Catching people and organisations doing it right

The other day I was a having a conversation with a retailer over a latte about customer satisfaction surveys and it got me thinking.

As a nation it is often said that we Brits don’t like to complain. But all that is changing, and mostly for the better, if you disregard the proliferation of the litigious culture fuelled by the so called ambulance chasers and claims management companies.

The retail sector leads on capturing customer comments and encourages us to give feedback by giving us a website address on our till receipt to rate our experience. So as we get braver we use our newly found confidence to rightly hold organisations to account when the service they give us is below what we expect. In fact it has never been easier to complain or rate our experience.

But how often do we devote the same amount of time, energy and passion to the process of recording our satisfaction when we have a truly great experience. It’s all too easy to focus on negatives but we need to recognise and respond when organisations do things well. Because, after all, if all the feedback that organisations get is around poor service then they won’t ever get to hear about the great experiences. Which means that Joe at Caffe Nero won’t get to hear about how his cheery disposition and manner, whilst making our double espresso, brightened up our morning. Which means that Caffe Nero Head Office won’t get to know that the training, the type of recruitment they are doing and the type of person they’ve recruited is giving a great experience for their customers. So we need to tell them. From a business perspective when that great experience is replicated across the store network this translates to more happy customers, which means more repeat visits which means that the “bean counters” (excuse the pun) will be happy.

So next time you get a great experience remember to grab a comments card or provide some feedback via the “tell us how we are doing” weblink. If we want more great experiences then it falls upon us to tell the organisations when they are doing it right, so that they continue to do those things that delight us.

So as a call action, next time you are wowed by an organisation or an individual: tell them about it.

The customer is bothering you right ?

Regretting the decision not to purchase a bamboo style in-tray in a large UK Supermarket store a few weeks before, I decided to have a look online. After searching on a few retail sites I eventually found what I had been looking for at Rymans. I duly ordered so I could collect the item in store as it was close to where I was working at the time

A few days later, I found myself quite close to the store and even though I hadn’t heard anything, I thought I’d enquire to see if my item had arrived.

I approached the desk and was greeted courteously by the assistant. I was explaining the reason for my visit when, a lady verbally cut across rudely saying “deliveries don’t come in until Thursday”. That was me told and clearly this lady (the Store Manager) couldn’t wait to get me out of the store as she clearly had something more important to do than helping customers.

Well, I had a choice I suppose, I could go home and cancel my order or I could come back on Thursday. I decided to come back on Thursday after I received the email confirmation.

I left work at 5pm on that Thursday and arrived at the store around 5.20 to be greeted with “ the store shuts in 10 minutes”. I was determined to get my item and in the 9 minutes and 50 seconds that remained I made my way to the counter and collected it.

I won’t be using Rymans again based on the interactions in the Cardiff store.

Perhaps someone needs to explain to the staff in this store that if customers stop walking through the door, then the staff will have something more important to do with their time i.e. find a new job.