Customer Service Is Easy

How many offers from credit card companies do you get a week? I have only lived in the US for slightly under a year and I already get about 10 per week. Of course like most people I throw them immediately into the trash and think nothing more of them. Having worked in sales and marketing for many years I know that these offers work. Of course 98 or 99 people will ignore them but that the one or two that take up the offer are enough to make it worth while as a return on investment for the credit card companies, thus the never ending supply that isn’t going to stop anytime soon. One thing I have noticed since I have lived in the US is the huge difference in levels of customer service offered by large organizations. I have had truly atrocious customer service by my Telephone Company and my Credit Card Company and excellent customer service from Vonage, Netflix and Progressive Insurance. The two companies that offered terrible service have now lost my business and will never get it back and I do mean, never. Not only that, but I will mention these companies to many people in passing. I was tempted to name and shame them here but do not really feel the need to do that, I would rather vote with my wallet.

There is a lot of research to suggest that it costs between 6 and 8 times as much money to gain a new customer than it does to keep one you already have. The stats are similar when looking at selling more products to a regular customer as opposed to selling to a new one. So why with that in mind do many huge organizations fail time and time again to look after the people that are already lining their pockets? I wish I knew the answer because it certainly isn’t because they don’t know these facts, nor is it that they can’t implement world-class procedures should they want to and it’s definitely not that their customers aren’t screaming out for better service. Hands up everybody that would like a bank that allowed them to phone their local branch and speak to a human being within 3 rings and never have to go through pressing 8 for instructions from a Mongolian Warlord or number 6 to hear abuse yelled at you in Russian.

High-quality customer service is easy! Let me repeat that. High-quality customer service is easy! Now I suppose I really must add one caveat to that. High-quality customer service is easy if the will is there. That is a large caveat I admit, but if the owners and managers want to implement customer service that will have their customers saying awesome instead of awful it can be done.

I have been working with a company lately to implement a strategy that involves proactively approaching customers to seek their honest opinions about their supplier and then asking them what they can do to improve their service. This isn’t paying lip service, it isn’t an excuse to phone so they up-sell or cross-sell, it is a genuine effort to try and understand their customers needs. We are still only half way through this but the results have been amazing. The level of appreciation from customers that suddenly feel valued and important has been heart-warming and I can guarantee that those already contacted will be infinitely less likely to order from a competitor next time. There was a real killer to this that has truly blown many of them away. The company went and bought a cell phone so that the account manager could offer the customer her personal cell number for emergencies rather than having to go through the switchboard. WOW! How would that make you feel?

The net result after my fall out with my credit card company was that I closed my account down and so did my wife. What has the bank lost? Well, I had my last UK credit card I for over 10 years and used it for business expenses too. I guess that they can send out another 5,000 mail shots and hope that they hit on a few customers that will stick with them, or maybe in future they can listen to their customers, take their concerns seriously and bend over backwards to keep the people that are already paying their bills happy and content.

Sign up for my newsletter, provisionally titled The Discomfort Zone coming in January 2007 at www.adaringadventure.com This will be probably more along the personal coaching and life coaching side than business coaching but I welcome all feedback.

I’d like to wish a very Happy Holidays to my readers, thanks for those that have e-mailed me over the last 8 months or so and I hope to hear from a lot more of you in 2007.

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