Brands that pass the Ronseal test - have nothing to fear from social media

In response to the latest UK customer satisfaction index figures customer facing businesses are being urged to give greater attention to social media or risk a widespread proliferation of damage to their brand.

The following quote from KPMG, sums up the state of the nation “ while British customers have often tolerated poor service in the past, the rapid growth of social media platforms have given rise to a consumer more prepared to voice their discontent with goods or services!”

According to Rohit Kapoor, Capgemini BPO Senior Director and Principal, a recent study revealed 86% of respondents indicated they preferred responses via social media platform. As customer service providers it seems logical you would listen to your customers……

 BUT Too many companies prefer to avoid social media, trying to avoid criticism in a public domain.

So organisations need to raise their game to avoid a public flogging by Twitter, by doing the following:

1)   Hire for attitude. Hire people with service in their soul. The technical stuff can be fixed but a sullen and morose employee who doesn’t want to deal with customers and portrays that lack of engagement is a lot harder to turn around.

2)   By empowering their front line staff to solve customer issues during those moments of truth

3)   By ensuring that the systems and processes of the organisation do not get in the way of point 2 above

4)   By dismantling the functional silos that create a poor and fragmented customer experience

5)   Making themselves easy to deal with and contact

6)   By training the whole organisation on customer service

7)   By ensuring that there is an internal customer service culture

8)   By delivering on their promise to their employees so that they deliver on the organisational brand promise

9)   Having leaders who role model customer centric behaviours

 Do all of the above and your organisation will have nothing to fear from social media.

 BTW – when you embrace social media it’s still really important that you listen to what your customers are saying. But that’s a large enough subject for a standalone blog posting 

Calling all brands - If you're on Twitter you need to be on Twitter

Today I tweeted the shocking statistic that 70% of complaints on Twitter are ignored by brands.

This reminded me of a recent story I’d seen in Forbes Magazine. It was about a bad experience some customers were having with a high end department store. (I’ll put a link at the bottom of this posting).  The experience was picked up on in Twitter land and even though the Twitter handle of the Department Store was used several times, so the brand could hear and act on what was being said, not once did they jump in and try and recover the situation.

You might not like what is being said about your brand or your service but you can’t just ignore it. To do nothing is commercial suicide. It beggars belief.

So if you’re on Twitter you need to be on Twitter because the social customer expects instant replies and it isn’t prepared to wait 20 minutes on the phone to speak to a human being ! Brands need to wake up and smell the coffee.

In the UK, the train company First Great Western @FGW is on Twitter. But come 4PM in the afternoon “ I’m signing off for the day, back tomorrow Jo”. Incredible, as the evening commuter trains start to run or not as the case maybe, the person manning the Twitter Feed turns in for the day. Along with the morning rush, this is probably the most critical time for commuters as they try to make their way home after a day’s toil. Brands like #FGW need to re-think this from a customer perspective. Customers trying to get home in the evening would probably like to interact with their transport provider, to be informed of delays etc – yet they can’t because Jo has gone home for the night.

First Great Western @FGW  Signing off for today. See you in the morning - Jo

4:11 PM - 16 Feb 12 via Twitter for iPhone · Details

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Customer service is a 24/7 thing and brands like #FGW need to learn that and quickly.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lizlange/2012/01/22/hey-brands-if-you-are-on-twitter-be-on-twitter/

Virgin on the ridiculous - how not to deal with a customer complaint !

The eminent UK Customer Service guru, Chris Daffy – talks a lot about wows and ouch in respect of the way that organisations treat their customers. A wow being something fantastic whereas as an ouch is the opposite.

When any organisation has ouched one of its customers, to the extent that they decide to complain, this presents a massive opportunity. Daffy talks in terms of ouch, wow and recovery !

Research shows that if an organisation successfully resolves the customer complaint then that previously disgruntled customer will become incredibly loyal to that organisation. In fact they will go even further, in some cases, telling their friends and becoming a real advocate for the brand.

So a massive PR opportunity exists. Imagine my dismay and disappointment when I received a standard, cut and paste, letter informing me that my complaint had been received and that Virgin Media aim to be in touch in the next two weeks.

So rather than ouch, wow and recovery I’m even more annoyed with Virgin Media. In fact more annoyed than I was feeling when I wrote my letter of complaint. It’s more like a quadruple ouch !

In this day and age of customer choice this just isn’t good enough. My message to Virgin Media : either employ more staff to be able to resolve complaints in a way that befits customer expectations or ideally improve your service in the first place, so customers don’t need to resort to complaining.

Simples !

That’s not logical captain

In my youth I recall Spock talking about Vulcan logic on Star Trek. I do wonder what he would have made of consumer logic in the 21st century ?

Here’s ONE scenario, you’ve been on a good dual fuel tariff for gas and electricity for a number of years but decide you fancy a change.

Why ? You fancy a change . Your current provider hasn’t done anything wrong to you. You just fancy a change. There is no logical reason for changing.

Research shows that 7% of customer are natural floaters. So you’ll lose at least 7% of your customer base each year for no obvious reason.

In another scenario, customers seem very reluctant to change their current account provider. In fact research suggests we are more likely to change our partner than our bank.

In the UK in the1980s low switching rates fostered complacency amongst the big four banks. They mistook low turnover to be an indicator of high satisfaction, whereas it was in fact customer apathy based on the fact that the banks were all as bad as each other when it came to service.

However, when First Direct entered the market with a new model based on 24 hour telephone banking, some customers did take the plunge. I remember being told once that a definition of a loyal customer is someone who hasn’t yet found a better alternative.  This sums up the First Direct scenario.

Key learns     

1)You’ll lose 7% of your customers anyway. Anything  above that suggests you are doing something wrong     

2)Don’t confuse customer apathy for customer satisfaction

Santander Customer experience going the same way as health & safety ! What ever happened to common sense ?

Redhill Surrey, United Kingdom :11.50: 29 December – Santander Belfry Branch.

Two transactions made which involved using my debit card. Bummer, 3 hours later and a 150 miles West , realised I’d lost my debit card.

Ouch number 1 – no telephone number for Redhill branch on google – an 0845 number only. I’ll ring when I get home.

An hour later, ring 0845 number and am put through to branch. Doh ! I had left my card there. Yipee - I thought !

Ouch number 2 – Can you post it to my local branch in Cardiff. Our procedures  don’t allow us to do that ? The Santander Equivalent of computer says no. All you can do is report it as lost, and we will destroy the old Card.

Ouch number 3 – ten days without a debit card.

Am I being commercially naive (as one of my old managers in corporate life one described me) or were Santander right to be so risk averse in trying to prevent potential fraud, even though it was clearly inconveniencing a customer ? Why wouldn't they post my card to the Cardiff Branch ?

Would love to hear from you ? 

I'm a trainer not flippin' Paul Daniels !

It's not my job to be able to pull rabbits out of a hat and actually I dont consider it to be a fair expectation of me or any other learning and development professional. As the title of this post infers I would have joined the magic circle if I felt that was my vocation.

In my 20 plus years of working within corporate learning & development functions, and more latterly as a freelancer it still amazes me that a training course or workshop  is touted as the answer to global warning. The line manager recognises that a member of their team has a development need and books them on to e.g. a presentation skills workshop. That's it then, the team member after two days in the classroom will emerge as an inspirational presenter, job done.

Well in fact no, because the training is only the start of the journey, let me explain.

1) The manager sits down with the individual explains the reason for the training course
2) The manager goes through a pre-course brief with the individual where they discuss the course content and objectives so the individual is clear about what to expect
3) The individual attends the course
4) Post course, as soon as practicably possible, the line manager sits down with the individual and conducts a post course brief exploring:

• How the individual found the course
• What the individual learnt
• What learning the individual wants to implement from the course
• Next steps - some sort of SMART action plan covering the what, the when and the measures of success which will demonstrate that the individual has changed, improved and developed the skills learnt

5) Then as soon as practicably possible the individual will write a presentation, deliver it (with the manager observing the presentation, so as to be able to give feedback to the individual).

It is this positive reinforcement and process of action planning, feedback and discussion which leads to sustainable change in the individual and the embedding of the new skills. The absence of this process, lack of interest, engagement and reinforcement from a line manager means that the individual, no matter how well intentioned, will revert back to doing presentations the way they were doing them when the development need was identified in the first place.

Training and development of your staff is an investment, and like any investment you want to see a return on your money. If you don't follow this process you might as well get a bunch of fivers and set them alight because that's what you do when you put people through training but don't follow it up.

Can you really afford to fritter money  in this fashion. Training without follow up, means no change and gives rise to the mantra that training is a cost, adds no value and we can save our money and manage without it.

It's my job as a learning & development professional to help my customers understand this, otherwise the beancounters cut the training budget which means that the people and the organisation dont develop and the problems associated with this approach bite the organisation in the bum at some point in the near future..

To quote the late Bill Shankly, this isn't about life and death it's more important that !

It's pants - not that Mervyn King would use those words !

I tweeted today saying that I was going to a briefing in Cardiff on the economic outlook.  A reply from a twitter follower came back " Don't bother it's pants". Undeterred I went and gleaned the following.

43% of our exports are to EU trading partners of which Germany at 10% is our biggest customer.

The Chinese economy is still growing but both Taiwan & India have experienced falls.

The cost of borrowing has gone up and Italy & Spain are the latest economies struggling to service their debts.

The cost of borrowing money has gone up for banks and will affect the price of business or consumer credit.

Manufacturing had shown signs of growth but has dipped since March.

UK domestic growth 0.8% forecast for 2011. Consumer spending has contracted in this recession unlike in previous recessions.

Real incomes - falling over the past two years. Pay rises averaging 2% whereas Inflation at 5%.

Uncertainty of demand means that businesses are investing less in their businesses,

The inflation outlook - RPI 5.2% CPI 4.5%. Prediction is that CPI will fall in 2012 when VAT increases drop out of the calculation and oil prices have reduced. Real incomes should increase if inflation falls.

The first audience question was mine - I recounted the story of the Tweet. Pants isn't a phrase Mervyn King would use but it is pretty grim was the reply.

So there you go - thanks to my blog & the credible economist who gave the brief  you can contemplate your personal and/ or business strategy for weathering this economic malaise. Can it get any worse ? Your guess is as good as mine.