Mr Hirsch, will you rate your recent transaction?

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a seismic lurch on the part of big brands?

Suddenly, everyone wants my feedback. My opinion of the most trivial interaction is, apparently, a high priority. Whole teams of marketers are poised to rewrite their strategies, ready to spring into action at the mere hint of a ‘neither agree nor disagree’ answer on my part.

OK, I made that last bit up. But there’s no doubt that major organisations are following the example set by smaller outfits.

Both parties are gleaning feedback for the same reasons; to get a snapshot of the customer experience, to flag problems and opportunities and, ultimately, to improve the customer experience. However, scale inevitably impacts speed. A small online retailer lives or dies by its ability to provide a good service – every single transaction is a learning opportunity, every single customer counts.

Big brands gather huge amounts of information, but what they hold applies to groups, demographics, rather than individuals. And mostly it takes a lot longer for the feedback to translate into action.

However, there are exceptions.

The clue is in the word ‘mostly’ in the sentence before last, and if you’ve been wondering where this is going, the answer’s the John Lewis Partnership, retail darling of Britain’s aspiring classes.

The firm is owned by all the partners; every employee has a stake in the business and an interest in making it successful.

The fact that one super-helpful John Lewis agent handled my intial enquiry, organised delivery and kept me fully in the loop by phone and text over a three week span speaks volumes for the person and the firm.

It also meant that, when my feedback was requested, I was happy to provide it. Not online, but to the individual who asked “Have we done everything we could for you today, Mr Hirsch?”

He made it feel as if my reply really mattered.

Online surveys, feedback gathering, automated opinion seeking – all these are important. But no amount of 1 – 10 scoring, moving the slider or clicking on radio buttons can match a conversation with a real person.

Feedback only counts when both sides truly appreciate it.

New thinking on customer experience and brand building (in 140 characters)

When Twitter first appeared, I thought, “So what?”, never dreaming I’d become an addict. One of the main reasons I’ve changed my mind is the amount of great content I’ve come across, which has really broadened my horizons.

This month, the Harvard Business Review has proved to be my favorite Twitter feed, posting loads of articles, with two in particular piquing my interest.

First, To Monetize Social Media, Humanize It by Amy Jo Martin.

Companies across the business world are hungry to engage their clients in a two-way dialogue, a wish which is perfectly answered by social media. However, there still exists a seeming indifference towards the solution from the heads of those same companies.

This article provides a great call to arms against the prevalent school of thought that ‘We can’t make money from social media’.

It describes social media as a communications channel which you can increasingly leverage, but only if you truly understand your customers and how to engage them.

Without this understanding you will create a poor customer experience which will in turn negatively impact upon your brand. Martin notes that the ROI for social media might come as much from cost savings as from new revenue:

“Costs savings are the low-hanging fruit for monetizing social media. It’s remarkably easy, with minimal investment, to decrease your spend on research, customer service and advertising.”

I love the point about research. Social media can be used to conduct polls and to take note of key issues that rear their head repeatedly, both opportunities to really put the voice of the customer squarely back into your organization. From there you can drive positive change to impact your bottom line as well as your customer and brand experience.

Now to Nigel Hollis’ piece, A Brand is Bigger Than Performance.

I am a firm believer that customer experience really is the essence of branding. More than ever, whenever companies talk about their brand they talk about the customer experience. The two are inextricably linked.

This becomes an extraordinarily complex but exciting challenge touching upon every facet of the business – whether you manage the bills that go out or you are customer facing, whether you support the delivery of the on line experience or manage the communications that reach your customers, we are all part of the customer and brand experience.

As professionals, we become part of the experience each of our customers has; and every day we each have the opportunity to add to or detract from to the brand. Hollis puts that point across brilliantly:

“Ultimately, brand is about caring about your business at every level and in every detail, from the big things like mission and vision, to your people, your customers and every interaction anyone is ever going to have with you, no matter how small.”

OK, so not quite 140 characters; but I’m finding Twitter to be a better and better source of new thinking on customer experience, brand building and customer communications.

It’s great to see the momentum building for such important topics. You can find our twitter page at www.twitter.com/thunderheadon

Offline or online? The line is blurring…

That’s the premise behind Mack Collier’s fascinating post ‘The Three Pillars of Modern Customer Communication’.

The whole thing is a peaen to multi-thread customer experience, but I’ll quote here from the core of  Mack’s argument:

The line between what is our offline and our online experiences is blurring and will soon disappear.  It’s pointless to think about which one of these three (online, offline, mobile) is the most important, as each is feeding into the other.

Reading that set me thinking about the holistic customer communications experience – or rather, lack of it.

If we persist in compartmentalising experience and communications by medium or channel, treating customers differently each time, we can hardly be surprised if they fail to enjoy a joined-up brand experience.

In fact, we can expect them to express their dissatisfaction with us wherever they have an outlet.

Customers don’t put themselves in boxes, and neither should we.

Call centre: Come home, all is forgiven?

The news that Santander is relocating its call centre operations from India to the UK will, I’m sure, be welcomed by the banking giant’s customers. And it’s just the latest in a steady flow of returning resources, as reported in this piece on MyCustomer.

Frankly, it comes as no surprise.

The offshore model may have saved money in the short term but it’s undoubtedly cost a huge amount in terms of customer satisfaction and consequent brand damage. The minute the more customer-focused service providers began trumpeting ‘UK call centres only’ in their advertising, the writing was on the wall.

But let’s not get carried away by enthusiasm for the Blighty-bound contact hubs.

While we all have our Bangalore horror stories of mammoth waiting times, incomprehensible accents and round-the-houses service quality, a call centre is still a call centre.

Forty minutes of ‘Greensleeves’ played on a stylophone in a zinc bucket at the bottom of a well, hundreds of irrelevant menu options and having to explain yourself FOR THE FIFTEENTH TIME ON THE SAME CALL are no more palatable because you’re ringing Middlesborough, not Mumbai.

Service providers should learn from experience and focus on communicating better with their customers.

That way, they might just avoid another mutiny – and a very expensive lesson in customer retention.

As easy as A, B … sorry, what was the other one?

When I was in Junior school, we used to have ‘spelling bees’ every Friday – for me, at least, a fun and effortless way to learn new words and to understand why we spell things the way we do.

I imagine spelling bees went the way of fountain pens, hundreds, tens and units and school milk. Which may account for why so many children leave school as functional illiterates.

And where they find employment.

According to the BBC News website, online entrepreneur Charles Duncombe says that poor spelling is costing the UK millions of pounds in lost revenue for internet businesses.

Speaking as someone who has this very morning been ‘earneastly entreeted’ to divulge online banking details to scammers (incidentally chaps, there are two ‘l’s in Lloyds), I’d say Mr Duncombe is right.

For years, I have been the Ancient Mariner of i-before-e and other basic rules, so you’re not going to escape without a cursory glance at my mantra. Bad spelling, ill-considered punctuation (or lack of it) and random sprinklings of initial capital letters do nothing to impress prospective purchasers or encourage them to take your offering seriously.

It just makes your organization look stupid and sloppy. And if you can’t even spell properly, what other sins of product or service may you be hiding?

In my experience, being right doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, boy, is it satisfying.

Focus on the experience, not the channel

A recent McKinsey report on retail banking in Europe reveals some interesting developments in consumer behaviour.

You can read the full report here, but it’s worth repeating the summary:

In response to consumer demand for more—and more varied—channels for financial services, Europe’s retail banks are offering customers an increasingly sophisticated choice of remote (mostly electronic) interactions and traditional face-to-face connections through branches and other physical meeting places. Consumers say they want both electronic and physical contact points, but the extent to which they embrace electronic banking, and consequently the pace of change, varies significantly from country to country and generation to generation.

I think there’s another message emerging – and it’s for anyone with customers, not just banks.

It’s less to do with the physical means of contact or delivery of service, and more with the quality of the experience.

Whether they articulate it or not, I believe that what consumers want is consistency. The experience they have online should mirror the quality of the experience face-to-face or through correspondence.

That’s consistency of quality, mind, not content. The perils of mismatching channel and content are all too apparent. We can all remember when marketers grasped the opportunity offered by email: “It’s cheap, it’s easy, we can just shove everything out to everyone, all the time. What’s not to love?”

Well, plenty, actually. But this obsession with the means rather than the end will pass, as successive generations of customers become digitally fluent.

My guess is, providers that have focused over time on a consistent customer experience at every touch point will enjoy greater levels of loyalty and advocacy that those distracted by the technologies themselves.

My train, my rules

Yesterday morning, I went to catch a train into London. I got to the station just before the train did, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

I was halfway down the stairs when the train approached, and from my vantage point I could see that there were only three carriages, instead of the usual six.

This fact escaped the commuters at the far end of the platform, who then had to gather their wits and their bags and puff after the last carriage as it rattled past them.

Same number of passengers, half-sized train; you can imagine the crush. And at every successive station, it was like the last helicopter out of Saigon, with those desperate to get to work squeezing into every available nook and cranny.

However, despite the heat, the discomfort and the close-range halitosis of a fellow-traveller, I arrived at my destination with a spring in my step – all thanks to the driver.

First, he apologized for ‘unexpected conditions this morning’. No surprise there – I’ve long-assumed it’s a pre-recorded message.

But then he confided that at the depot he’d tried and failed to get a satisfactory explanation of the short train; and that he’d ask again, when he took the train back – and if we were travelling at the same time tomorrow, he’d have an answer for us.

That’s a man who thinks beyond the regulations and takes responsibility for his company’s actions; who puts customers first.

Tip of the hat, Mr Driver; I wish more people thought along the same lines.

Chris King (aged 27 and one third), I salute you!

Chris King is a Customer Manager at Sainsbury’s – one of the UK’s leading supermarket chains – and he’s just made my day.

Here’s the letter he received from toddler Lily Robinson, and here’s his reply.

That’s brilliant customer communications and a terrific customer experience all rolled into one.

Proof that big brands can get it right, when they have exceptional individuals such as Chris working for them.

Financials only give you part of the picture

Your customers and their future buying propensity tell the full story.

We know that there is an increasing trend to appoint Chief Customer Officers, implement Voice of the Customer Programs, and of course hearken to the battle cry of social media, and what it means for brands.

HBR recently provided a management tip – that the financials give you part of the story, and your customers provide the rest. Not necessarily their historical purchasing practices, but their future propensity and intentions.

Understanding how satisfied they are, whether they will renew and the environment needed to encourage repurchase or cross- and up-sell is essential.

So how do you understand this?

You need to identify key moments of engagement within your customer lifecycle; those points where your company has the opportunity to make a positive impression upon its customers for some its key transactions – filing a claim, visiting a branch, repairing or restoring service.

Make these an opportunity to ask what went well, what could be improved and what would lead you to use our services again?

Then drive these insights throughout your whole organization.

You’re a man, Polly. Live with it.

Fair play, if you can’t decide if you’re Arthur or Martha.

But it’s a bit naughty when your mobile operator decides for you – and carries on deciding, regardless of evidence to the contrary.

Ms Polly Hudson’s piece in Friday’s Daily Mirror neatly demonstrates the inflexibility of the ‘it’s on the system’ school of customer communications.

It made me chuckle, and perhaps you’ll share my amusement.

But if you’re responsible for call centre agents or other customer-facing staff, make sure your company isn’t equally guilty. Or the last laugh may be on you.