A 98 Year-Old Woman Tears Her Bank a New One…With Style!

October 26th, 2009

This was passed my way through email the other day. You may have seen it, and I can’t claim for its veracity, but I’d like to believe it’s real. It’s the letter of a 98 year old woman to her bank after they dinged her with a penalty. Apparently it was published in The Times in London. Real or not, it’s a great lesson to businesses who want to serve customers the right way (i.e. as humans), and also for not underestimating the intelligence of your customers, no matter who they are:

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three ‘nanoseconds’ must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it.. . I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement, which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty eight years..  You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.  I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become.  From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person.

My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate.  Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.  Please find attached an Application
Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete.  I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative.  Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

In due course, I will issue your employee with PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me.  I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service.  As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further.  When you call me, press buttons as follows:

1 – To make an appointment to see me.

2 – To query a missing payment.

3 – To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

4 – To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

5 – To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

6 – To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

7 – To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required.  A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorized Contact..)

8 – To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through to 8.

9 – To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client

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How do you take price out of the equation for your customers?

October 19th, 2009

In talking with a number of different (primarily professional services) business owners over the last few weeks, the essence of great customer experience really came to the fore. The focus of the conversation was the ideal outcome of an improved customer experience. The typical answer always includes “keep more customers.”

That’s a fine goal, and it really is raising the same challenge – especially in highly competitive industries like investment advising, accounting and legal: how do you create such a strong and positive connection with your customers, that they don’t even want to listen to other professionals trolling for their business?

I have an investment advisor who I’ve used for about 15 years. My portfolio has gone up and down through all the market upheavals of recent years. But I know what my guy stands for; I know his strategy. And I know that he’s looking out for my best interest. I don’t know exactly what he charges me (I know it’s reasonable, but don’t bother knowing the specifics). So when I get calls from other investment professionals, I tell them to not waste their breath. “I have a guy,” I say. “And there’s no way I’m changing.” End of discussion.

So what’s it take to get that level of commitment from your customers, the level of commitment that takes all other offers out of contention? A lot. But it helps if you start with that question for your own business: “How can I create a customer perception that is so strong, it eliminates all competition?”

And it’s never price.

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Customer experience is built on every little process

October 6th, 2009

If you want to increase customer retention, referrals, cross sales, etc., you need to drive certain customer behaviors. To drive those behaviors, you must build a certain customer perception (i.e. an idea in your customer’s mind that your business is…fill in blank).

To build that perception you need to build a customer experience. Some companies understand this. But what many organizations fail to see is this: the customer experience is comprised of EVERYTHING. That is every interaction, communication, and process. It all matters. Look at your customer experience not as one grand process, but as an integrated series of processes, each with the goal of building toward an ideal customer perception.

So I ask you: What do you want your customers to do? What do you want them to think? Are each and every customer “moment of truth” consciously created to accomplish that? If not, it’s time to get to work.

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Is focusing on customers worth it? Just do the math.

September 28th, 2009

Sometimes it’s worth your while to take a step back and rethink what your company is spending its time and money focusing on.  For most businesses, sales and marketing garner a lot of attention, and for good reason. For you to succeed, your organization must build awareness and acquire new customers.

But it seems that often the focus on acquisition pulls attention away from efforts that are usually even more important: those designed to keep the customers you already have. For instance:

Research shows that increasing customer retention by just 2 %, you can decrease your overall costs by 10%. 10%! Think what that does to your bottom line, even without the accompanying increase in customers and revenue.

Speaking of customers, if you can increase your retention by 5% – for most companies, not an unrealistic goal – the financial impact is staggering. Over five years, your customer base will have grown by over 25%, with no increase in your sales growth! Over ten years, you’ll have over 56% more customers.

So, let’s ask again: is it worth it to focus on customer retention? What do you think?

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Psst…your customers make you money

September 17th, 2009

I’ve been in a few networking gatherings in the last week. When I hear other professionals describe their companies and talk about their issues, it’s amazing how rarely the words “customer” or “client” come out of their mouths. I hear “sales” and “marketing” and “product” and “pricing” but not “customer.”

As the late great Marshall Field said, “Your customers are your only profit center.” Yet most businesses are not set up with that as a core part of their philosophy. The businesses that do focus on the customer relationship, and build processes, product and service around it, seem to also be the companies that continue to succeed in down economies, which, last I checked, we were in right now.

Something to think about.

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Good, bad and ugly customer experience on the road

September 8th, 2009

Just got back from driving to the east coast to drop my son at college – Northeastern University in Boston. What a great town! We drove, with my wife and 3 kids so there were plenty of opportunities for laughs, bickering and mini-adventures.

We stopped in Cooperstown, NY, for a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame for my 12 year-old’s birthday. I know I’m an irrational customer (of course, we all are), but my overall impression of the Hall and Cooperstown in general is a 10 our of 10. If there is a community that “gets” the concept that an experience is made up of all the little moments, it’s Cooperstown.

There are no chain hotels in the town; we stayed at the Inn of Cooperstown, a three-story 100-year old former mansion, with a long front porch that accommodated a line of rocking chairs, and a series of unique well-kept rooms (no TVs necessary). We stayed up playing Sorry and Trivial Pursuit, laughing the evening away in the game room. Then in the morning, we enjoyed a relaxed breakfast in the dining room, complete with homemade banana-nut muffins. The staff was friendly and helpful, and we could stroll down the main street to the Hall.

There, my son Griffin received special treatment since it was his birthday, with a special card, discounts, birthday buttons and a photo in the Hall Gallery in front of Babe Ruth’s plaque. Overall, it was a big warm and fuzzy.

Then, off to Boston where we stayed in a larger downtown hotel. As I was nearing our room, a member of the cleaning staff eyed me warily and said, “Oh, no. They did not already check you into this room.”
Chagrined, I said, “They did indeed.”

“Well,” she uttered, shaking her head, “it’s not clean yet. I still have to vacuum.” She then stared at me, wondering how I was going to fix the problem.

Not a big deal, but a glitch in the process that became a little “moment” in my experience. Things got better, but it reminded me of the importance to creating a full customer experience, one that keeps in mind how much it all matters. A cold word, or a warm homemade muffin, are enough to color customer perception, and determine if and when customers will come back.

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Once again, thanks, US Bank! (sarcasm)

September 1st, 2009

The primary reason customers defect is “employee indifference.” I have to say, that’s the reason we eventually pulled both our commercial and personal accounts from US Bank. In fact, indifference isn’t really enough. I would say it was “egregious indifference,” if that’s possible. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say, I’m not a fan.

So – given that we were no longer customers – I didn’t think I’d have reason to complain about US Bank again. I was wrong.

My wife used a US Bank drive-thru ATM and, amid the typical chaos of our lives, sufferered a brain…burp and drove off without waiting for her card to be dispensed. The next day she realized the mistake and went back to US Bank to inquire about the card.

“Oh, no problem,” the employee stated. “They’ll look up your customer information and it will automatically get sent back to you.”

“That’s great,” my relieved spouse responded. “Though I’m not sure how you’d know my address, since I’m not a customer. Could I give you my address.”

“Oh,” the employee muttered, her tone darkening. “If you’re not a US Bank customer, the company that services our ATMs will just destroy it.”

“But,” my wife protested. “Could I contact the company and…”

“We don’t have their number,” the employee said, already having mentally exited the conversation.

“You don’t have the number of the company that services your ATMs?” my wife asked incredulously, but to no avail. She gave up and left.

So…thanks, US Bank! I don’t know how you do it, but way to stay consistent!

I believe you offer a “5 star promise” for customer service. All I know is that, in my experience, getting close to the 5 stars causes me to get very hot.

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Want customers to help your business succeed? Start at the end.

August 28th, 2009

What do you really want?

For most businesses, there is a business goal. Maybe it’s to maximize profits. Or it could be growth: increased revenues or a larger customer base. But at the core, you have a business goal. The mistake I see companies make when they decide to start paying attention to their customers is that they don’t start with the business objective. Instead, there’s a vague “improve” customer service or some such mantra.

If you really want to effect change that will impact your bottom line, there’s an order of attack that will increase your odds of success. Think of it as a logic problem:

1. What’s the Business Goal? Yes, this seems obvious, but humor me. You can’t accomplish your goals unless you know your goals, and everyone on the team agrees just what the goal is. Start here.

2. What’s the Desired Customer Behavior? In order to achieve your business goal, you must define a “desired customer behavior.” For example, if your business goal is to increase the size of the customer base without increasing your marketing budget, you need to drive your customers to refer your company to others more often.

3. What’s the Desired Customer Perception? To drive a desired customer behavior, you must create a desired customer perception. That is, you  must convince your customers to think about your company in a certain way, so that they will act in a way to achieve your business goals (e.g. tell others about you; stay longer; buy more).

4. What’s the Desired Customer Experience? In order to create that perception, you must provide a customer experience that delivers in a specific, positive way, everytime. That means each communication, each interaction, each channel must consistently leave the customer with a desired impression or emotion. What that impression is depends on your business goal and brand promise. Any experience, big or small, that doesn’t deliver will reduce your chances of achieving your business goal.

5. What’s the Current Customer Experience? Only after working through those issues of business goal, brand promise, desired customer behavior and desired customer perception is it time to get moving on your existing customer experience. Now is when you must take steps to objectively analyze your current customer experience, and begin to incrementally improve upon it in order to achieve your business goals.

I’ll talk more about the actual analysis and improvement steps in another entry. The important thing here is to first take a breath and figure out just what you want to have happen before you start down the customer experience path.

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With the wrong people, don’t bother with the training

August 24th, 2009

This may sound harsh, but in my experience, this is the fact: if you hire people with the wrong attitude, you’re done before you’ve started in terms of providing a positive customer experience. Customers are irrational and emotional, and they act based on those emotions. If you’re not making positive emotional connections, they’ll leave in droves.

If you’ve been in business for awhile, you know that I’m right. Have you ever hired somebody with the right technical skills for a job, but also with a holier-than-thou air? It’s over. Spend money on training, spend money on processes, and you can improve the customer experience slightly, but with that attitude, your employee will be able to “overcome” those efforts to create a negative customer impression.

Think about the companies who take customer experience seriously – Zappos, Southwest, Union Square Hospitality Group. Do they all spend time and energy on processes, technology, and training in order to create a memorable customer experience? Absolutely! But first, each focuses on unique and time consuming methods for assuring that they’re hiring the right people. They understand that the foundation for exceptional service and experience is the people. The other stuff just helps those great folks to deliver what they want to in the first place.

How’s your company set up? Do you have employees that touch customers who don’t naturally seek out ways to connect with and help people? If so, you better take a hard look at your hiring processes. It’s the key to customers who – whether they know why or not – keep coming back.

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3 P’s for customer experience that matters

August 17th, 2009

This suddenly hit me yesterday. I’ve been preaching about customer experience to companies, and trying to get across how efforts like “customer initiatives” are doomed to fail. The only path to success lies in a sincere and inherent desire from the top down to create exceptional experiences. But then, yesterday, I realized I could distill success in CE matters to the “3 P’s.”

1. Brand Promise - What is your brand promise? Most folks I talk to can’s articulate it, and there are very few companies where all the employees know the brand promise off the top of their heads. There are fewer companies still where the brand promise is actually weaved through all interactions and communications with customers creating a power, positive perception.

2. People – If the big cahuna is truly committed to delivering an exceptional and memorable customer experience, he or she will also be committed to hiring people who share the same principles and values. Companies that do this well (think Zappos or Union Square Hospitality Group) understand that you can’t train people to be devoted to their customers. It doesn’t work. You have to start with the right clay before you try to mold.

3. Process - Sure you could say “product” is a possible 3rd P, but I don’t think so. If you have a solid brand promise, and you hire the right people in terms of attitude, then you can set up processes that empower those employees. Process becomes an enabler, ensuring that every customer is treated to a memorable customer experience. With the wrong people, process can become a crutch and an excuse for poor customer experience.

More to come on this. I welcome your comments.

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