Lots of companies make the mistake of believing that just creating an online version of your services is enough to minimize costs, increase ROI and expand your market share.  What they forget is that bad implemented solutions (or weakly integrated channels) can hurt the customer experience more than the lack of service in the first place.

Today I experienced an attempt from American Taxi (americantaxi.com) to offer an online service with a process so loosely thought out that is leading to the “Perfect Storm” of bad customer experiences.

Being a satisfied American Taxi customer for the past 4 years, I did what I always do when in need to schedule a Taxi to the airport:  I call the number I have stored in my Cell Phone contact list and provide my on-file information to the attendant.  This time a new offering deviated me from my usual process right on the first step…

Here’s a description of what happened:

• I call the number and get a very long automated message announcing the availability of their new online service and  enticing me to use the site instead of the phone to order a taxi.

Hmmm…  Interesting… I didn’t know they had a way to do that online.  It may be useful to have it all set up so I can use it later if needed…  Let’s test it!

• I immediately hang up the phone without hearing any other options and type “www.americantaxi.com” on my browser.

Not very pretty.  Looks kind of amateurish, but the options are clear, no doubt what I need to do… Let’s move on!

• I click on “Order a Taxi” and then “Sign Up“
• I enter my phone number and click “Continue”
• The system shows me my Last name and address and 2 buttons: “This is me” or “This is NOT me“

Not bad…  Very easy and simple to use… The displayed information is a bit weird, part of the address (City, State and Zip Code) is truncated showing only the first letter and my last name is slightly misspelled…  Well,  despite small errors, this is clearly all my information so no big deal, I can always fix the information after I  register…

• I click the “This is me” button
• The systems returns a message “User Already Exists” accompanied by “If you forgot your password, please click here“

OK.  So it’s saying that I already have an online account (despite the fact that I never created one) with no help or hint on how that could have happened.  My only option from this screen is a link to retrieve my password, so let’s try it! (Who knows, maybe they created the account automatically and this is the only way to reset the password for first time users… hmmm…)

• I try the “forgot your password” link
• It leads me to a page asking me for my email

hmmm… How can they have my email if I never registered before.  Well, maybe I provided it over the phone at some point although I can’t remember anything like that.  Well, It won’t hurt to try and now I invested way too much time on this to give up…

At this point it is pretty clear to me that the process is flawed and that they’d probably migrated their call-center database to the internet without considering how the lack of user information in one system would affect the customer experience flow online.  Or, even worse, they created the new feature online and integrated their systems without mapping how their customers would navigate from one channel to the other and how they would interact with the new service for the first time, thus not planning accordingly for it.

Even though I know what is going to happen from this point on, I am now curious to see how far the problem goes, so I shut off my technical side, put my “User Tester” hat and go ahead as a regular internet user would.  I try all my emails and keep getting the same expected answer:  “the email provided could not be found”

OK… Nothing else I can do here.  Better get some help”

• I grab my cell phone and redial American Taxi’s number.
• The automated system AGAIN recommends me to use the website (I’M TRYING!!!!) and instruct me to press 1 to never hear that message again.  I press “1″ immediately and the system forwards me to a live person.
• It takes me a while to explain what’s happenning and even more to understand what the Call-Center rep is saying to me.  He  seems to have no idea the website exists or how to help me.  He gives me the company’s main number (the one I had just called) and asks me to call and press the option to talk to a representative (which is what I had done).

Ok.  They probably outsourced their call center operations to India, since the guy on the other side of the line has an accent so heavy I can hardly understand, but that is not an excuse for not knowing about the service that their own system was trying to sell me…
Disclaimer: I am Brazilian and also have a thick accent that a lot of people have trouble understanding, but then again, I’m not working on a call-center trying to explain to users how to register on my website.

• I decide to test my luck and call again, hoping to get some other person that can help me.
• The automated system YET AGAIN recommends me to use the website and instruct me to press 1 to never hear that message again…  I press 1 AGAIN and once more the system forwards me to a Call-Center representative
• I explain my situation to this new guy (apparently in India again, with a slightly heavier accent than the first one), and he tells me that I am having this problem because I already have an online account that was probably automatically generated at some point by their system, but without any real information besides my last name, phone number and address (which is exactly the information I provide every time I schedule a taxi pick-up).
• I ask if it’s possible to delete this account to create a new one or to provide me with the system generated login and password so I can go online and fix the information myself.
• He says he cannot help me since I am calling from my cell (which is not on file) and asks me to hang up and call again from my HOME phone number (the number on file).

I’m getting tired and very stressed with all these steps…  I can understand the need for security that forces me to call from a number the system can recognize and allow them to accurately identify me before providing access information to the site, but I don’t think any other customer would have tried that hard!!  I’m very persistent…

• I hang up,  grab my home phone and call the number again.
• SURPRISE, SURPRISE! The automated system once more recommends me to use the website and instruct me to press 1 to never hear that message again…  Once more I press 1 and this time, instead of forwarding to a live person, it goes through a never ending stream of options.  I press 7 for help.
• Another guy in India answers with heavy accent (I swear this was the worst one of all) and asks me something I really couldn’t understand.
• After repeating myself a few times (and asking the guy to repeat himself a few more) I was able to explain the situation.
• The guy first recommended me to do what I had already done (try to sign up), then to use the “Forgot your password” (which I couldn’t) and finally asked me to just login because I already had an online account (that’s what I’ve been trying to explain all along!!!).
• After a few more communication misunderstandings, He finally told me that my both my login and password were in fact my phone number

Wait… What???? All this security procedures and hoops they made me jump when their system generated login and password are the dumbest and most unsafe credentials EVER??? I don’t know what to think anymore…

Any perception I had from their 4 years of good service is being quickly erased and it’s all downhill from here.

I take a deep breath and continue…

• I ask him to wait on the line until I try it.
• I try.  It didn’t work…
• The system returns “Invalid Username or Password“
• I tell the guy what happened and ask him if I should maybe add dashes or dots to the number for it to work.
• He says: “hmmm…  Just a moment please…” and HANGS UP!
• My phone goes mute for a second and then I hear the automated system telling me “You’ve. Been. Disconnected…  Goodbye.“

Ok.. Now I really give up!

No need to say that, for all purposes, I am an unsatisfied customer who is never going to use their service again and has vouched to tell everyone how much their service sucks… (even though my problem wasn’t with their core service but with an extra feature I never thought to use until then)

The real issue here is:  By advertising a new (simpler) way to do something at the exact moment I intended to do it, they created both the need and the expectation of the service in the customer’s mind.  From that point on, my experience is defined by their PROMISE of an improved experience and not by any past good experience.

Past good experiences will fill up users’ reservoir of goodwill and allow you to make a few mistakes without jeopardizing the whole experience, but no amount of goodwill lasts forever and badly planned experiences can start a chain of events that will burn your users’ goodwill as fast as a Hummer burns gas.

If you don’t have the budget to correctly plan and implement the user experience, you are better off not offering any new online feature at all.  And if your competitors are starting to do it and you are afraid of being left behind, then MAKE THE BUDGET.   Either they will be successful and increase their market share (at the cost of yours) or they will fail to provide a good experience after creating a new demand and expectation in their customers’ minds.  Either way the bar will be raised…

…Does anyone know a good taxi company to recommend me?

It’s interesting how you can find Customer Experience wisdom in the strangest places. The message I got for this post came in fact from a novel I was reading yesterday (The Dark Tower III, by Stephen King).

In it, two of the main characters were discussing odd human reactions to certain situations when making decisions. 

The dialogue went more or less like this:

That got me thinking immediately on how similar this dialogue could be to any number of companies receiving complains on their Customer Experiences:

The moral of the story here is that nobody should guess Customer Behavior based on what customers “bitch about” when they speak to you.  What you are hearing is how they see and rationalize YOUR problem and not what motivated theirs. Customers are irrational and they don’t really care about what drives them to do something, they just do it.

Real behavioral knowledge comes from observing your customers and understanding their basic fears and motivations. Without a sincere effort to understand Customer Behavior, what you think would be a solution for their grumble might exacerbate the exact problem you are trying to solve.

So it doesn’t matter how many features (doors) you put in front of your customer.  If they don’t know what they are there for and you are not trying to address their real motivations (fear of what’s on the other side), you will end up watching your customer bouncing off the walls, refusing to use the doors and still blame YOU for a lousy customer experience. 

And guess what?  They are absolutely right… 

See original post at Vox Inc – Customerspective Blog

Stop right there!

If you were looking for some “how to improve your love life” article, you came to the wrong place. Rather, I would like to explore how the emotions involved in customer relationships are strangely similar to those you have with your loved ones.
…
Well, customers may be willing to share the object of their affection with a couple million other people, but the difference ends there… Like in romances, customers will become jealous if you favor others over them. If your company sees more value in acquiring new customers than in keeping a current one, the current one will leave.

Take for example wireless companies. To get into the proverbial bed with you, they lie and say they’ll treat you right. They offer you free phones, cash back, gifts and promise to take care of you and make you happy forever after. However, as soon as the sun comes up, or you’ve signed a two-year contract, you are tossed aside and simply added to the list of their many conquests. You, as an individual customer, don’t matter anymore.

Being treated this way is bad enough but then, adding insult to injury, the company continues to flirt with others right in front of you; making the same empty promises they made to you.

If your girlfriend or boyfriend treated you this way, how would you respond? Exactly!
Now, how do you think your customers will respond?

Oh sure, you may be able to fool a few and keep them with you for a while. But, as soon as the competition starts making its move and offering better perks, your customers are as good as gone.

Long romance or one-night stand?

Does offering all these perks to attract new customers really pay off when you treat them like that and they leave you in two years? Why not reward loyal current customers by giving them special offers or at least the same advantages as new customers when they renew their contracts. Better yet, why not offer them incremental benefits throughout the years?

It costs six times more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one.¹

So, investing in customer retention not only saves your company money, it also leads to loyal, life-long customers and a higher return on investment.

In simple language: Set the right expectations, and be ready to invest as much in retention as you do in acquisition!

After all, one of the most basic rules of relationships is that if you are happy with what you have, you will be less tempted or willing to risk your relationship for instant gratification.

Is it time to break-up?

SPRINT has taken a somewhat unique approach to the customer relationship; they’ve flipped the table and are dumping their unhappy customers, (SPRINT is starting to cancel customers’ contracts when they call customer service too often).

I wrote an article about this topic last year (Bad, Bad Customer… No Soup for You!), explaining how companies were starting to identify customers who don’t measure up or are deemed too high maintenance.

I am not taking sides on this matter², but you can bet that outraged high maintenance customer is going to tell everyone she knows about your service and your company has a lot more to lose in brand awareness and public image than she does.

Having said all this, I ask again: Is it worth losing the one you’re with?

^{1 – Stevens, M. Extreme Management: What They Teach At Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. Warner Business Books, March, 2002.
2 – You can read views of both sides on Seth Godin’s Blog “Treating different customers differently” and “The first thing“, and also at the consumerist.com.}

Originally published at Vox Inc Customer Experience Articles

A few days ago, I was reading a Tom Vander Well’s blog post titled “When Customers are Co-Workers” on QAQnA.

The article reminded me of someone I met a few years ago. She worked in the research department of a big global company and after complaining to me once too often that no one valued her work, I offered her advice on customer experience tactics. I was rewarded with the retort, “I don’t need any of this, because I don’t deal with customers!”

Then it hit me… She didn’t understand her work as providing a service to several other departments in her company.  No wonder her co-workers didn’t respect her work; she never considered them her customers and her work reflected that.

The blog author suggests that you should think of co-workers as customers, but I will go even farther and say that you should think of everyone as your customer.

Think about it!  You are always providing some type of service to someone. Your boss, your co-workers, your friends, your wife, your kids – absolutely everyone – in one way or the other, expect something from you.  It doesn’t matter if you are more than happy to give them what they want. They often count on it; they frequently demand it and most of all they will resent it if you fail to meet their expectations. But if the service you provide is good enough for them the majority of the time, they will remain with you and will pay you back in your desired currency: friendship, love, trust or respect.

Customer experience tools can be applied to everything in your life. The lesson is pretty simple: If you really care for your customers and make a sincere effort to understand their expectations, they will love you for that and will be loyal to you while you are loyal to them.

“That’s it! I’ve been on hold for the past 45 min! If you don’t transfer me right now, I will…” – CLICK - And after that, all you hear is the dreadful tone of the busy line, indicating that, despite all your threats, you were disconnected - AGAIN!
 
If you ever suspected the call-center reps to hang-up on you on purpose, or ever felt like being grounded for misbehaving, you are probably right!
 
Despite the general belief, call-center reps are people too. As humans, they sometimes can’t help but to react in despicable or selfish ways, undoing the very purpose of their work. After a while, it is just natural that a group of such individuals would develop a set of unspoken rules (not necessarily the correct ones, I must say) to shield them against bad or angry customers. So, if you fail to live up to their expectations as a customer, you may as well be immediately judged guilty and banished from receiving assistance.
 
But DON’T WORRY! Things are changing. In fact, everything I just mentioned may already be in the past.
 
No… I am not selling any new miraculous call-center training method or a clever “how to reach call-center nirvana” article. I am not even saying that call-center reps are getting more tolerant or predicting that companies’ services are becoming more reliable. Just the opposite! They are becoming more crafty and resourceful. What once were just unspoken guidelines are quickly turning into official company rules with support of up-to-date technology.
 
According to Liz Pulliam Weston in the article ‘Are you a bad customer?‘:

“Service providers are deciding some of their customers simply aren’t worth the trouble. Aided by massive computer databases (…) they figure out which customers cost them money and shunt them to the back of the line.”

Although I believe it is perfectly fine for a company to reward its premium customers, penalizing the “not so good” ones seems a little overboard. It leaves too much room for mistakes and may put too much power in the wrong hands. In addition, it’s really a bizarre role reversal when a customer is afraid of being blacklisted by the company she pays to provide her a service.
 
Now, to any company that may be considering doing something like this:

I understand that some customers can be really a nuisance. Some are loud, rude, and even unprofitable. But hey, you were the one doing almost anything to attract them in the first place. And let’s be honest here: you were probably the one that first failed to live up to expectations.
 
So, don’t give that false pretense that the service will be more efficient and all “deserving” customers will ultimately benefit. If your customers are very good, reward them and they may stay with you for a long while. If your customers are bad or unprofitable, let them go. Maybe the competition will value them more than you did.
 
However, don’t be surprised if each “unworthy” customer is able to influence others on her way out. Who knows! Maybe those others are even part of your most profitable group.
 
In fact, don’t listen to anything I am saying here. Just keep “enhancing” your systems and protocols towards customer alienation. In the end, we will see which set of rules hold more weight: yours or the market’s.
 
I know which option MY money is on…
 

See original post at Vox Inc.

I just read a entry on Seth Godin’s Blog that can be very helpful for people working with Call Centers and Customer Services.

As always, Seth’s guide is simple and obvious, as it is supposed to be. But again, it may not be so obvious, given the number of companies that still have no clue on how to do it right…

When I was a kid, I was the one who would dismantle mom’s new blender to see how it worked… Sometimes, I would even put it back together again. Then, I grew up and became a computer geek. No surprise there, but the point is: I am proud of knowing how electronic equipment works and for being able to assemble anything on my own. So, when I call some 1-800 number for technical support (especially Comcast’s), I really believe I have narrowed down all possibilities on my side of the line.

Unfortunately, there is where my trial by fire begins. Call Center people always talk as if I’d never seen a TV or a cable box before. Then they start to spit their meticulously scripted sentences to me from the beginning. Even if it is the fifth time I am calling that day! That’s when I get the feeling of being some kind of robotized, standardized, and minimalized audience. Not at all special, or worst: not any different from anyone else.

I can understand that they prepare themselves to deal with people that are even afraid of touching the TV, but 1-800 numbers should be able to identify the customer’s profile and offer different strokes for different folks. At least, they should be able to verify that it is not the first time someone is calling for the same reason and drop some lines off the script. A simple attitude change probably would be enough to gather the customer’s appreciation, a more effective support, and less time spent on the line for both sides.

“Not all customers are equal”. Everyone should already know that. I just hope it doesn’t take to long now, because I am still waiting on the line.