A service opportunity missed?

Last week, I went to Coonoor to participate in the housewarming ceremony of an affluent friend from Singapore. He had built his house inside the picturesque setting of a tea plantation! You could have tea straight from the plant, if you felt like it! Anyway, let me not digress and stay with the topic on hand which is the permanently intriguing subject of customer service. Before you lose patience, let me get back to the customer service experience that almost knocked my socks off initially, but left me a little disappointed in the end and got me thinking about the entire service opportunity that constantly presents itself to companies. It all started with a phone call to my wife, who was with me, from her boss. Her boss who seemed to be well aware of what was happening at Ooty called to say that Ramraj Textiles, the well-known dhoti and white shirts brand, had just opened a showroom at Ooty and could we please  get him two size 42” linen shirts in white? If the boss’ instructions are important then imagine how critical instructions from my boss’ boss are likely to be! So we dropped everything and made our way in the pouring rain to the showroom. Coincidentally my friend, an acknowledged service expert had spoken about how courteous the staff at Ramraj Textiles’ showroom at Coimbatore had been the previous day when he had visited there. We found the showroom without too much difficulty, placed as it was in a prominent location of Ooty.

The service story

As the showroom seemed to have opened that very day, the place was teeming with people as the strength of the brand had prompted a lot of people to come over.  Footfalls are what any retailer dreams about and there was no issue here. In fact with two levels, lots of people, loud conversations, cartons being carted around … all of which made me ask one of the assistants why there was such a racket. My wife quickly asked me to shut up and like any dutiful husband, I promptly did. But when we went to the shirt section things changed dramatically. When we asked for four shirts of 42 of linen, (I felt like buying them as well), they sprang into action. They realized that they had only one shirt of that size and asked us for a couple of minutes to check their depot and at other outlets. Even as I was standing in front of the counter, the cashier called outlet after outlet asking for this particular type and size of shirt that we wanted. It was amazing to see someone who belonged to the clerical cadre exceeding the call of duty. All he had to tell me was that the sizes were not available and I would have gone away quietly. But he whetted my appetite by asking me to wait while he called various neighboring outlets like Avinashi, Mettupalayam and many others that I can’t recall, finally sourced the shirts at Avinashi and asked someone to put it on the bus and told me that he would pick it up early in the morning and have it delivered. I had already told him that I would be leaving the Ooty Gymkhana where I was staying by 9 a.m. the following morning.

The damp squib the day after

Having whetted my appetite with superior service far beyond my expectations, I waited for the shirts to arrive. 9 o’clock came and went with neither shirts nor even a call from the company. I was a trifle disappointed because the initiative of the previous night at the store had made me hope, unreasonably perhaps. Of course, he had not specifically committed to me as obviously the bus service was beyond his control. But he had my number, could he not have called me and taken my Bangalore address to ship later? As I was driving back to Bangalore there were a number of thoughts that crossed my mind. Is this sort of initiative of calling different depots, checking availability, etc only possible in smaller companies? Is service a function of size? While the junior person showed so much initiative, there was no intervention from the senior person. Do larger companies have better processes and support systems to handle non-routine service needs? Did the company have the capability to deliver in different cities when there was a stock out situation? Is there opportunity for old world companies like these to learn from companies like Flipkart and Jabong that have created new opportunities for themselves by tapping into reliable delivery systems and procedures? Can these companies look at selling online?  After all a white shirt is a white shirt and it is possible to sell and buy these fabrics online. Is an opportunity being missed here?

Mind you, I have a lot of respect and regard for Ramraj Textiles and its shirts. My wardrobe has quite a few shirts from its repertoire. I frequently visit their showroom in some airport or the other and would like the brand to succeed even further and was just a little disappointed that they had promised to deliver something outstanding and then just gave up. I am sure they are not unique in this. I am sure your company and mine is missing opportunities like this every day.

The question is, are you aware of the missed opportunity?

Ramanujam Sridhar is Director in Custommerce and the Founder CEO of brand-comm. 

Service Evasion

There’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news, which is for consumers, is that there is now an online, private customer redressal system that takes complaints of customers and solves them by escalating it to higher echelons of customer service in a company. All the grieving customer needs to do is to type in their complaint in a text box on the online consumer forum and the complaint is formalized and sent to people who can make a decision in the company (not to the poor customer-service representative whose minimal powers range from “I will try to help you” to “Sorry, I cannot help you in this matter”). The matter is then solved doubly quick, resulting in a happy customer who still curses the poor service from the company but posts an effusive testimonial on the forum website stating the turnaround time of complaint resolution and money saved. If you want to follow the complaint closely or step-by-step, you would have to pay for it, but paltry in comparison with the amounts you would incur if you did it on your own.

Sounds great and it is in fact a boon for consumers. But what does this mean to the organizations who are the actual custodians of the experiences of their customers? Isn’t the care of their customers solely their responsibility?  The success of such a forum goes to show that companies are seemingly indifferent about customer service. At least when it comes to making sure that a service issue is resolved. They seem to have the first level of redressal in place but are not able to go the extra mile in making sure that the customer gets the required resolution. Frustrated by this lack of commitment to a tangible end, the customer turns to the online redressal forum. It surely doesn’t look good for an organization when its poor service is blatantly highlighted online and someone else credited for resolving a customer problem that they obviously haven’t been able to.

An organization’s responsibility towards their customers doesn’t end at just creating an ecosystem to sell the product; it also extends to creating a post sales relationship. Today’s service providers are pushing the envelope in terms of reach and network of customers, therefore creating an environment to service those same customers must fall under the same ambit. So can we assume our service providers are giving up? Or are we just looking at a shifting focus from treating customer service as an extension of the product, to just plain and simple resolution?

The expectation dry-up?

We have been mentioning that the moment of truth is the point where a brand is made or broken. This is where either a satisfied customer glorifies the product/service or an unhappy customer dismisses it. We know for a fact that most of the time the customer is left dissatisfied. We lay the onus on the service provider and complain that service levels have to improve – and then there’s lethargy. But then there is the Indian consumer who is so used to poor service that she is almost immune to it! In the comparison between expectation and delivery, we can see that since the expectations are so low, it’s no surprise that delivery levels are so poor.

This could probably be attributed to years and years of poor service, long queues and red tape that has adversely conditioned the Indian consumer psyche. It is sometimes due to this mindset, that when something out of the ordinary is provided, the Indian customer is overawed. For example, an Indian consumer is easily thrilled when a DTH service provider promises service in 24 hours and it actually happens! But isn't this what the company has always promised?

So let’s sum it up. It would seem that as an ecosystem we are already meeting expectations and with the considerably low levels these expectations are surviving at, we are headed towards an era of customer indifference. Or we quite possibly are already there. Practitioners have been talking about great customer service for years now but service providers continue to ignore the calls, yet they preach about the Zappos of the world without ever intending to change a single process internally. Customer indifference could soon lead to a drying up of differentiators or marketing ‘hooks’. We would then go back to a market that differentiates on factors like price and product design that we know are unsustainable.

Looks like soon, that DTH customer we spoke about is going to become an exception to a rule no one cares for. 

Getting Social on Social Media

Social media still manages to be a buzz word. Most of the business world was of the belief that the value of social media in business will soon reach its saturation point. But it continues to surprise businesses both small and big in the way one can approach customers, marketing and customer service. Now grasping the above ideas isn’t that difficult. Also, knowing that you need to be on social media isn’t going to win you any brownie points from your customers. But not being smart and maximizing your ability to give your customers great customer service on social media, can be an opportunity lost.

Studies say that customers who engage with companies via social media spend 20 to 40 percent more money with those companies than customers who don’t engage through social media. This should give companies enough impetus to provide great customer service on social media. The problem many see with social media is that neither is it face to face and nor are you talking to anyone on the phone. It’s a faceless conversation but social media has proven to be a great outlet for customers. People tend to interact more openly and freely online. This stemming from a certain anonymity coupled with a huge audience ready to listen and react. Customers expect companies to be more proactive on social media and this presents companies with a great opportunity to reach out and take action before the customer decides to. Being active by tweeting or replying to queries on your company’s Facebook wall instantly can be a great turn on for customers. It shows that you care and you are there. You can instantly put customers at ease as social media by nature is an informal environment. You can reach out to them faster by openly asking your customer base if they have any problems and then attack each issue head on. It’s not enough to be posting views on your brand and its marketing efforts; you also need to be able to reach out on issues that matter to a customer. And that is something you cannot do as easily from a physical outlet or through you call center.

Social media allows you to socialize with your customer. Chat them up, understand them and react. Being available on social media to address concerns makes you static and boring. It doesn’t help your brand point out any difference between your other customer service channels. Customers expect to be treated a certain way on social media and the foundation lies in the fact, that you got to reach out to them, talk their lingo and solve their problems just as you would do elsewhere. That is when the brownie points will start piling up like never before.

Big lessons that small companies teach

From Nordstrom (a Custommerce blog favorite) to Southwest to Taj, all are brands synonymous with great customer service. Yet these and only a handful of other large corporations seem to be known for their service ethic. But at the same time, you see many small and medium sized companies consistently getting their customer service ethos firmly in place. Many may attribute that to lesser customers or negligible hierarchy but like this article in HBR will tell you, it sometimes just comes down to empathy and common sense. So where else does the secret to good customer service lie in a medium sized enterprise? And what virtues of these companies can larger enterprises look to replicate?

A large hotel in Chennai is known to give its employees Rs.1000 everyday as a limit which they can use to repair any reasons of dissatisfaction with a customer. They can use that money on one customer or ration it through the day but it gives them the liberty to improve an experience. This can involve a complimentary drink, snack or anything that the restaurant offers. The limit ensures prudence yet at the same time it allows flexibility. Now, flexibility is an important lesson that most large companies can take from smaller companies like this hotel did. Small and medium enterprises generally have the advantage of flexibility in the way they can serve their customers. They can tailor their customer service efforts as per the customer requirement. Even larger companies can work past Standard Operating Procedures and bring in some flexibility to allow for a better service experience for customers. Another great virtue which large companies can pick from smaller enterprises is of having a top management which prefers a hands-on-approach. Customers of smaller enterprise are able to reach top management with their grievances much faster then they can reach a middle manager at a large enterprise. With certain protocols in place and by basing cases on priority, even a large enterprise can achieve this objective.

On the whole large companies need to see how they can bring in initiatives from smaller companies in moderation backed by strong business cases. They can serve customers much better by steering away from rigidity towards incorporating techniques that can improve the service experience. The lessons small companies are giving aren’t very tough to understand or implement. You just need to use common sense to know how much to commit, and remember, that all your customers need, is a little empathy. 

Customer service can save the day

Countries across Europe and Asia are reeling from the effects of a recession that had its roots in the US. Companies in these countries will instantly start looking at the various options available to them to manage the crisis. Options like layoffs, broad based pricing to target more customers and many more value draining methods come to the fore. What generally begins to suffer is always, customer service. But can, a recession, be the most auspicious moment to improve your customer service?

Southwest Airlines, Lexus and the Ritz Carlton are brands known to keep their customer service promise at the forefront even at the dullest of economic conditions. Brands must understand the value of upping their customer service game during the downturn as customers become more sensitive to prices and the way their service provider treats them. Customer morale is at its greatest low at this point. Investing in systems, processes or ideas  that can help build this morale can serve you well not only during the downturn but also post it, as customers will never forget the brand who showered them with the love they needed. We are moving into a time where customers are expecting soft brands. Brands that are more communicative, responsive and ready to speak. Research over the years has always proven that brands who commit resources to customer service during a downturn or who have always considered it a priority, come out of a recession stronger and with a loyal base of customers with negligible erosion over the years.

Learning lessons from companies who are focusing on customer service can be pivotal in dealing with a downturn. It can give many brands an edge over their competitors and create an advantage that in time will become sustainable, recession or not. A recession is the one time in the story of a brand that can help them concentrate on customer service, make it invincible to competitors and lovable to customers. So let’s start planning and acting, now! 

Knowledge ‘works’

Many service providers especially telecom players seem to have the fantastic ability to drown customers with offers that they will never use or have a record of declining. These very service providers are the ones who also have reams of data about their customers, data most of us would think should help them make the right offer to us. But we are often faced by the same static messaging which has ruined many an experience of our service provider for us. The problem does not lie with the amount of data they have, it also isn’t the fault of the lack of desire to give the customer a good deal. It all seems to lie in the much hidden and embarrassing fact that a lot of our service providers do have a lot of data but very little knowledge.

Companies have many storage hubs today. The Contact Center, Point of Sales, customer feedback and many more depending on the company and the various customer programs they have in place. The amount of data available here will be enough to piece together a decent customer outreach strategy. Yet service providers in most cases such as one of our friendly neighborhood telecom providers make the fundamental mistake of not making these hubs speak to each other. Due to this a lot of customer data gets lost in translation as its not being mined to get the relevant data points which can be used to market the right offers to the customers or at least – close to the right one. The key, one should believe lies in converting this data to knowledge which should be shared across relevant departments. A customer complaint may be voiced over a simple transaction related call into the Contact Center, but is that being sent over to the guys at Customer Service? A customer refuses an offer for an upgrade on her current calling plan at an authorized center. Is that then transferred to the Contact Center so that the customer is not pestered about it again?

The opportunities to use customer data are many and can prove to be both profitable for the company and improve customer service. Service providers will be more focused and relevant in their approach to the customer which only involves a better use of resources already available to them. Getting over the embarrassment of having customers come down upon the service provider with all their fury for every unnecessary offer made to the customer can be very easily avoided. And what better then turning that embarrassment into a meaningful opportunity for both?  

The Customer SPOC

Companies today profess their love for customer service with gusto unlike anything before. They stand under the metaphorical balconies of customers proclaiming their devotion to them and how they would always stand by them in their times of trouble. The U-turn after that though, is again something customers like many broken lovers have come to expect. Customers and companies enter a marriage the moment a customer decides to pick your product off the shelf instead of another. So why don’t companies really get serious about this? Why don’t they show some unwavering commitment? Why don’t they just get themselves a Chief Customer Officer?

The role exists in B2B and B2C firms as diverse as Allstate, Dunkin' Brands, USAA, Philips Electronics, FedEx, the Cleveland Clinic, and SAP. All companies greatly committed to delivering good service. So why hasn't this concept found its way into more management teams across companies? The reasons are many and diverse. Ranging from not finding the right people to not enabling them with adequate power to affect change to not being easily accessible to customers.  Companies serious about customer service can use such a person in management to help outline a strategy right from the top which will in turn tie in with the company objectives. Commitment to customer service needs to start from the top, quite literally. The top management must be ready to be decisive when it comes to executing their customer service strategy and adding a CCO to that mix and at that level of decision making can be the greatest show of faith.

CCOs can be the next coup de grace in a market dominated by lofty promises and earth shattering failures in service. A CCO should ensure accessibility and accountability for customers. She should be the point of escalation when things go out of hand. Communication lines to her should be available to every customer and her openness and accessibility in time will define the commitment the company has towards customer service. The knowledge that she belongs to the management will further help in instilling faith in customers that they truly have access to the decision makers. This is the kind of faith that makes a brand, the kind that promises to stand by their customer in sickness and health.

The Customer Service Loudspeaker

So you are heading up the marketing division of a company. You wake up one day with a dilemma. How do I change my company’s brand positioning and marketing direction to acquire new and retain existing customers? You get out of bed and instantly are struck with the idea of taking that new shiny product of your engineering team and shouting out from rooftops about it. Over breakfast and some burnt toast you remember that nothing speaks better marketing than talking about a fall in prices. That just has to get them hooked. But, as you start your car’s ignition and turn into traffic crawling at a snail’s pace you decide that talking about your company’s heritage and wide customer base should do the trick. Convinced, you finally walk into your office building to be greeted by your office receptionist. Suddenly, her smile reminds you of your impeccable customer service which has been getting you many compliments and mails from satisfied customers praising a service tradition that seems unparalleled in the industry. Now you begin to wonder, is customer service really marketable?

Companies have begun to market their customer service much more today. Companies base entire marketing campaigns around this one facet of their service delivery. But, unfortunately many of those companies barely have processes in place to hand out good customer service. Millions are spent in creating the campaigns and a smattering of that is spent in living up to that promise. But there are companies who knowingly or unknowingly have put in place a very efficient and effective customer service strategy. Restricting the impact of this only to existing customers can be an opportunity missed. Communicating this to prospective customers and existing ones can be your new marketing direction. Consistently good customer service, after all is not easy to deliver and when you are, why not make a noise about it?

So as you wind up for the day and are wrapping up that presentation for ideas you want to take to your management, remember that talking about your customer service can be that differentiator lying in your organization waiting to be shared with your prospects and customers.  It can surely help you re energize your customer acquisition strategy and importantly help you sleep at night, comfortable with the thought that you have a solid marketing plan in hand.

Loyalty, Advocacy and Beyond!

Companies today talk of how customer advocacy is key to the growth of their brand. Loyalty programs are expected to retain customers and push them to advocate their brand to new or undecided customers.  Stopping at this can be enough for most brands but not pushing for something beyond that can be a missed opportunity. Your most loyal customers, quite possibly know your brand and services much better than most employees in your organization. Using this priceless knowledge and mining it to its best can become a game changer for you. The idea that immediately emanates from this is to bring your customer in as an advisor. Use her to help you know your brand from her perspective and give you ideas as to how processes can be improved and customer service in turn, made more efficient.

Restaurants have been known to ask customers for opinions on new dishes being introduced. The risk of asking certain loyal customers for their opinions can lead to skewed feedback which cannot always be translated back into the business. But when a restaurant takes that risk of introducing that dish on its menu with the feedback from its closest customers, it’s not only a tremendous show of faith, it also is a statement of how valuable loyal customers are to them. Companies may not find such a program easy to execute primarily because executing all that these customers ask for, may not be tenable. But even telling them why it’s not possible is a grand gesture in taking the relationship further.

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

80/20 Service Myopia

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

Organisations need to start showing courage in not distinguishing their customers when it comes to service. The condition has become endemic because companies are refusing to see the long term ills of such a move. Bad customer service across industries is the reason for customer migration. The telecom industry, for example, has made Bedouins of normal customers with their appalling customer service tactics. Often frustrating, often numbing, we have reached a point where customers have purely given up on the idea of good customer service. In an environment such as this, to have customers know that they are being treated differently can lead to nothing short of disillusionment.

Many companies especially some in the hospitality industry are very good at providing indiscriminate customer service. If a customer walks through their doors for the first time or the tenth, the service remains a constant because the true potential cannot always be realized in the first few instances. Over and above, a customer’s potential can be increased in time by providing consistently exceptional service. However, a brand that is truly in the 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 customer is after his first few interaction with you. Differential customer service on the other hand on the basis of profitability, or a lack of it, can assure you that you will never see the full potential of that customer.

This is what we think, what do you think?

With great power comes great responsibility

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

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

Customer Service representatives need to realise that they have 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 not just 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 devise ways and means of getting their employees involved.

How can companies help set the tone for the day for a customer?

Oshawa's Customer Service Strategy

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

The city of Oshawa in Canada is an exemplary example of a city that made customer service a priority. The city hired RBosch Consulting to execute this impressive plan. A study was initiated through interviews with the Mayor, city councilors and a Working Committee instituted for this purpose. Using data from these interviews, RBosch designed a set of guiding principles which define Oshawa’s customer service. They identified opportunities for service improvements and finally delivered a roadmap for them. Goals were drawn up which would be assessed time to time and a plan for a Contact Center implementation was also put into place to enable a centralized service delivery mechanism.

Many elements came together for the city of Oshawa to get it right. 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 service strategy 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 municipal body realizing the importance of good customer service, it is because when expectations are low on that parameter, they still went ahead and executed a strategy that can only improve customer satisfaction and goodwill in the long run. That is true vision, something many service and product vendors need to learn.

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

Making your Brand All Pervasive

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

Expensive advertising, flashy brand ambassadors, thousands of 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 be built. They cannot be blamed for this view as it as an approach that has worked effectively but only in the short term. Companies do not realize that the only significant outcome of the above measures is creating excitement and not necessarily building the brand. So how about using ‘customer service’ as a game changer for your brand building efforts?

To build your brand using customer service, aligning your brand intent to a strategic intent becomes imperative. A company needs to look at its overall strategic direction and brand related communications. From there it should look at its available resources and develop a plan around its existing customer service practices to ensure the brand spends more time building itself in the customer service stage. To do this a company has to put certain checklists in place.

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

-          Companies need to follow up the above measures with brand aligned metrics that allow them to judge success and work on improvements. Brands which are high touch need to look beyond routine customer service metrics to numbers that can help map service intent to the brand intent.

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

The above measures mainly emphasize the need to align your brand with all customer service related activities. By doing that a customer can easily connect with the brand, instead of just connecting with the product, which in the long run builds stronger brands with defined brand commitments and not just flashy flirtations.

This is what we think, what do you think?

Service? What service?

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 Zappos Way of Customer Service

“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 Great Customer Service Debate"

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!!!

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.

Excellent customer service is never an accident!

“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