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Sincerity goes a long way in the Customer Experience
Author: Peggy Entrop
September 30, 2008
Jason Dabrowski is a friend of Vox, Inc. He sent us this great example of how one Chicago Restaurant won his trust.
Jason writes:
A few weeks ago, on a Friday, my partner and I went to take care of my brother’s dog. No big deal, just stopping in to feed him and take him for a walk. Costello is in a crate most of the day while my brother and his girlfriend are at work. This particular Friday night, neither of them was going to be home until the next morning. So rather than deal with a mess and very, very unhappy dog, they asked us to stop in and take care of the pooch.
After feeding the dog and taking him for a nice long walk we went in search of food. We were very hungry and ended up at his place called Caliente. Rockwell and Fullerton, I believe. From outside it looked pretty casual and inexpensive. When we sat down we quickly learned that it was casual but not cheap! Both of us starving, we decided to stay. We got a little impatient because it had been a few minutes and nobody had come by to take our order. We have a rule, if we have to wait ten minutes, we walk. We’ve had that happen at a restaurant, where we’re seated and end up sitting for more than ten minutes with no water and no menus. About 30 seconds after I started the timer on my phone the waiter came to take our order. I was worried the price wouldn’t match the food quality but I was too hungry to worry about that. We got an appetizer, and two entree’s, not to big a deal, but still more than we wanted to spend.
A few minutes later the hostess showed up. She placed a plate of homemade guacamole and homemade large, round chips on our table and said, “Here is some complementary guacamole while you wait for your food.” According to the menu she just handed us $8 worth of food, for free! It was very good, well worth the price, but a little too spicy for me to finish it off. Our appetizer came before we had given up on the guacamole, and our entrees seem to arrive before we finished the appetizer. The waiter apologized for the wait, and the hostess apologized again when she brought us our check.
The food was wonderful, and even though it was expensive, we agreed that it was certainly worth the price. It’s funny, I was getting annoyed and disgruntled while waiting to order, but as soon as that delicious yet spicy guacamole arrived I forgot about being annoyed and really didn’t pay too much attention to how long it took to get our food and the check. The apologies were both unexpected and sincere, they seemed genuinely embarrassed.
It could’ve been a horrible experience, but my partner and I would love to go again and plan on recommending Caliente to my brother and his girlfriend and anyone else who wants a tasty dinner at a restaurant that cares about its clients. All they did was give us something for free that we weren’t expecting, apologized for the inconvenience, and sealed the deal with tasty food! We were so surprised by the free guacamole that the wait for everything else didn’t even register. We weren’t looking at our clocks, just marveling at how much these people sincerely wanted to give us a good dining experience with them, despite being short staffed.
If you have had similar experiences, leave a comment with your story!
Reassurance: Rule #1 in Customer Experience Today
Author: Jeannie Walters
September 25, 2008
Does the economy feel a little scary to anyone else? Yes? I thought so.
It’s more than the economy, however, that drives us to focus on customer reassurance as a tool today. We are living in a world where we fear our personal data will be swiped off the receipt we casually throw in the waste basket. We are living in a world where we fear our invoices will overcharge us and nobody will care. We are living in a world where one small typo could mean we lose our health insurance and have to deal with a cumbersome and painful process to rectify things.
It is difficult to be a customer today. There is little that works the way it should. There are guarantees created to cover us only long enough to get us out of the store. Billing has become a complex and convoluted process.
So imagine my surprise when I received a call from Chase Bank requesting Janet Walters call immediately to rectify a serious credit problem. Two things you should know:
1. I do, in fact, have an account with Chase.
2. My name is not Janet. It’s Jeanne (or Jeannie) and always has been.
I called back the 888 number provided and heard the man answer “Credit Services.” He requested my credit card number (didn’t have it in front of me) or my social. I hesitated, but then provided. I explained my situation and he put me on hold. He came back and said “It’s done. You’re out of the system.”
It was a brief exchange that left me feeling anything but reassured. Was this even Chase? What does “It’s done” mean, exactly? Is my SSN now floating through space to thieves and crooks worldwide?
I frantically tried to find a way to reach Chase. I was in my kitchen, so I found the yellow pages. I found a toll-free number to call and wandered through the maze of choices until forcing the darn system to give me a real person. What do I select, exactly, to inform them they have the wrong J. Walters and I believe I may have been duped??
I explain my situation and am transferred to the credit department. “I just need to know if you, Chase, just accessed my account. Is there a way you can do that? I have the number I called - can you verify this??”
No. Again and again. The credit department; the security department…then they go to transfer me again and I’m left cold. Nobody can reassure me. Nobody can tell me anything.
I give up.
I have to tell my husband that I may have jeopardized our family’s financial security because of a call from Chase.
I wait for a few weeks to pass. Nothing happens. We get no more calls.
I’m still not reassured.
My only reassurance? I’ve told this story to a few people who had the EXACT same problem from Chase.
Reassurance is all we want as customers. We want to know our faith in people is still valid. We want to know someone, somewhere is looking out for us.
Online, reassurance is more than critical. In any interaction, it can be the difference between feeling like “Phew! I made a great choice” to “Oh no. This is a terrible mistake.”
Knowing what we know - that it’s hard to be a customer; that it’s a scary world - we have to do more to reassure people doing business with us. What can you do to reassure your customers today? What ways are you leaving them feeling anxious? Address those things and you’ll have loyalty.
Back to the economy: it’ll be fine. Feeling reassured?
Me neither.
Customer Experience is in the Details
Author: Peggy Entrop
September 17, 2008
Or… How Staples lost my Confidence
Brand values are powerful tools that help create an emotional connection with customers. Focused ad campaigns can draw in customers by the thousands, but how well does your company live by these brand values? Just as important, how well does your company communicate that to your customers?
I order office supplies for my company - Vox. When I started working here, Officemax was our office supply retailer. But, among other issues, I felt they were consistently wasteful with packaging materials, so I switched to Staples!
Staples had an excellent reputation as a company that cares about the environment. I was impressed with their products made from post-consumer waste. They even sent me a brochure detailing their progress in reducing greenhouse emissions. All very impressive. Clearly, they were in-line with Vox’s commitment to conservation. So, I decided I should give them our money.
Now, after a year of regular orders, I no longer feel that camaraderie of purpose with Staples. Nothing major happened. It has just been the sum total of many small interactions.
One such detail is in ordering coffee. I order these great k-cups that let you brew your own personal cup of coffee in Keurig machines. The problem is that if I order 5 different packages of coffee, they will often be shipped to me individually, from different locations. This is not only annoying, but wasteful. I have often wondered if shipping them individually really is wasteful. There’s a chance it somehow saves resources. If this is the case, it should be communicated in some way, because to me, it appears to be wasteful!
For every one box of coffee that I order, I also receive:
- One large cardboard box
- Piles of plastic inflatable packaging materials
- A separately shipped, fully detailed invoice
- TWO packing slips
Why Staples feels the need to include two packing slips in each box continues to escape me. It is such a small detail! But it stands out to me. Every time I open a box, I pull out the two packing slips and think, “Why are you wasting paper?!?!” This tiny detail has helped to fizzle my enthusiasm for their organization. I still hope that Staples is making a positive impact on the environment, but my day-to-day perception of them is that they are no different than any other office supply retailer - using their green philosophy as a sales pitch, but then failing to show their real efforts toward this commitment.
The lesson I think we can learn from this is that our customers have reasons for choosing us over someone else. Every interaction creates a perception that contributes to their overall experience. To keep customers longer, it’s important to understand those reasons and create a Customer Experience that reinforces brand promises on a consistent basis.
Trust is Fading
Author: Jeannie Walters
September 2, 2008
3 Questions Around Trust
Blogs are abuzz with the news from the Better Business Bureau this week: Consumers have lost faith.
In the recent BBB/Gallup Trust in Business Index, 13 out of 15 industries showed a decline in customer trust.
For most industries, then, customers have felt cheated. They are now in the rebuilding phase, like after an affair in marriage. Think about it. If customers already lack this much trust, how will they know when to trust again?
Some companies are rebuilding trust already. Dell took an extraordinary step in connecting with customers through www.dellideastorm.com, where customers suggest ideas and Dell responds to them. Following this example and others, including the under-reported fact that cell phone companies showed an increase in trust levels, we see a call-to-arms to focus on building trust.
So what to do? Rebuilding trust is no easy (or short-term) task. Let’s break trust down to some simple elements from the customer perspective.
- 1. Am I getting value for what I’m paying?
- 2. Is there support when needed?
- 3. Is someone looking out for me?
With any purchase, we want to feel like we are getting value for the money. With large purchases or long-term, intangible relationships (like insurance), we want to feel like someone is looking out for our best interests.
Let’s start with value - beyond the initial “is this worth it” internal discussion, we have to justify if this relationship is worth paying for again and again. How companies charge for their services is a prime example of a simple, direct way companies can rebuild trust. How often have you received a bill with a new charge and not received any explanation to go with it? Phone companies are often the culprits here, but I’ve seen it in healthcare, education and even dry cleaning!
Panera has a sign up in their cafes right now to explain some recent price increases. It caught my eye near the register. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but the idea is this - We understand the cost of fuel and food is higher now, and we appreciate you as a customer. We are starting to face those same increases and ask for your patience as we work through this. We have raised the price on some items, but are dedicated to continue to serve high-quality items.
What I like about this: it’s a straight-forward, we’re-not-hiding-from-this approach. It’s easy to raise the charges on an item here and another over there. It’s hard to look a customer in the eye and say you’re doing it, and here’s why.
Have you tried to decipher a medical bill lately? It’s painful. Who knows who owes what when it is written in a different (but somehow angry) language? I’m not sure when going to the doctor became my fault, but clearly the invoice senders (often not the docs) think I owe them an apology of some sort.
And what about support? I dare you to call your medical insurer and ask for help. Seriously, I dare you.
Finally, with such a low level of trust in the companies we interact with, how is it possible to think that anyone is looking out for us? Remember those Citibank commercials from the 90’s? Citi would call customers to alert them to unusual activity on credit cards. This quickly became an industry norm, as I know my husband and I have received calls after traveling to Europe and using our cards. Although there are some who say it’s intrusive, I feel like at least someone is watching out for me. Providing upfront choices about customer preferences would help make this really powerful.
Trust is such a big issue. It really affects every piece of the customer experience. Perhaps we should start a column, “Can this customer relationship be saved?”
