but come to the rescue of service providers. So I politely asked the stewardess what the problem was. She smiled sweetly. Sometimes I wonder how airline stewardesses can smile after pouring scalding hot coffee on your thigh! While she had done nothing as exciting or as hot, she said politely that the entertainment system was not working.

Of course, while there was a glossy brochure in the pouch which listed all the programmes and which is one of the reasons why I travel by Kingfisher, the reality was that the entertainment was not working. While mechanical failures are a fact of life, human failures are a little more difficult to stomach.

I wish, I only wish someone had made an announcement or better still made an apology for the entertainment not working. Is that too much to ask for? Do guests have a say, or is all this talk of treating passengers as guests a mere line?

Ian Bell has a good time

Whether I was having a good time or not, Bell was having a great time as Indians were treating him to long hops outside the off stump and full tosses on the leg stump. He was being truly treated as a guest in the Indian dressing room. Well, soon the batsman was thinking of scones and tea and trooped off for tea even before the umpires called for the break.

The Indians woke up and pulled off the bails and the dozing Bell suddenly realised that the party was over. Soon the Indians had a couple of guests in their dressing room as they tiredly sipped their tea. The English captain and coach promptly made their appearance. After all, mental disintegration is complete when the opposition team is not allowed to have its tea in peace, right? Anyway, they asked Dhoni to reconsider the appeal and Dhoni, perhaps recalling what his ancestors were regularly doing till 1947, agreed, albeit reluctantly.

I had missed all that though I was being flooded with Blackberry messengers and text messages. I went to my hotel, keen to catch up.

Who wants TV; radio is the medium of today

Our hosts had put us up in a hotel called VITS. I had never heard of that hotel, but trusted the judgment of our hosts. I was pleasantly surprised to note that it was from the same group as Orchid, a hotel I had stayed in several times in the past and where the South Indian restaurant Vindhyas had effortlessly increased my weight.

The room was nice, the layout similar to the Orchid and I switched on the TV set, in pleasurable anticipation of an Indian revival. Imagine my horror when I realised that the TV set had a mere 15 channels and Star Cricket was not one of them!

My geniality evaporated and my scowl matched Harbhajan's expression, which has been a feature of this English tour. But one of the features of the Ramanujams is that we don't take things lying down, particularly when it comes to the gentleman's game, more so when Dhoni had done the ultimate gentlemanly thing even if it was under duress!

I called the duty manager and there was a Maharashtrian gentleman there. I asked him in my sweetest tone as to why there was no Star Cricket in the room and as a Maharashtrian whether he watched the cricket at all. One of the basic principles of service providers is not to try to be fresh, particularly when their customers are angry. Perhaps thinking he would endear himself to me, he said that he too wanted to watch the cricket but what to do the cable had a technical problem. I asked to speak to his boss and he said I could do so the next morning.

I was quickly losing it and ran the risk of being banned as I asked for the number of the boss. He politely refused. I was ranting now and asked for the technician. The technician promptly arrived and said in his truthful way that Star Cricket was not being subscribed to. I was mad, but not mad enough to not follow the match and did so on my computer, as I heard the Test Match Special as I had done three decades ago, even as I waited for the next morning and the general manager of the hotel.

The morning after

Morning followed murkily, India was in the doldrums and I was getting more annoyed by the moment. I promptly met the Front Office Manager of the hotel, who was all smiles and said he knew about the problem and would fix it. I reminded him that the match started at 3.30 p.m.

I went back at 5 p. m., after the sessions, hoping against hope. Well, nothing had changed, neither India's fortunes nor the TV channel. When I confronted the manager, he said he had called the cable operator and there was a ‘technical problem”. I was amazed.

Did he really think I was born yesterday? Even an eight-year-old would know that it was DTH, which could be subscribed to at short notice and I had volunteered to pay! In hindsight it was probably better that I did not watch India's humiliation but my misery was complete when Geoffrey Boycott compared India to Bangladesh and unfavourably at that on radio, my now trusted media partner.

I walked morosely out to dinner to the restaurant to be greeted by posters of Mr Kamat, the owner of the hotel (someone I admire enormously), speaking of his inspirations. I just thought that he might have been better served worrying about his customers. But then who am I to complain about big hotel magnates? And yet as a customer, I started wondering about what ails customer service in the hospitality industry specifically and in the country in general. What was the problem? The money or lack of empowerment?

Do we empower routinely?

I believe we handle routine service issues well but get into trouble when the issue is non-routine. Should the lobby manager have been empowered? Should the manager of the hotel not have tried to be “smart” with his guest and told him something that was patently false? Should I have quietly gone away thinking dark thoughts? Sadly, I am today's customer. I have a voice and I will share it. But, if only, if only the hotel had shown the slightest empathy for me or even tried to handle my problem I would have been satisfied. I would have told the whole world of how much they cared. Solving a customer's problem is the easiest way to her heart and wallet.

But is someone listening?

I flew back by Kingfisher. The entertainment system was not working. Now, of course, I am used to this.

And yet, I believe some good came out of all this. I was so mad at everything that I cancelled my trip to England and shelved my plans to watch the third Test at Edgbaston.

Who knows, that might well be the change of fortune that India needs!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri

The Freezing Point of a Customer Iceberg

2011-08-11T12:40:00.003+05:30

A Customer Iceberg as explained by Avinash Narula, the man credited with this concept, is simply put; every dissatisfied customer who in time turns into a Customer Iceberg. The more unhappy he is, the more dangerous a Customer Iceberg he turns into.

The concept though simplistic is very relevant to companies at many levels. Dissatisfied customers become even bigger icebergs when they are ill treated continuously. Customers are way more vocal of their concerns these days with innumerable avenues to express their disgust with companies available. Social media has become the favorite melting pot for many Customer Icebergs. They seem to find haven on these outlets and companies have to dedicate resources to tackle them at this stage. But to do this, companies need to thoroughly understand the threats posed by this phenomenon.

Like an iceberg, only the tip of the Customer Iceberg is visible to a company at times and therefore they react with very little decisiveness. The hidden part of the iceberg is where the danger lies as companies ignore the damaging abilities of these Customer Icebergs until they get hit head on by it. If companies can dedicate resources and time to discover threats before they run into them, they can immunize themselves from mass attacks from unhappy customers.

Working this concept to your advantage is what every company should aim at. Breaking down customers into various sizes of Customer Icebergs and laying out plans to tackle them should be top of mind for every company. Customer Icebergs are not a phenomenon new to companies but at the same time it also is something companies have shown great incompetence in managing. So can this concept be a tipping point for customer service in companies or drown like so many other ideas bandied around?

This is what we think, what do you think?

The Zappos Way of Customer Service

2011-07-27T11:56:00.002+05:30

“Customer Service Isn’t Just A Department” – Tony Hseih, CEO, Zappos

When you decide to make customer service your competitive advantage, you are making a huge commitment to your customer. This commitment would not come to fruition unless there is a concerted drive to build this into the company’s culture. And no company has quite perfected that art like Zappos.

Las Vegas-based Zappos started in 1999 by selling shoes online, and has since grown to a US$1 billion per year retailer. It has expanded into clothing, handbags, sunglasses, and numerous other categories. The company early on decided to focus its marketing budget towards delivering exceptional customer service. To enable this, they have manufactured from the bottom up a very open culture in the organization. From allowing vendors to view what products are in stock along with prices and profit margins to allowing other companies to have a look at the way they run their Contact Center operations, Zappos has built a very strong image in the minds of the industry of what they are trying to achieve. Even internally, their Contact Center agents are not given scripts and are not bound by rules which force them to complete calls quickly (the record being 4 hours for a single call). Zappos sees their greatest brand building opportunity in speaking with their customers. They encourage trial of their products with a guarantee that it can be returned even a year after purchasing it, thus building a very strong chain of trust with the customer. This and many more such initiatives place Zappos on a whole new pedestal in the minds of the customer.

Taking this sort of positioning in the market can be a very daunting task. But Zappos have made this belief in customer service all pervasive across the company. This can truly be achieved when the initiative begins from the top. Tony Hseih has always believed in living and breathing the values set by Zappos. Many companies have similar values stated in the reams of company literature they print every year, but delivering on them sometimes needs motivation and a directive right from the top.

If you are looking to implement customer service the Zappos way, a very conscious effort is required. It may well need a complete overhaul of processes, people, culture and most importantly - a healthy dose of top management directive.

This is what we think, what do you think?

The Outsourcing Conundrum

2011-07-20T10:58:00.002+05:30

Outsourcing has become an intricate part of various business processes. In service industry, there has been a pronounced shift in the direction of after-sales support outsourcing. Today, manufacturers, suppliers and retailers believe that outsourcing after-sales service helps them slash overhead costs, streamline service management, and sharpen their focus on competencies which are core to them. (http://www.zed-axis.com)

But is your brand ready to withstand the possible downfalls of such a move?

The moment a company outsources its support services to a third party, it immediately brings into its fold a group of people who may not necessarily understand the brand promise. The brand promise is crafted by a company after a deep understanding of the customer. The customer in turn expects this promise to be delivered across every touch point with the same consistency. This becomes the inherent challenge of outsourcing customer service.

When a company outsources their after sales service needs they are also outsourcing the brand. An outsourcing partner may not always make keeping up the brand promise its priority. With cost savings being one of the selling points, the outsourcing partner may allow the client’s brand promise fade into the background. Therefore, if a company centers its entire marketing and sales pitch to the consumer on a brand promise, outsourcing that very commitment can prove fatal to the brand.

This is what we think, what do you think?

The Service Failure Advantage

2011-07-15T17:36:00.007+05:30

How is it possible that customers are more loyal after failures of products or services than they have been before? Excellent service recovery is the key and with the right activities, companies can fully utilize the service recovery paradox. ( www.customerthink.com )

The service recovery paradox states that with a highly effective service recovery, a service or product failure offers a chance to achieve higher satisfaction ratings from customers than if the failure had never happened. A little bit less academically, this means that a good recovery can turn angry and frustrated customers into loyal customers. In fact it can create even more goodwill than if things had gone smoothly in the first place.

But before reaping the often unknown benefits of a service recovery paradox, developing that all important service recovery process becomes imperative. Companies cannot be expected to deliver exemplary service at every touch point and with every interaction. Therein lays the inherent need for a service recovery program. Addressing the chinks in your service delivery mechanism becomes the start for designing a recovery program. Even though such a program will differ from company to company, there are some underlying strategies which always need a visit:

1. Anticipate the need for recovery

Every company has to first accept that their product can quite easily fall prey to a problem of some nature. Figuring out what these problems are, listing them down and putting in place practices to tackle them is the next step. This need to anticipate problems is core to a service delivery culture in an organization.

2. Build an organization that is fast in decision making, and fast to respond.

Your organization needs to be built to withstand the pressures of a service recovery program. It needs to be able to deliver it consistently and fast. To do this, roles must be set and responsibilities determined to enable quick responses. Processes need to be defined so that there is no confusion about any situation. Consequently, escalations of any kind can be handled swiftly.

3. Empower front line employees

Your front line employees are the ones who generally bear the brunt of consumer frustrations, but, they also have the least power to affect change most of the time. Giving these employees greater power to exercise their discretion within limits is a sure shot way of delivering good service and in case of a failure, service recovery. A Call Center agent who can authorize a refund incase of a service failure without unnecessary escalations can go a long way in pleasing a customer.

Every company would love to believe that their customer is in a perfect state of bliss with their product, but that cannot be a constant reality. On the other hand unbridled loyalty can be achieved by just attending to a service failure and solving the problem. This should be enough encouragement for any organization today to build a service recovery program.

So what do you think are the other factors companies should look into for building a service recovery program ?

The Thick End Of Customer Loyalty.

2011-07-12T17:26:00.005+05:30

“Relationships customers form with brands are stronger when they're built on ‘thick value’, on spontaneous relationships, more than on ‘thin value’ and transactions” (‘Is big brand customer service getting worse’ – www.director.co.uk)

A clear thought emanating from this line is that customer service is becoming purely driven by transactions (thin value) and not relationships (thick value). After empowering the consumer with your product, the next phase is to continue gauging her needs and orienting customer service to drive loyalty towards your product. But companies today and especially big brands have decided to orient customer service by just enabling the customer with the most basic of services which include completing simple transactions and answering basic queries.

Big brands are the greatest culprits at creating transactional relationships and not being able to transition to providing customers with ‘thick value’. At the point of interaction with a customer which invariably is the Contact Center, a company is driven by cost efficiency and ends up frustrating customers further. Even at touch points such as service centers, a host of procedures and waiting time weakens the will of the customer. A surface level investigation into customer service objectives will always reflect a need to make life easier for the customer. But as a customer, when was the last time you felt that way? Are big brands lounging in their market leader positions and ignoring the fact that true customer service is driven through relationships?

The answer to the above is an overwhelming YES! One will have to really search their mind to remember the last time a big brand placed emphasis on the customer’s needs and made that the priority. Companies have begun to make huge outlays of money on making a customer service promise and building that ‘thick value’ in terms of resources but the results are debatable. Customers still feel let down and jumping brands have become the norm.

Companies need to find ways to reach out to customers, build real relationships, understand needs and deliver on those lofty customer service promises. But companies continue giving the customer a cold shoulder and concentrating on building ‘thin value’ by fulfilling service requests and never walking the extra ‘customer service mile’.

Changing the conversation from ‘we can solve your problem’ to ‘we know your problem’ is the genesis to creating ‘thick value’. Big brands can surely afford to enter such territory but seem shy of doing so. They need to be able to commit themselves to this cause and understand the value of such a move. Letting a customer know that they will be taken care of at any touch point can be a start. Training employees to understand the value of being proactive, in the long run, can be priceless. And finally, building ‘thick value’ as a result of this into your brand promise can easily make the brand unbreakable in the minds of the consumer.

Any such initiative now will enable differentiation in a market where customers have come to expect sub standard service quality. In today’s highly competitive market, the core product has pretty much become a commodity. Therefore, companies have countless customer service opportunities lined up at their doorstep and they should use them before the customer walks out their door.

So, do you think companies comprehend the importance of building ‘thick value’?

"The Great Customer Service Debate"

2010-05-24T11:48:00.010+05:30

At the Custommerce India Chapter 6 meet held on January 29, 2010, we aimed to examine strategies that help organizations not only weather the economic challenge, but also pick up strategies that help differentiate them from competition.

(From Left, Dr. A. Parasuraman, Mr. Raja Gopalakrishnan, Ms. Tuhina Pandey, Mr. Gautam Mahajan, Mr. S. Ramaswamy)

The ‘Great Customer Service Debate’ witnessed eminent speakers from various facets of industry like Dr. A. Parasuraman (Vice Dean of Faculty, James W. McLamore Chair in Marketing, University of Miami), Mr. Gautam Mahajan (President, Customer Value Foundation), Mr. Raja Gopalakrishnan (Group Managing Director, Asia Pacific; (FIS)), Mr. Sundaram Ramaswamy (Entrepreneur, Director & Thought Leader), and the topics for discussion were:

‘Technology is an enabler for desired customer experience – Yes / No'
‘Which drives desired customer experience better? - Value based strategy or Metric driven strategy’

During the discussion, views were presented in favor of and against each dimension. Based on this, strategies to enhance customer experience were arrived at.

Appended below are some key takeaways from the presentations:

• Technology must aid in providing great customer service and satisfy the needs and requirements of customers. The customer must choose the time, place and manner of usage and should be provided at competitive price points. Technology has to be consistent, scalable and sustainable and it must be something that fits your business goals. While technology per se is not bad, its implementation is crucial. Implementation of technology has to be in line with the business goals, customer requirements and customer usage patterns.

• Value and metric-based strategies do not have to necessarily be in conflict. The reason that there is a perceived conflict between these two things is that most companies do not measure the right metrics. What they measure in terms of metrics is customer service and other things connected to service as perceived by customers. A lot of these metrics are easily measurable. For example, how much time the call centre took to answer, the attitude of the employees and the aspect that they show customers are the process related services that have a much bigger impact on customers. So that is where the conflict comes and not just in measuring the right metrics.

We thank all our sponsors for making Custommerce India Chapter 6 a success.

For more information, please visit http://www.custommerce.org/chapter6/index.html

Turning Customer Service Inside Out!!!

2010-05-24T09:41:00.008+05:30

While companies focus thousands of rupees on external customer service in hopes of wooing and retaining customers, little attention is being paid to the effect poor internal customer service has on customer satisfaction.

When we think of customer service, we think of staff serving customers over a counter or over the phone. But customer service occurs within your organization as well. How well is your staff serving its internal customers: other departments, its employees, management, vendors and consultants? Good internal customer service starts with good morale within your group. It refers to your level of responsiveness, quality, communication, teamwork and morale.

How well are you providing other departments with service, products or information to help them do their jobs and to help your organization succeed? And what goes around usually comes around. Myopic thinking should be avoided and working together will achieve win-wins for the greater good of the customers.

Happy employees are productive, and customers can experience the difference. Sooner or later the ripple effect of internal customer service reaches your customers. To really walk your service talk, you should make sure that your commitment to internal customer service matches your company's external focus on customer care. Corporate values that emphasize treating employees well translate to good customer care too. Companies that care about their people can better ask their people to care about their customers.

By improving internal customer service you would just enhance the customer service your external customers receive. You're walking your talk regarding customer service.

Customer complaints – An opportunity

2010-05-14T09:47:00.004+05:30

Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.
-Zig Ziglar

Sometimes complaints can be overwhelming. However, by taking them in stride with an open mind, we can learn much from our customers' feelings about our business. After all, a complaint is nothing more that a person telling you that his / her needs haven't been met.

Be careful not to call his complaint or situation a problem, because doing so might aggravate him to the point that he loses his ability to think and express himself clearly. The second most frequently stated reasons customers leave a company is that the company did not handle their complaints well. The cause of most customer complaints is failed expectations. As dissatisfied customers, they are giving us a second chance to correct something that should have been done properly the first time around. If you listen to them patiently and attentively, their complaints will alert you to a real or potential problem, or tell you of a better way to handle a situation. A little common sense, a lot of genuine sincerity, and some tact will go a long way in resolving the issue.

We are not used, however, to coping with complaints. We let our emotions rule our thinking usually. Consequently, we let complaints wear us out because we take on the complaint as a personal attack on us. It is not! Consider this, that every customer complaint may actually give you an opportunity to differentiate yourself from your competition. If handled effectively, complaints may actually increase customer and brand loyalty. It costs five times more to reach a new customer than to keep a current one. So it makes sense that we can increase profits by keeping customers happy with better complaint handling.

Hence, we should make it a goal for every single customer who walks through our door to have a better impression of our business when they leave than they did when they came in. We should handle the customer with care and with sincere professional courtesy. It can be a leading indicator of impending change in customer mindset at a brand or industry level.

Excellent customer service is never an accident!

2010-04-12T13:00:00.008+05:30

“Excellent customer service is never an accident; it is the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities." There are plenty of examples that we experience both inside and outside of our work environments that remind us of the "exceptional" customer experience, and the not so warm and fuzzy experience (the one you really tell everyone about) that we can learn from in order to improve our service.

When Apple released their new iPhone 3G, customers expected the phones to work. Instead, in a product launch disaster, a customer focused organization with great technical support and having customers in 22 countries was left hanging. As the PC World headline read: "Apple Loses its Shine"! Instead of exceeding customer expectations with a brand new product that wowed new users, the company failed to meet even basic expectations and jeopardized its reputation with loyal users.

Think about your loyalty quotient. To what businesses are you loyal and why? If you will take a few minutes to think about this, you may discover the link to loyalty in your own business! Is there a restaurant you regularly frequent? Why? Probably NOT because they serve good food - that is expected and many restaurants fill that need. It could be because their food is exceptional every time, the service is exceptional, and the atmosphere unique. To achieve loyalty, then, we have to surpass just being good at what we do. And, loyalty must be identified as a goal of the organization. Customer service is the key factor that helps to achieve this goal.

The challenge in today's turbulent environment for business leaders is how to set yourself apart from other service providers, and position your organization for positive growth. The simple (yet too often missed) answer is through exceptional customer service! Ultimately what determines whether a customer chooses to do business with your organization or practice versus a competitor usually boils down to relationships...how you make him or her feel. Exceptional customer service is not an accident, yet a very focused, planned and well executed strategy led by customer centric leaders.

A customer centric leader understands that we need to look at service through the eyes of our customers, and look for opportunities to put a personal thumb print on each interaction we have with customers.

"Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game.
Service wins the game."
-Tony Alessandra

About Custommerce...

2010-04-11T14:05:00.003+05:30

Custommerce started off as an annual industry event conducted by Servion Global Solutions, to create awareness of Customer Interaction Management solutions. The objective has been to highlight the benefits one can gain in business by improving and enhancing customer response. The audience for this event has been around 250-300 executives, typically - Chief Information Technology Officers, Chief Marketing Officers and Heads of Customer Support drawn from large corporate houses across Asia Pac and the Middle East. Traditionally, Servion has been inviting captains of Indian industry to provide the keynote address - evangelizing the use of technology to enhance business response.

Custommerce today is morphing into a movement that will work towards identifying challenges facing the customer interaction / customer service industry and provide possible strategies to achieve a customer driven economy. The movement is not designed to make recommendations or draw any conclusions on the right or wrong strategy. It is solely meant to provide a platform to discuss and debate issues with industrialists and thought leaders. This platform will also allow member organizations to ‘network’ with their peers by way of discussions to gain insights into how Customer Interaction Management Strategies are implemented worldwide.