Tag Archives: customer expectations

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Customer Experience Failure of the Week

Our Christmas Holidays included some crazy travel arrangements this year. Amongst them was a last minute change of plans to drive back to Colorado from Palm Springs, Ca.

As will occasionally happen we found a great rate on a one way rental from Fox Rental Cars.

We don’t normally rent from Fox but every once in a great while they have a rate that makes it worth the extra little bit of hassle to find them off airport. While I’d rather enjoy the benefits of being preferred or gold or select I am not above saving good money when I can.

The vehicle we got was fine, an upgrade from our original reservation actually at no additional cost, or so we thought at least. Until we got about two thirds of the way home.

It was then that we discovered the wind shield washers, those little dealios that spray fluid on the glass, didn’t work. We discovered this quite by accident while driving behind a truck, that was kicking up melted snow, in a tunnel. The windshield wipers, faithful to their end of the bargain wiped grime across my field of vision so thick that I almost had to stop…something you just don’t do in a tunnel.

The rest of the ride home, several hours, was spent pulling on and off the freeway to wash off the windshield. Yes, we checked the fluid level, it was full. Yes, we stirred it to be certain it wasn’t frozen. Yes, we shook the lines to break up any blockage. Nothing.

When we returned the car the conversation went something like this:

Fox Guy: How was the vehicle?
Us: Fine except the windshield washers don’t work
Fox Guy: Yeah, sometimes that happens in the mountains when it is cold.
Us: We checked, the fluid wasn’t frozen.
Fox Guy: Huh.
Us: It was pretty dangerous a couple times.
Fox Guy: <nothing>
Us: You probably want to check that before you rent it out again with all the melted snow on the ground.
Fox Guy: Uh huh.

We weren’t looking for a free rental. We weren’t looking for a mechanic to run out to the vehicle to fix it. We were just looking for some acknowledgment that there had been a failure on the part of Fox to provide what we needed. Now, had they offered us 10% off or even a simple apology I’d probably have been satisfied. But not even a mea culpa? Come on!!

If you’ve been a follower of my blog you know I have strong feelings about how to handle this kind of thing correctly.

In this instance however Fox have been weighed, they have been measured, and they have been found wanting. Fail.

What customer experience wins or fails did you have over the holidays?

 

 

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Bonefish Grill and The Importance of Being MORE than Earnest

Back in February I posted a comparison between two, quite different, customer experiences: Mike’s Camera vs Bonefish Grill.

For those who’ve not seen it the post tells the story of how each company messed up a reservation and how they handled it. It describes how Bonefish Grill had been a family favorite of ours but that they had so badly goofed on a Mother’s Day reservation that we probably would never go back.

Well, I’m here to say we finally gave them another chance. I’d received an email promotion for a steak and lobster meal that sounded too good to pass up so, against my better judgement, and swayed by memories of good meals, we decided to give them another shot.

The evening started off fine, we were seated quickly, and promptly served drinks. Then things started to slip a little.

We were told that they were out of one of the items on the specials menu and that the pork chops were gone as well. No worries, neither item had been on our radar. Moments later we were told that they were also out of tilapia. I thought it was kind of odd that they’d be out of so many different items at 6:45 on Sunday with no wait. The big issues now though was that the global tilapia shortage meant there were three or four additional items that were out of play and those items WERE on our radar.

As the server left to give us a chance to reassess our orders I leaned across the table and said, “If they’re out of the special I’m thinking we just leave.”

When the server came back to take our order she apologized for the tilpia scarcity and offered free desserts, on them, to make up for it. “Ok,” I thought, “At least they’re trying and they’re landing in the sweet spot for customer service so…good on ’em.”

To make a long story short…

The special was great, and in stock. The other meals were up to snuff, our expectations for good food exceedingly well met. Our drinks were kept full. All in all an earnest effort by the staff even if we’d been mildly put out by a certain level of snarkiness that would normally have been just on the outer edge of not quite good but barely acceptable.

Three desserts duly arrived and a short time later so did the check. Full charge for the post dinner dainties included.

Normally, with good food and good service we would merely have pointed out the mishap. But with a recent history of bad experience, snarky service, and a failed promise we’d had enough.

My children and I were all for writing “free dessert” in on the tip line on the bill but my wife is much nicer than we are so we tipped the staff somewhat below our normal standard and departed somewhat put out by the experience.

So what can be learned by the failure of a second chance?

1. You never know when a customer is giving you a second…or last…chance.
Because of that the level of service needs to be consistently high whether people are coming in for the first time or the last chance.

2. When circumstances conspire against you, up the game, for real.
Being out of goods isn’t the fault of the staff. But the ability to make it better IS in their control, or should be. When circumstances go bad you have to up the game not just with lip service but with over the top customer experience.

3. When you’ve lost a fan you’ve lost more than a sale.
Bonefish may or may not care if I ever come back. They can point to the fact that they swayed me back with an enticing promotional offer. Fair enough. What they have lost though is the fact that I no longer recommend them, something I used to do regularly and often.

Have you ever had a customer experience that took you from fan to ban like the one we just had last night?

 

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The NFL and an Interesting Revelation

Somewhere along the way I think I must have missed something. It seems to me, and maybe I am wrong, that I used to be able to choose between two NFL games in the Sunday morning slot and two in the afternoon slot.

Even with the advent of Sunday Night Football I thought I still had my pick of two in the morning and two in the afternoon.

What happened to my afternoon choice?

Perhaps it is different in different markets but here in Colorado we get one game in the afternoon and it seems like it is almost always either a Cowboys game or a Giants game. Unless of course the Broncos are playing in the afternoon then we get them…but only that one.

As I started pondering this woeful dearth of afternoon football watching options during the Giants dismantling of the Saints and was struck by a startling revelation.

The NFL doesn’t care if I have choices.

You see, in almost any business providing choices means more cost. It can, and typically does mean more revenue as well but it can double or triple costs often making the additional revenues less than worthy of consideration.

Providing choice means there will be people who DON’T watch one of the games. Providing NO choice means people watch what they’re given.

My simple analysis was completed in less time than it takes for a boy named Suh to come up with an excuse for kicking someone in the groin but it did land me on a new customer type: The Addict.

Whether or not you consider yourself a football , or more particularly an NFL addict the truth is the NFL considers their customers to be addicts and I’ll provide three pieces of supporting evidence.

1. Other leagues have failed
Remember the WFL or the USFL? Who could forget the XFL? All leagues that saw the potential for an expanded football market, all failed. Even college football has a different kind of following than the NFL.

Of course this lends support to the leagues assertion that their product is unique enough that they have a corner on the professional football market…and addict fans.

2. We’ll watch anything with our teams logo on it.
NO matter what the challenge, replacement teams in the 80’s, back up who aren’t ready to play, replacement coaches, replacement refs…as long as it is our squads logo we turn out to watch.

Maybe that’s another reason people don’t watch the pro bowl…wrong uniforms.

3. Teams that sell out, always sell out.
This indicates there is no shortage of backup customers to be had if the current pool of season tickets holders and regular buyers should all suddenly contract the plague.

This steady stream availability, probably more than anything, makes the NFL comfortable with measuring out the goodies to their addicted fans.

Now of course I’m mostly being facetious here. But there is a nugget of truth buried in the midst of this madness. If we can somehow find ways to control output and build a big enough customer pool it may be possible for ANY enterprise to develop addicted customers. Mange to do THAT and you’re on the gravy train.

What do you think are the key ingredients for building a customer base that is addicted to your product or service?

 

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Black Friday: A Customer Experience Perspective

Madness. It’s all madness.

I do not normally enter into the fray on Black Friday (what color will they give Thursday now that they’re stretching the shopping hours backward into Thanksgiving?) but with Walmart less than 1000 yards from my backyard and half off a premier item on one of my kid’s Christmas lists we decided to give it a “dive in / dive out.”

This wasn’t my first time truth be told. In years past I have ventured out on Black Friday. I just think it has gotten substantially more insane in the last half decade.

There is a distinct difficulty in starting BF shopping hours while the store is already open. Supposedly the sale started at Walmart at 8:00. I was to the item location by 8:04, having seen literally hundreds of them in place in the case earlier in the day…they were all gone. In four minutes? Really? Somebody had to have broken the rules.

To make a long story short we found both the items we were after and we got in and out in about 30 minutes. But I believe I am forever scarred.

In my observation Black Friday is one very specific time of year when the retailers do not care about the customer AT ALL. They throw out a tantalizing array of loss leaders and teasers then stand back and watch the feeding frenzy.

  • You were fifth in line so you get that laptop? Sorry we only had three of that model.
  • You came in at 7:45 hoping to get positioned for the 8:00 start and the shelf was empty already? Yeah, people started grabbing them at 7:00 when we put them out.
  • You stood for 30 minutes in what looked like a queue for Mortal Death Match 19 for XBox 360 and someone just walked up and got one ahead of you? Sorry, we can’t control this size crowd.

The ultimate measure of success for Black Friday is sales, fair enough. But I sometimes wonder how many customers get really ticked off at some particular retailer who either couldn’t think crowd control or who went in with low inventory on all the big sale items and as a result decides not to shop there any more.

Of course they’re hoping that we’re SO consumption driven that we’ll overlook those things that bother us and keep coming back like Pavlov’s dog.

So what lessons can we learn from Black Friday retailers approach to customers?

1. You CAN compete on price alone.
Obviously I am big proponent of service. Price has to be competitive but there are studies that show that customers are willing to pay higher prices for better service. Of course in a 12 hour rushed frenzy you can’t serve people well, you just need to get out of the way right?

I suppose I’d argue that if you choose to compete on price alone don’t be surprised if your customers start thinking of you as a commodity, something I may need but will get along without if I can.

2. Volume is king.
It doesn’t matter how much one person buys if you get 10,000 to just come in the door. That’s the thought behind the loss leader approach, get a bunch of people in the door knowing they’ll buy more than just what they came looking to purchase. I suppose that approach works too if you are basing your approach to building a customer base on a couple or crazy, gimmicky events. Loyalty? Nah…overrated, right?

3. Customers CAN be fooled all the time.
retailers keep putting out the teasers and consumers keep running in, many reveling in the competitive edge they got  by grabbing items at 2:00 and waiting in tot store to pay the sale price at 8:00, other happy to have shoved their way to the front and grabbed the last Mortal Death Mach 19. The vast majority don’t get the one big thing they came looking to get but went away with a few other items on their list, happy to have saved money…and they’ll do it again.

And now please excuse me, I have some sarcasm still dribbling down my chin.

What are your thoughts on the madness of Black Friday?

 

 

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Customer Experience Shout-Out of the Week

It was a touch and go thing there for a minute. Usually I list Kohl’s Department Store amongst the companies that “get it” from a customer experience, or at a minimum a customer service, standpoint. This past week however they slid dangerously close to my list of “I don’t shop there any more” vendors.

Somehow, back in August, our usual Kohl’s Card back-to-school-shopping-bill didn’t arrive in the mail. My wife, who is ever diligent about such things, wondered at that, but we got caught up in the stuff of life and didn’t think too much about it. We eventually just paid what we owed based on receipts we had.

Unfortunately that payment crossed in the “mail” and we were charged a late fee in September. We didn’t pay it, we called in a disputed it, but apparently did THAT too late because we were charged a late fee for the late fee. Now we were expected to pay $30 in late fees for $24 worth of goods.

Again we called to dispute. This time we got a fairly rude gentleman on the phone who suggested that he could take off one late fee but not both. We countered by suggesting that if he bothered to look he’d see we had been Kohl’s customers for nearly a decade, never had a late fee prior to this, in fact rarely ran a balance, and that this was unacceptable. He countered our counter by saying he could remove both late fees IF we paid the one dollar interest charge on the first late fee.  Sheesh.

We agreed.

This month our bill had…wait for it…two late fees. The one he didn’t take off after we paid the dollar and a late fee on top of that.

I called once again. I wasn’t in the mood to negotiate this time really so after the requisite confirmation of who the operator was speaking with I launched right in. I explained the series of events succinctly and then said:

“So, I’m calling today to see if we can either get these two late fees reversed or to just pay you the thirty dollars, cancel my card and never do business with you again.”

The operator responded:
“Yes, Mr. Fletcher I see the conversation history here. Can you hold for just a moment please?”

When she returned, in what truly WAS just a moment, she launched right in:
“Alright Mr. Fletcher those charges have been removed. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

I kind of felt cheated, she’d stolen my steam. At the same time I was glad it was so simple.

So what’s the moral of the story?

1. Companies with a history of good service will usually come through.
As I mentioned I have had good experience with Kohl’s correcting things that needed correcting. If I hadn’t I probably wouldn’t have given then a couple attempts.

2. Consistency is crucial.
I say this because if I had NOT had previous experience from which to draw I may have left them hanging after the first botched attempt. Making sure all of your service people can handle things right the first time is crucial to building those good experiences.

3. It all starts with the right attitude.
Attitude drives behavior. Setting an attitude that says lets help the customer goes a long way towards creating consistent behavior and developing quality customer experiences.

What examples have you run into lately of companies who have managed a customer experience save based on your past experience with them?

 

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Do Churches Have Customers?

So with all the work I’ve been doing lately on Customer Experience I can’t help but as this question. After all I spent the first decade or so of my working life in churches. So for the sake of argument let’s create a generic profile of what makes a customer and see if it applies:

1. Customers start from a point of need.
Ok, sometimes the “need” is more of a want but you wouldn’t buy something you didn’t want or need so this is where a “customer” begins.

2. Customers typically do some shopping
There are certainly times when people make an impulse purchase but in general they do some research before making a buying decision.

3. Customers make a commitment.
Typically we think in terms of a financial commitment but there may also be contract terms like when you purchase a contract for cell phone service.

4. Customers repeat or defect based on service.
If the product does what is expected, in other words it meets the need/want, then service determines whether a customer makes another purchase or defects to a new provider.

5. Customers promote products they really like.
The end goal in getting satisfied customers is to have them promote your product.

 

In the interest of full disclosure I have to say that I have had this conversation with several “church people”. In every case the immediate answer has been “no, we don’t have ‘customers’, we have members. Our people are more involved than just being customers.” But really? Doesn’t that behavior list look a like like a church goer?

On top of that let’s think about some of the jargon we use around church:

  • “We all NEED Jesus”
  • People can be said to be “church shopping”
  • We ask members to commit or talking about “committing our lives to Christ”
  • Churches often talk about the “back door being larger than the front”
  • Church members “vote with their wallets” when the offering comes plate by on Sunday morning.
  • And of course all are expected to “do the work of an evangelist”

I’m being slightly tongue in cheek here but not overtly so. Is it possible that where churches start to miss the mark is where they DON’T think of attendees as customers? When I think of someone as a “member” or as part of a “church family” then there are certain expectations that go along with those words. Expectations like “sacrifice” or “volunteering” or “staying committed through tough times”. We might ask those things of family members but we’d never ask them of customers. Would we?

There is certainly something deeper about being a committed member of a church than just being a mere customer, however; I can’t help but wonder what it would look like if a church were to start to embrace some of the same principles that businesses use to create satisfied, promoting customers and applied them to their congregation.

What do you think? Would churches see a positive change if they were to start adopting some corporate best practices for acquiring and retaining promoting customers?

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AT&T, iPhone 5, and What We’ve Got Here is a Failure to Communicate

The stats were in a week or so ago…iPhone 5 set a bunch of records for pre-order volume.

As I mentioned here only a few short weeks prior to that my trusted iPhone 3gs went for a swim so I duly made my way to the AT&T store to leverage my upgrade discount and order my iPhone on “opening day”.

Of course, because I hadn’t called at midnight the night before or waited in line on the sidewalk I didn’t get in to order my phone until the afternoon. By that time I was told that orders being taken were expected to ship within two weeks, rather than the anticipated one week, but that I would be able to track my order status online.

The picture above is my actual order status. Notice anything? Somehow, in ten days, according to this, the is no difference in status from the moment when I was standing talking to the AT&T employee in the store to now. My order is processing.

I put this in the “failed customer self service” folder.

Order status checkers like this one are create tools to reduce call volume. The more customers who can see what is going on with their order the fewer will clog the phone lines with questions about shipping dates.

Unless of course you fail to update that status at all.

Not only does this produce more phone activity but it also sends a subtle message that either you’re hiding something or you don’t care all that much about the customer.

So why might a system like this show NO activity over ten days?

  • We’re slammed and the system is overloaded
  • We don’t know from the supplier when the items will be available
  • We now know it will take four weeks so we’re avoiding telling you
  • We didn’t create enough differentiate status levels in the system

In truth the reason doesn’t matter, the communication does. Even if “the system” posted a status that said “we’re backlogged and hope to clear the jam buy the following date” it would be more communication than “processing”. My order has been “processing” since I first said, “Hey, I’m here to order and iPhone 5.”!!

If you’re going to use a customer self service tool like a status checker you need to remember a couple key rules for success:

Rule 1: Keep the information up to date
Now to be fair the information on my status above may BE up to date. My order may not have moved at all. But you would think that it would have processed by now and just be awaiting inventory. But is does not appear to be up to date. By leaving it mostly blank the system has failed at its two primary purposes: reducing call volume and communicating status to the customer.

Rule 2: Communicate, even if it is bad news
It is far better to know that my order will be delayed than it is to keep guessing. By communicating even the bad news you communicate that you care about the customer. Trying to hide the bad news says you care more about your image than you do about your customer.

Rule 3: Think with a customer perspective
Too often these systems glitches become internal finger pointing or design arguments. If you failed to think like a customer during design think like one during the problem period. I wonder if anyone at AT&T is asking how customers feel about a dead order status?

Customer self service tools are great when they’re firing on all cylinders. When they’re not you need to react quickly, communicate effectively, and think like the customer.

What other types of “customer self service” tools have you run across and how effectively were they managed?

Bonus points if you know the movie that is referenced in the title of today’s post.  🙂

 

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Poor Customer Experience…at Disneyland?!?

Hello, my name is Curtis and I am a Disneyland fanatic.

Friends call me for advice on how to best experience the parks. They get a two page email back.

I live in Colorado and I have an annual pass.

It’s just that bad.

We were just in southern California for freshman orientation at Azusa Pacific University. After a tearful good bye with our oldest son we headed over to the park for some “amusement”.

I never thought I’d say this but I walked away significantly underwhelmed by our visit.

I can remember not too long ago when you could get in for under $50. The price for visiting one park for one day is now $87. Okay, I get the fact that costs rise so, it hurts but I’ll still play along. Of course if you want to visit BOTH Disneyland AND California Adventure on the same day that will set you back $125.

So you would think you’d see the service level rise to match the price increase wouldn’t you?

Nope.

We experienced no fewer than five ride outages in one day. Mind you that’s only counting the times we were in line for a ride and it went out. Who knows how many there were when we weren’t looking.

Queue management, something Disney is known for, was sorely lacking with lines spilling out into walkways more often than not on a day that was busy but no where close to the worst we’ve seen.

Worse yet cast members in those situations seemed continually put out by the trouble of having to manage the flow of people.

Three different times we were told that a clearly displayed offer of a discount didn’t apply to our situation because of some fine print that was not readily published.

I walked away feeling like Disneyland was telling me that I was fortunate just to be able to be in their presence so I should overlook the inconveniences.

Now, you could argue it was a hot day, large crowd, a couple of less than stellar cast members working queues, etc but those would all be excuses not reasons. There is no “reason” for poor service.

You might argue that I’ll go back so there is no real pressing need to fix any of these issues. You’d probably be right, I probably will go back. But then…I’ve never talked bad about Disneyland before and I am now.

How often do we allow circumstances to move from being excuses to being “reasons” for failed service? How often do we portray to customers that we just can’t care for EVERYBODY? How bad is one negative blog post about poor customer experience?

If hot temperatures, large crowds, and less than stellar cast members are becoming the norm I won’t need an annual pass any longer. I’ll just go one or two days in the off season to get my fix and keep my fond memories of great customer experience at Disneyland in tact.

When was the last time a company failed to meet your expectations as a customer?

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Creating Customer Expecta…

 

What did you expect next? …tion? shun? xion? or some other form of finishing the word?

It’s interesting isn’t it how easy it is to create expectations. Whether good, bad or indifferent we’re creating expectations all the time. In our work, in our homes, with our co-workers, with our family expectations abound.

Think about every place you create expectations for your customers. Now think again. Does your tag line create expectations? Does your name? Does the graphical approach to your web site create a certain set of expected deliverables? The answer is yes, whether you realize it or not.

  • The truth is that customer expectations are being set, met or missed, and reset all the time. We’re constantly raising or lowering the bar. This up and down motion isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, if the bar stays put we’re invisible. So how do we take care to accurately set the expectations of people whom we’ve not yet met? By remembering to apply some simple guidelines:

1. Entice but don’t Exaggerate
So often titles and tagline are built purely to entice customers to come take a look behind the curtain and too often the”surprise” behind the curtain is an epic failure.

A friend on Facebook recently had a video posted in their status entitle something akin too: “Failed Surprise Attack”. I click off to video land to watch the supposedly failed sneak attack only to find nothing sneaky OR attacky about it. Multiple multiple people had commented that there was nothing worth watching in the video, it turned out to be a couple body builders flexing in the mirror.

I was so frustrated by the stupidity of it that I now am questioning whether I’ll look at anything that friend has in their status line ever again and I even went so far as to delete the view from my own status in hopes the same judgment would not be cast upon me.

The failed expectation resulted in negative results because the enticement turned out to be a gross exaggeration.

2. Remember the Reset
Don’t forget that every time you meet, exceed, or fail to meet expectations you’re resetting the bar. Meeting expectations raises confidence levels in further ability to meet them, exceeding expectations sets a higher standard, failing to meet them my result in a loss of opportunity to have another shot.

I recently had what I thought was a horrid rental experience with Thrifty Car Rental. My expectation was a fee of about $42.50 through priceline. My bill upon checking out the car showed charges closer to $150. I figured they had switched cars on me, pre-charged for gas, not3. O honored my agreed price and several other nasties but just left because I was in a hurry. I vowed they’d never agin get my business.

When I returned the car the guy at the check-in window explained all the rigamarole to me and showed how my final bill went back down to $42.50, exceeding my lowered expectations and perhaps winning back at least a chance to get back my business.

3. Oopsies  are Opportunities
We’ll all fail to meet expectations from time to time. Rather than seeing this as a failure see it as an opportunity to become something more than invisible.

I posted recently about a customer service experience with Mike’s Camera. Lo and behold who should reach out to me but Mike. Now, to be clear, I wrote that they had failed at meeting my expectations but had done just enough to make it up to not lose me as a customer.

Mike wasn’t satisfied with just enough though. Mike reached out and offered to make it MORE right on my next rental. An offer which I will no doubt take him up on the next time I need to rent a lens. Mike get’s it. He saw the oops as an opportunity.

In every case communication is the key but remembering these guidelines can help you set and manage expectations in a more reasonable and controllable fashion resulting in winning, and keeping, more customers.

What expectations do you think you set with customers or business associates?