Posts tagged ‘Customer Service’
Why I STILL Love My iPhone
Lest we get into a tussle over who’s phone is better (mine is, of course), this post is less about a cool toy (OK, WAY cool) and more of an illustration of a company that has created a phenomenal customer experience. Admittedly, I am a bit of a gadget geek. I have been using smart phones since the last millennium and I have an insatiable appetite for the latest new gadget. From the Palm VII to the Samsung I300 to Windows Mobile devices to the Blackberry in all its forms; I have used them all. On the technology adoption curve, I most definitely fall into the innovator category.
-
- Image via Wikipedia
As a side effect of my obsessive compulsive disorder, however, my attention span for a new device typically lasts anywhere from 8 months to a year. That is when I start eying other devices and dreaming of how cool my life would be if I only had them. It is not that my current device doesn’t serve my needs, it is just that, well… the grass is always greener elsewhere, right?
The other day I was reflecting on the fact that I am now going on almost 2 years with my iPhone and still haven’t felt the itch. It was as much a shock to me as anyone, but then it led me to the next question – Why? While I believe it is true that every moral lesson in life can be taught using a sports analogy, I also believe that every great marketing lesson can be learned from the products and services we use every day.
In my Navel Model, step number 6, “Experience”, always seems to be the least understood. I believe this is because the term “customer experience” has reached the level of cliche. People think customer experience means selling things in a nicer way. They have simply replaced “customer service” with “customer experience” when in reality, brands who deliver an experience have superseded simply selling a product. Starbucks‘ success came from moving away from selling coffee to creating an environment for meeting, relaxing, and thinking… that also sells coffee.
What are the ingredients of an amazing experience? Let’s use the iPhone as an illustration of what I call the “3 C’s of a superb customer experience”:
Customized: Every customer wants to feel like they are the only customer. Every customer wants an experience that is uniquely theirs. The first step in creating an amazing experience is to customize it to each individual customer. While the iPhone is a single device, I would venture to say that no two iPhones are the same. You can not only add whatever applications that you want from the App Store, you can rearrange the icons on your screen in whatever order you want. There is a strip of 4 applications along the bottom of your screen that stay the same no matter what page of icons you are on. Even those can be customized to be whatever applications you want. Every iPhone is personalized with accessories, ring tones, movies, music, web bookmarks, and more. Rarely do two iPhone owners use it in exactly the same way.
Not only are the phone and its accessories customized to the user, even the service and support are. Obviously, you can select your plan, but when you call in for support, my experience has been that every support technician makes you feel like your problem is the only thing he or she has to work on all day. I posted a blog about an issue I had previously and not only did the support tech walk me through it without giggling at my stupidity, he sent me a follow-up e-mail with some additional information and his personal contact info. I truly feel ownership of not only my iPhone, but of the entire Apple experience.
Consistent: At first glance, it may seem that a consistent experience is at odds with a customized experience. However, there is nothing that can kill a brand faster than a great experience the first time and a horrible one the next. In order to truly create an experience, it has to be consistent both with each customer interaction and at each location. Sometimes this is accomplished through technology, sometimes through training, and sometimes through an established process. In the case of the iPhone, I have come to expect phenomenal service, amazing technology, and simple-to-use interfaces with each contact I have had with the Apple and iPhone brands.
Constant Improvement: The beautiful thing about the free market is that if you are doing something right, inevitably your competitors will copy you. Take the Starbucks example I gave earlier. Today, Starbucks is not quite the star that it used to be. It is being attacked on all sides by competitors, most of them local brands offering something unique. They are currently going through a re-invention phase and cutting back stores. It is not because their product quality has suffered. In fact, by most accounts they still have the best coffee in town. No, it is because they stopped innovating when it came to their experience.
This is probably the area where the iPhone has excelled more than any other. While it’s true that Team Jobs makes an unbelievably cool product, they aren’t simply happy with the status quo. I have seen the evolution occur before my very eyes. I was ecstatic when I first bought my iPhone and could carry one device that was a phone, e-mail, music, video, and Internet device. Then came version 2.0 of the software that allowed me to add ring tones from my songs, move my applications around, and add new applications from the App Store. Just today, I have finally been able to add Skype to my iPhone in its native format and can now access all of my social networks and utilities right from my iPhone. With each new application comes a new and improved experience.
As always, Mr. Jobs has a habit of re-inventing industries and has done it again with the App Store as much as he has with the iPhone itself. Just as the iPod was created to sell songs through iTunes, the same holds true with the iPhone and the App Store. He has been able to do what no other carrier or device manufacturer has been able to figure out, and that is how to sell ancillary services beyond voice and data to consumers.
More importantly, however, I still love my iPhone because I love the experience. It is MY iPhone, unlike any other. I get the same experience everytime I interact with it. It keeps getting better all the time. My guess is, I’ll be an iPhone user for a long time, especially since I hear talk that the next version may have video (but that brings us back to my obsession).
What brands do you see that have created a superb experience based on the 3 C’s?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e0135608-665c-4edf-888b-387e9244193d)
Gandhi on Customer Service
I love this sign I found over at Andy Sernovitz’s “Damn! I Wish I’d Thought of That!” blog. He saw it in the lobby of the Chicago Tribune:
We could all stand to think of our customers like Gandhi would. After all, this is coming from a man who was able to bring millions to his cause with no religious or political power. Maybe a little bit of Gandhi could rub off on my friend at the coffee shop!
And Airlines Wonder Why People Think They Suck
One of my favorite quotes from Stephen Covey is (paraphrased), “you can’t be efficient with the customer.” For some reason, the airlines have recently decided that the path to profitability is to milk their customers of every last penny they have. The most likely cause of this was some pointy headed bean counter with a spreadsheet and too much coffee going to the management team with some presentation that sounded something like, “if all we do is charge customers $50 to check an extra bag, $125 for a 3rd bag, $80 for an overweight bag, and charge for snacks on our flights, we can make millions and pull ourselves out of the red!”
The reason I know these numbers is I literally just went through this experience on Delta Airlines. I was on a week and a half trip to Europe and was on my way home from Zurich when I got into Salt Lake City too late to continue on to Boise. I grabbed a hotel for the night and headed to the airport in the morning. After traveling tens of thousands of miles, Delta wanted to charge me $175 for 2 extra checked bags on the very last leg of my journey – a 45 minute flight. This was the result of 2 cuckoo clocks I bought in the Zurich airport (I know, I am a sucker for that kind of stuff). If I had made it to the SLC airport 3 hours earlier, I would have been checked all the way through, no problem. If I hadn’t bought the cuckoo clocks, no problem. But I just happened to get little miss grumpy as my check in agent. After about 15 minutes of sweet talk and a discussion with her supervisor, I was finally able to reduce my punishment for flying Delta reduced from $175 to $50.
This brought to mind a few thoughts, to say the least. There is a reason Southwest has had 35 straight years of profitability in an anemic industry. They focus on happy customers first and operational efficiency second. There is a reason Southwest was the only airline identified in the book “Creating Customer Evangelists”. They even improved their experience recently by creating a more orderly “cattle call” process. In a time when every other airline if following Delta’s suit and looking for ways to bilk their customers, Southwest is making the experience even more enjoyable. Who do you think will win out in the end?
The second thought that I had was how too many employees hide behind “the policy”. As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the worst things you can say to a customer is “there is nothing I can do, that is our policy”. Any business who doesn’t empower their employees to solve customer problems on the spot will “policy” themselves right out of business. There are just too many other options to deal with difficult companies.
One airline who did pleasantly surprise me was British Airlines. The service was great, there was no nickel and diming, the seating was much more comfortable than most American airlines, and they even served lunch on a 2 hour flight. I would fly them again in a heartbeat. It is not hard to stick out when most of your competition sucks.
In such a competitve marketplace, airlines can’t afford to trade customer service for small revenue gains because the impact to the bottom line will always be disastrous. When will they get the hint?
Get Out!…and Other Bad Examples of Customer Service
How many of us have seen the sign on the door of a local eatery or coffeehouse that announces “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”? Has anyone had the unfortunate experience of having that right exercised on them for reasons other than indecent exposure or a drunken brawl?
I had the wonderful experience the other day of being asked to leave Thomas Hammer, an area coffee house, because I had not purchased a drink within an allotted time frame. I was told that it was their “policy” (don’t you love that word) that those who did not buy a drink could not sit there and use their WiFi. What, am I living in the late 80s?
Let’s go back and review the principles of customer evangelism, class. Let’s see … nope, nothing in there about kicking potential customers out of your place of business because they have not bought anything before the last grain of sand falls from the hour glass. What a bad idea in so many ways.
Now, I have to go back and be honest here. I was sitting there naked. No, I am just kidding about that. However, I sat in the store for about 10 minutes before the counter gal (let’s call her “Grumpy” for brevity sake – and the fact that she, in actuality, bears a stark resemblance to the cartoon dwarf) announced to me the store policy with her characteristic snarl. Being the obstinate (let’s say “donkey”) that I am, I thought I would test ol’ Grumpy out.
After about 45 minutes, good ol’ grumpy was back with a “what can I get you to drink” ploy. Ahhh, the game of cat and mouse continues. I retorted with a “give me a couple of minutes and I will be up there” response.
Finally, after 90 minutes, Grumpy stormed on over and said, “it’s time for you to leave. I told you our policy and you have had an hour and a half to buy a drink”. I was floored.
I have to be honest. I didn’t think she would actually enforce the “policy”, but she had the guts/lack of tact/missing brain cells to do it. So I literally went right across the street and bout two drinks from their biggest competitor. Not only will I never go back in there again, I am doing my part to let everyone else know about my experience there.
Let’s take a couple of lesson from this tale. First, don’t hide behind a policy, nor create a policy in the first place that is directed at the lowest common denominator. The competitor, Dawson Taylor, across the street was floored as well when they heard about my experience. They told me that they ask rowdy teenagers to leave when they become too loud, but never peaceful WiFi stealers like myself. Personally, I can understand the rowdy teenager, but never a customer like myself who has been in their establishment many times and bought many drinks from them in the past.
Second of all, why create policies at all? They are typically for the minuscule minority anyway. One of the best examples of employee empowerment comes from Nordstrom, who is world renowned for their customer service. Almost any seminar on customer service I have ever attended consists of several examples from Nordstrom. Their personnel manual consists of one sheet of paper that says:
“Welcome to Nordstrom, here are the Nordstrom Rules:
Rule #1: In all situations, use your good judgment.
There will be no additional rules.”
Now, you can speak with any employment lawyer and they will drone on about the liability of not covering everything in your employee handbook, however, what a statement about Nordstrom – that they trust their employees implicitly to deliver a superb customer experience for their customers. And they do.
Finally, in a commodity marketplace like we have today, as Don Peppers would say, customers are our scarcest resource, not money. If I have customers, I can get money. Therefore, treat your customers like gold, for that is exactly what they are. When there is a competitor directly across the street, can you afford to offend a customer simply because they did not spend $6 on a cup of dirty brown water? I would think not.
Instead, try the opposite approach. Make your customers feel at home. Make them feel like they are welcome any time, any where. Make them feel like they are rock stars. I guarantee you, you won’t be able to keep the dirty brown water on the self.
