CustomerServiceQuality

We've moved!

2005-10-31T22:11:00.000-08:00

(We’ll keep this blog here at Blogger for your reading pleasure)

Southwest and FedEx: Their Contrasting Organizational Cultures

2005-10-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

Both companies fly airplanes.
Both are well-known (in the US at least.)
Both do their best to keep their employees happy.
But each one of them uses a different approach.
Those companies are Southwest Airlines and FedEx.
Southwest is “the extended Italian family you knew growing up.”
FedEx is “less touchy-feely,” and “employees float on a Nile of nomenclature.”
CMO Magazine published an article in their October 2005 issue comparing the contrasting organizational cultures of these two companies, and explains how they impact service to customers.
And the reason behind their ways? Here’s a quote from the article:

Make no mistake, employee-centrism at both of these organizations does not rest on altruistic motives. “FedEx and Southwest want to treat employees well, but they still want to make a profit,” says Brenda Ellington-Booth, a clinical assistant professor of management and organization at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “And the way they make a profit is through their people.”

Great service to customers is great for business.

(we'll be moving to Servimetrica.NET soon)

High Altitude Outsourcing

2005-10-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

It was on the front page of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required) :
Northwest Targets Flight Attendants For Outsourcing: Ailing Carrier Seeks Savings By Pushing Veteran Staffers Off Prized Overseas Routes.
Flight attendants are not the only ones being considered for these changes. Here’s a copy/paste from a paragraph in the article:

Northwest also is seeking to outsource all ramp workers’ positions except at its hubs and all customer-service-agent jobs at its non-hub airports.

If this happens, maintaining morale among remaining employees will not be an easy task, which will impact the quality of the service that customers get.

Coming soon: outsourced pilots. Any bets?

Back to Basics: What's Service Quality, Anyway?

2005-10-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Some people say such-and-such company provides great service. Others say that the same such-and-such company really stinks.
Who’s right?
Service quality –just as beauty- is in the eye of the beholder. It is a matter of expectations and perceptions. If in a service transaction, the customer perceives he/she received better service than he/she expected, then he/she will evaluate the service favorably. The same applies the other way around for customers who get less-than-expected service.
In their book Delivering Quality Service -published back in 1990 by the Free Press- Professors A. Parasuraman, Leonard L. Berry and Valarie A. Zeithaml define service quality as

the extent of discrepancy between customers’ expectations or desires and their perceptions.

Therefore, the key to providing quality service resides in knowing what customers want and expect, and deliver accordingly.
Obviously, each customer is different; including his/her quite ambiguous and unique needs and wants. This is what makes service quality such an interesting subject.
At least for us.

(and yes... we are crossposting entries in Servimetrica.NET)

Yes, Service can be Inventoried

2005-10-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

In their very peculiar way of course.
In an article published in the Fall 2005 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review titled Managing Service Inventory to Improve Performance, Sunil Chopra and Martin A. Lariviere explain how “Creating “service inventory,” that is, a way to store completed work, can reduce costs and improve quality. For example, financial institutions establish predetermined rules to apply to customers based on credit scores. Hotels create systems to record guests’ preferences. In such cases, firms reduce the work required once customers enter the process.”

Bringing the Sizzle Back

2005-10-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

After a series of unfortunate events that almost drove them out of the restaurant business, Sizzler’s is trying to make a comeback, Michael Hiltzik reports in his column in the Los Angeles Times.
One of the strategic missteps that preceded Sizzler’s bankruptcy in the 90’s was the evolution of the salad bar into an all-you-can-eat buffet, where “quantity” surpassed “quality”.
Now Sizzler’s is adapting itself to today’s market, aiming at consumers that have good memories of its restaurants of yesteryear, but offering a redesigned restaurants, menus and service.
Here’s an interesting passage that shows how consumer perceptions work:

When the company brightened the color scheme and decor of a prototype restaurant outside Sacramento, visitors remarked on the sudden improvement in the food, which actually had been upgraded the year before.

Service Quality for Taxis

2005-10-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

Drive a taxi? How can you measure the quality of your service?
Lets see this example from Singapore:
First: Don’t get in accidents. The standard is not more than two accidents for every 10 million kilometers traveled.
Second: Answer your phone. In Singapore, cab companies are required to answer 90% of their calls, including a confirmation of availability in less than five minutes.
If these standards are not met, taxi cab companies are fined.
However no word about sticky floors and cardboard pine scents.
(From Channel NewsAsia)

A Year and a Half in Beta

2005-10-22T23:31:00.000-07:00

Gmail –Google’s free e-mail service- was unveiled on April 1st, 2004. Since then, it has been labeled as a “Beta” release, meaning the service is still being tested. But so far, it has been under evaluation for more than 18 months!
(No… we do not need an invite. We have Gmail already. Thanks!)
Some observers have pointed out that Gmail still uses the “Beta” name to minimize the negative effect on users if something goes wrong with the service (“See? It wasn’t fit for general release yet! You should have known we were prone to a crash sooner or later because we are still in Beta testing!”)
However, we believe it still carries the Beta designator to increase the perception of newness of the service among users.
But, “newness” after 18 months?

We changed our minds...

2005-10-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

…and we are renaming this blog CustomerServiceQuality.com back again. Hope you don't mind.

We’ll use the Servimetrica.NET domain for our new blog, which will replace this one in a few days.

In the meantime, we’ll continue posting to both blogs while we tweak the settings in the new one.

Domino effect: Great managers – great employees – great service

2005-10-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

Looks quite difficult: how to deal with high employee turnover in quick service restaurants (a.k.a. “fast-food joints”)

This article in StartupJournal –a free website from the Wall Street Journal for entrepreneurs- shows Domino’s Pizza way: instead of paying higher wages than other chains, the company focuses on hiring and developing quality store managers.

And better store managers tend to have better employees, and better employees provide better service to customers.

You can't always get the Decaf that you want

2005-10-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

The ABC TV show 20/20 airing tonight will feature a report about some coffee chains serving regular instead of decaffeinated coffee.

Among the culprits found pouring something stronger than decaf are Starbucks, McDonalds and Krispy Kreme. Obviously, PR departments of these companies were quick to point out that these were “isolated incidents” attributable to “human error”.

Some decaf fans –and coffee consumers in general- who watch this installment of 20/20 may feel their trust dishonored.

Other customers may wonder if the same mistakes happen with diet and regular soft drinks.

Last impression also counts

2005-10-13T23:53:00.000-07:00

It is important to take extra care of the start of a service experience with a customer. It sets the stage for the rest of the transaction. If -from the customer’s perspective- something goes wrong at the beginning, it will require an extra effort to recover from the fumble.

But, when something goes wrong at the end of the service encounter, it is worse because there’s no time to recover, and that will leave the strongest impression in the mind of the customer.

Check this example from Jackie Huba -at the Church of the Customer Blog- when she tried to print an airline boarding pass at a Crowne Plaza Hotel just before checkout.

A Premium for Premium

2005-10-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, there are customers willing to pay a premium for extra service… even when buying a commodity as fuel for their cars.

See this article from the Los Angeles Times: Full-Serve Lingers in Self-Serve World

New name

2005-10-11T19:27:00.000-07:00

New name for this blog: Servimetrica.net

However, we are not dumping our original domain. You still can reach this blog at CustomerServiceQuality.com, and the name of the blog within Blogger is still customerservicequality.blogspot.com

The 2005 Customer First Awards

2005-10-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

(I know this was released weeks ago, but we are catching up on our reading.)

Fast Company magazine has published their annual list of companies that excel in customer service in the US. This year winners of the Customer First Awards are:

Netflix
Panera Bread
Talbots
Cabela's
W Hotels
Intuit
Build-A-Bear
Craigslist
Travelocity
Kiehl's
Virgin Atlantic
Best Buy
USAA
Zappos
Whole Foods Market

The interesting thing about Netflix -the overall winner per the magazine's criteria-, is that it is an "automated-web-based-self-service" business. The workers that are closest to the customers are the warehouse employees who prepare the DVD shipments.

Is impersonal service becoming more important than human interaction?

Not quite… technology and automation bring consistency and responsiveness to services processes by minimizing or eliminating human error.

Netflix got high marks because they do what their customers expect and want. And that's the basis of great service.

Forecasting Hot or Cool Trends

2005-10-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Times chronicles the work of the trend forecasters previously known as “coolhunters”. Their research helps large corporations to develop and offer products –and services- that will take advantage of the latest trends or fads.

But thanks to (or blame?) the Internet, fads come and go as fast as you can say “Macarena”.

According to the profiled experts, these are the “Macro” trends of the moment:

"Conscious living" — increased social activism, community service, spiritual awakening, eco style, the organic boom.
"Hot land values" — real estate craze, Middle America, Christian-themed entertainment, redneck humor.
"Hip parenting" — stylish, Gen-X-driven baby brands, blogs and mags, kid-friendly rock shows, members-only clubs.
"Curation nation" — mass customization craze, e.g., podcasting, TiVo, custom Nikes, Internet-driven interests, niches.

What are the lessons for service businesses?

First, if you decide to focus your service offerings towards the “trendy”, you better continue to follow that course, or risk getting an imaginary “passé” stamp on your door next month.

Second, trends –long-lasting or short-lived- are not only tangibles such as colors and styles or flavors. Trends also include the way things are done. And they are part of the customer’s expectations. And if customers don’t get what they expect, there’s no quality in the service.

For some reason, McDonalds introduced salads and such in their menus.

Starbucks Tribal (not Trivial) Knowledge

2005-10-07T22:44:00.000-07:00

The Brand Autopsy Blog has a great series of posts on Starbucks Tribal Knowledge.
John Moore, author of the blog, defines Starbucks Tribal Knowledge as:

Well … it’s the pithy quote uttered by a respected Starbucks executive. It’s a mantra used by Starbucks project groups to bring forth passionate followership. It’s ‘A-ha moments’ from successful (and failed) projects. It’s company campfire stories passed down from one generation of Partners to the next. It’s poignant. It’s thought-provoking. It’s actionable.

The series is an interesting insight from an insider. We highly recommend the Touchology Trumps Technology post if you are thinking about buying that whiz-bang POS system for your business.

At Your Service

2005-10-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

After becoming an "accidental" customer of the health care service industry, the main author of this blog is back.

The website of The Times newspaper -not NY Times nor LA Times, we are talking about the one published in London- has a special section titled "At Your Service". It is a series of articles about "how offering good service can give small businesses an edge over their larger rivals". All the articles are about small companies doing business in the United Kingdom. (BTW, It includes an article about Gordon Ramsay, the cranky chef of the "Hell's Kitchen" TV show)

Easy reading, particularly if you are looking for examples of customer-centric attitudes instead of techniques or "how-to" recipes.

Now Northwest and Delta

2005-09-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

Will service be affected by the recent descent into bankruptcy by Northwest and Delta Airlines?

Well, they are not flying into uncharted territories. And air travelers know this. United and US Airways are currently under bankruptcy-court protection, and they already set the expectations into the customers’ minds of what service should be at a Chapter 11 carrier.

Travelers should expect longer lines at the airport, departure and arrival delays, and flight cuts. Also travelers should anticipate some scattered disgruntled employees. Sincere sympathy towards them is recommended.

Blind Faith

2005-09-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Directly from Wikipedia, a case of heightened –and unmet- expectations in Rock music:

Blind Faith was a band formed in late 1968 when Eric Clapton (ex-Cream) and Steve Winwood (ex-Traffic) were at a loose end following the demise of their former bands and began to spend time together again (they had previously collaborated on record as Powerhouse), jamming and working on new material at Clapton's house in Surrey. At Winwood's instigation, Cream's former drummer Ginger Baker was invited along and they subsequently spent some time recording in the studio.

(snip)

News of the formation of the group created a buzz of excitement among the public and a free concert was scheduled for London's Hyde Park on June 7 1969. Their small repertoire was reported by the music press as having disappointed the crowd of 100,000 who were also expecting to hear songs from the days of Cream and Traffic.

(snip again)

Audience reaction in the USA was similar to that in the UK and the band was forced to appease them by playing a couple of Cream and Traffic songs. The management pressure to cash in on the hyperbole (the Press dubbed them a 'supergroup') and Baker's view that the group was a continuation of Cream soured feelings within the band and they disbanded immediately after completing the US tour.

(snip)

Moral of the story:

Customers –in this case, Traffic and Cream fans- expected a ‘supergroup’ merger of both bands. What they received was something different from their expectations, hence their dissatisfaction.

Are you giving your customers what they expect?

Tipping and Power

2005-09-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

The New Yorker magazine takes a look at the "social institution" of tipping at restaurants. It looks like tipping goes beyond rewarding good service. Here's a copy/paste:

...when it comes to tipping, who we are and how we feel matter a lot, because a tip is essentially a gift, and we give better gifts to people we like than to people we don’t. Tippers aren’t trying to drive hard bargains or maximize their economic interests; they’re trying to demonstrate their status and to reciprocate what they see as good behavior.

Another segment:

Diners… like the power that the ability to tip gives them. Waiters like tipping because it gives them the chance to distinguish themselves from the crowd and to score an occasional windfall.

Quality food and quality service are not the only ingredients for good tips. Also, there's more to explore in the deeper feelings of the customer.

Low-fare Air Saturation in Europe

2005-09-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

Low-cost airlines in Europe haven't driven mainstream carriers out of the market. In fact, as this article from McKinsey and Co. Shows (free registration required), the low-cost-carrier market is starting to saturate in parts of Europe. Charter and traditional airlines most likely will coexist with their no-frills counterparts, in some cases consolidated under one corporate umbrella.

Airfares are so cheap now, that "low-cost carriers are also competing against dining out, the theater, and other leisure activities". But, "at the same time, traditional airlines have persuaded some passengers, particularly business travelers, that it is worth paying extra for better service and convenience"

Quite some similarities -and some differences- with the North American market.

Comcast "soon-to-be former customer" gets nasty surprise on her bill

2005-08-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

From the Chicago Tribune:

After calling many times to get her cable service fixed, a Comcast customer got a nasty surprise on her monthly bill : Her name was changed to something… well… something not funny.

Read it here (free registration required)

Not-so-good Customer Retention Strategies: AOL

2005-08-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

Tried canceling your AOL subscription but the bills kept coming? Or worse yet, your credit card was still being charged for the service?

Looks like some Customer Service Reps we not canceling subscriptions when requested by customers, because a bonus of "tens of thousands of dollars" was at stake if "save" quotas were not met.

But thanks to New York State Attorney General, Elliot Spitzer, AOL will change their ways, including a $1.25 million dent to AOL's pocket:

Eliminate any requirements that its customer service representatives maintain a minimum number of "saves" in order to earn a bonus;
Record all service cancellation requests and verify action on the request through a third-party monitor;
Provide refunds to all New York consumers who claim harm based on improper cancellation procedures, up to four months worth of service;
Pay $1.25 million to the state in penalties and costs.

Quite difficult to disagree with this statement from Mr. Spitzer:

This agreement helps ensure that AOL will strive to keep its customers through quality service, not stealth retention programs.

Who's next? Cell phone or pay TV services? Any bets?

Obituary for a Conveyor Belt

2005-08-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago, a hi-tech solution for baggage handling at the then-brand-new Denver International Airport: A completely automated conveyor belt, 26 miles long, that takes bags from the check-in counter into the correct plane, all with minimal human intervention.

The system never worked as expected -or as budgeted.

Now the plug is about to be pulled. Read the details in this article from the New York Times

(Subscription may be required to access their archives).

Mr. Hilton would be proud

2005-07-31T22:35:00.000-07:00

No, we are not talking about Paris or Nicky.

According to a recent study from J.D Power and Associates, “Hotel Guest Satisfaction is Up, Despite Rising Room Rates and Increased Occupancies”, and Hilton Hotels grabs top rankings in three of the six market segments.

The measures evaluated in each of the market segments:

Check-in and checkout
Guest room
Food and beverage
Hotel services
Hotel facilities
Costs and fees

What do travelers like in their rooms? Here’s copy/paste:

Amenities of particular interest to consumers include a complimentary breakfast, in-room refrigerators and coffee makers, pillow top mattresses and high-speed Internet access.

That's hot. The in-room coffee that is.

Loss prevention is changing the retail experience

2005-07-31T12:11:00.000-07:00

From today’s Washington Post (free registration required) on how gangs of shoplifters are affecting retailers.

Sometimes the measures taken to minimize losses due to theft interfere with the shopping experience. From the guy wearing an earphone following you around the aisles to the labels you can’t read because the product is behind a locked glass door.

More of the same:

Customers Behaving Badly

Hope you enjoyed your dinner. Now leave.

2005-07-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

Some interesting findings from the Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University: Just as restaurant customers don’t like slow service, they don like to feel rushed either. From the executive summary:

On balance, restaurant patrons do not want to feel that they are being rushed nor do they want to be unduly delayed. Indeed, it is the perception of the speed (or lack thereof), rather than the actual time spent dining, that carries the most weight with restaurant patrons.

(And once again, from the customer’s perspective, perception equals reality).

Yes, we mean it. This blog hasn’t been abandoned

2005-07-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

Weeeeere baaack!

Posting twice a week. That’s our commitment. (yep! This one counts)

This blog has NOT been abandoned

2005-05-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, here at Servimetrica we have been busy with a new full-time project with a client. As soon as the “situation is stabilized” we’ll be posting as frequently as our readers deserve.
Keep us in your RSS feeds.

Customers Behaving Badly

2005-05-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

In the latest installment of the Retailing Issues Letter from the Center of Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University, there’s a report (pdf) by David Speights and Mark Hilinski about “customers” that abuse merchandise return policies at stores.

It also includes comments regarding the impact of the crackdown of these swindlers in the shopping patterns of good customers.

Great read.

Offshoring – Literally

2005-05-04T00:56:00.000-07:00

SeaCode offers computer engineering outsourcing services aboard ships located just a few miles off the California coast. Because the vessels will have foreign flags and will be “sailing” on international waters, SeaCode will be able to hire foreign workers who will be working almost in Southern California. And no visas required.

We’ll wait for the first call center located aboard a ship.

(via wsj.com)

A "Peer-to-peer Airline"

2005-05-03T19:27:00.000-07:00

Ed Iacobucci –founder of Citrix- is creating an airline, well, not an airline but a "Per-Seat, On-Demand" jet service called DayJet. Technology columnist Robert X. Cringely calls it “a peer-to-peer airline”.

Using more than 250 small jets (quite small jets), DayJet will be able to provide point-to-point air service particularly to smaller airports that traditional air carriers reach after a hop or two, including a connection at a hub.

Let’s see how this service will impact the experience of business flying.

BTW, this is from the FAQs page in DayJet’s website:

Does the name DayJet mean I can only travel by daylight?

Certainly not. As a regional business traveler our services mean that you will finally get control of your day travel needs with our personalized jet service. Our new services will not be restricted to night or day flying.

Change or Die

2005-05-02T23:07:00.000-07:00

Interesting article in Fast Company magazine. Efforts to improve the way things are done in businesses involve some kind of change. But fear of change is one of the main obstacles. Therefore, your service quality improvement effort has to consider the change process that employees have to go through.

There’s plenty of good literature about change management, and Fast Company’s article is a good start.

Call center comments from McKinsey

2005-05-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

The McKinsey Quarterly Web exclusive for April 2005 is titled Getting more from call centers by Keith A. Gilson and Deepak K. Khandelwal (free registration required).

Here’s an outline of the article:

Defining a customer service strategy

Don't overmanage costs

Integrate call centers with the organization

Segment customers

Choosing the right infrastructure

Pause before outsourcing

Use technology with care

Ensuring execution

Develop effective coaches

Manage performance

Reduce employee turnover

From the executive summary:

A good customer service strategy should balance costs, quality, and revenues. Companies that restructure call centers in this way can often cut their costs by up to 25 percent and boost the revenue they generate by as much as 35 percent, thereby transforming them into strategic assets that provide a competitive advantage.

Grieving Customers Dealing with Data Loss

2005-05-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

From the front page of the Washington Post: Repair Teams Try to Calm 'Computer Rage' (requires free registration). The article is an example of the importance of dealing with customers’ feelings in addition of the technical issues that originated the service transaction. The customers in this case are computer users that have lost all their data in their crashed computers (been there, done that)

Here’s an excerpt:

The challenge is to recognize which of the five stages of grief -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance -- a given customer is in, and respond accordingly.

A customer service rep also needs to be a counselor.

Wait...!

2005-04-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

There’s a very interesting –and useful- article by David Maister titled The Psychology of Waiting Lines.

Here’s a brief outline of Mr. Maiser’s piece:

People Want to Get Started.

Anxiety Makes Waits Seem Longer.

Uncertain Waits Are Longer than Known, Finite Waits.

Unexplained Waits Are Longer than Explained Waits.

Unfair Waits Are Longer than Equitable Waits.

The More Valuable the Service, the Longer the Customer Will Wait.

Solo Waits Feel Longer than Group Waits.

Recommended reading if your customers have to wait for any reason during service encounters.

Can’t buy me loyalty... or can it?

2005-04-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Darrell Zahorsky, who manages the Small Business Information topic in About.com, has an article about customer loyalty titled “Can Customer Loyalty be Bought?”

Read it, and you’ll be rewarded with the Eight Ways for Small Business to Earn Customer Loyalty.

(Via Church of the Customer)

The Power of Saying Thank You

2005-04-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

Some tips for expressing gratitude to your customers and other business associates. Link to the full article coming up after the list:

Throw a bash that boosts their business.
Be warm and personal.
But know that timing counts.
Pass along compliments.
Send value-added appreciation.
Consider when to send for maximum impact.
Be quirky.
Appreciate employees.
Thank your complaining customers.
Don't go over the top.
Feel the power.

Source? Microsoft's Small Business Center. (See? They are not the bad guys some people say!)

Measuring Service Quality with Quantitative Data – an example

2005-04-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

The 2005 Airline Quality Rating received quite some press coverage earlier this month. This report (pdf) is conducted by Brent Bowen, director and professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University.

The Rating is basically a weighed average of data collected and disseminated by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The criteria and their weights are as follows:

On-Time Performance (Flight Delays) (+8.63)
Involuntary Denied Boardings (Oversales) (-8.03)
Mishandled Baggage Reports (-7.92)
Consumer Complaints (filed at the DOT) (-7.17)

This year’s “winner”? JetBlue.

This is an example on how quantitative data can be used to measure customer service quality.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Operating Hours

2005-04-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

At the door of most businesses, there’s a sign like this:

Operating Hours
Mon-Fri 9AM to 7 PM
Sat-Sun 10 AM to 6 PM

¿Are these the hours when customers can do business?
¿Or are these the working hours of the employees?
A customer that arrives at 6:59PM expects an establishment open for business, not an employee locking the doors of a dark store.

Management by Fear

2005-04-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

It’s noon on a Saturday, no breakfast yet. I saw a family restaurant nearby (No names, just its initials: I.H.O.P.), so I decided to go there.

The place was crowded; I was promptly seated and asked for coffee. After looking at the menu, I ask for a Turkey Sandwich.

After almost half an hour, Turkey Sandwich arrives. At the first bite, my teeth find the frozen tomato slices inside. After considering the pros and cons of returning the sandwich, (another 30 minutes?) I decided to keep eating the sandwich sans the subzero produce.

But wait. There’s more.

The taste of the soft drink was terrible, so I continued with my coffee.

At the register, I asked the cashier if someone read the comments in the suggestion box: “Oh yes! The manager reads them all! But he’s off for the day. Do you have a comment?” she asked.

After explaining the icy tomato and the flat soda, I asked the cashier if the manager actually does something with the comments inside the box:

“Well, he reprimands the guilty employee, and if it’s the third time, the employee is fired”

As you can imagine, the suggestion box is not the most noticeable feature of the cash register counter.

“So it’s management by fear”, I reply.

“Kind of…” was her answer.

I took a suggestion card and kept it. Apparently, the manager’s approach was not working.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

After some days of self-inflicted hiatus, we are back.

2005-04-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

After some days of self-inflicted hiatus, we are back.

HBR does it again: April’s issue of Harvard Business Review has an article titled The Quest for Customer Focus by Ranjay Gulati and James B. Oldroyd, both from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Try to get your hands on it. I won’t spoil it for you.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Moments of Truth in Banks

2005-03-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

The website from The McKinsey Quarterly has an article titled Better Customer Service in Banks (free registration required). Here’s a copy/paste from the first paragraphs:

How can banks improve the customer experience? A survey of 2,100 retail-banking customers in the United States suggests that institutions should start by examining the everyday events that most affect, for good or ill, a customer's perception of them.

The main attraction of this short article is a chart listing ten events -or “moments of truth” - faced by a sample of bank customers, the number of customers who experienced such events, and the percentage of respondents who experienced resolution of the event as positive.

The ugly “moments of truth”? Mistakes in customer’s account, unexpected fees, problems with availability of funds, and change of bank’s fees, terms, or balance requirements.

Technorati Tags: Banks Customer Service Business

Dinner during a flight in Business Class

2005-03-21T20:47:00.000-08:00

Three hour flight.
Arriving to destination at 10PM.
Business Class.

I didn’t have anything for lunch during that day because I was quite busy preparing for my trip. Also because my expectation based on the three points mentioned above (and to the fact that I had traveled the same route and the same flight in the past) is that I was going to get something for dinner during the flight. As a customer, that was my expectation of service.

What was the service that I actually received?

Two bags of peanuts.

Quite a large gap between expected and received service.

Technorati Tags: Airlines Customer Service Business

On the Road Again...

2005-03-16T06:33:00.000-08:00

[Cue in Willie Nelson - Pre H&R Block days]

I'm currently in a business trip... taking notes to share with our readers.

Stay tuned...

[Now you'll have the song playing in your head all day]

First-come, first-served? Well, not really...

2005-03-10T22:03:00.000-08:00

First-come, first-served? Well, not really. Is it fair? It depends.

A study from The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University compares the perceived fairness of seating approaches that shift demand and violate the first-come, first served expectation. A copy/paste from the Executive Summary:

This study tested the following four demand-shifting tactics: seating guests according to party size (by matching party size to available tables), accepting reservations for large parties only, seating VIP guests in preference to others, and allowing guests to call ahead to put their name on the waitlist for an approximate seating time.

The most frowned-upon practice? VIPs getting tables before other customers.

Regardless of the seating policy, the authors advise:

Restaurants’ waitlist policies that violate the first-come, first-served principle should be implemented carefully and with an explanation to all customers.

What if we are more generous when tipping the maitre d’?

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

They don't know? Or they do know but they won't?

2005-03-08T22:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder:

Do companies offer bad service because they don’t know what their customers expect?

They DO know what their customers expect, but can’t or don’t want to offer it?

This thought came when I was reading this post in the Tom Peter’s Blog.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

And now here we have tonight's "Top Ten List"

2005-03-03T22:47:00.000-08:00

From MarketingSherpa.com, Gap Inc's Top 10 Rules to Create a Successful Customer Loyalty Program:

1) Master the basics first

2) Identify drivers

3) Ask yourself three questions:

How will this help the customer?

Can the offering be supported at the necessary operational scale?

Do the financials work?

4) Create unique programs

5) Lead technology effort

6) Align the organization

7) Leverage all channels

8) Know and maintain your ethics

9) Measure like crazy

10) Get outside yourself

We completely agree with them, particularly #9.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business Retailing

Music will not necessarily make things better.

2005-03-02T00:14:00.000-08:00

What goes through your customers’ minds when they are on hold waiting for “the next available representative”?

Here’s a good example. (From alltheseideas.com)

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Customer service agents in India are getting an earful

2005-03-01T19:19:00.000-08:00

Call center employees in India are getting “abusive hate calls” from American customers, The Washington Post reports (free registration required).

Some experts believe this is caused by the resentment felt by some people over the loss of American jobs due to outsourcing. Also, 25% of call center agents “identified such calls as the main reason for workplace stress”

What can we learn from them? Most importantly -as an expert quoted in the article recommends- try not to take it personally when a customer gets mad and acts irrationally.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Be Lean to your Customers.

2005-02-28T22:09:00.000-08:00

James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones (yes, the same pair that brought us Lean Thinking) wrote an article published in the March 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review. However, this time is not about applying “lean” principles in Production, but in the consumption of goods and services. Here’s an excerpt from the executive summary:

By streamlining their systems for providing goods and services, and by making it easier for customers to buy and use those products and services, a growing number of companies are actually lowering costs while saving everyone time.

The easier the service experience, the better for both customers and vendors.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Which one makes a better conversation topic?

2005-02-28T00:18:00.000-08:00

Which one makes a better conversation topic at the water cooler?

The pizza that was delivered within the 30 minutes limit?
The pizza that arrived after the 30 minutes (and was free)?

The pizza that arrived one hour late –and cold- after three phone calls to the store?

Get our point? Customers are much more likely to talk to other people about their bad service experiences than their “normal” business interactions.

The Five Dimensions of Service Quality

2005-02-24T22:38:00.000-08:00

One of the “classic” books about Customer Service Quality is Delivering Quality Service by Valerie A. Zeithaml, A. Parasuraman, and Leonard L. Berry (The Free Press, NY, NY). The first edition of this book was published in 1990: long before the Internet, Outsourcing, CRM systems... and mobile phones were the size of a brick.

But nowadays, its essence is still valid: the importance of measuring and improving quality in services.

The model proposed by these fine authors to measure service quality is called SERVQUAL. In this post we’ll focus on the five dimensions of service, or the criteria used by customers to assess the quality of services according to this model:

Tangibles: Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials.
Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence.
Empathy: Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.

Customers’ expectations and perceptions are measured across these five dimensions using questionnaires.

Even without surveys, these five dimensions help us to better visualize and analyze the services provided to customers. They make the term “service” less ambiguous.

And which dimension is the most important to customers (according to the authors)? Reliability. Do what you say you are going to do.

Don’t worry, we’ll continue writing about SERVQUAL later…

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Satisfaction at Airports

2005-02-23T00:02:00.000-08:00

When we think about customer service quality in air travel, most of the time we think about airlines. But what about airports?

In their fifth annual Global Airport Satisfaction Index Study^SM, J. D. Power and Associates found out that the best rated airports are the ones at Hong Kong (HKG), Singapore (SIN) and Calgary (YYC).

However, one of the most interesting points of this study is that most air travelers still crave the human touch in their transactions. Here’s a copy/paste from their press release:

While overall satisfaction is higher among passengers who check in at curbside, online and at self check-in kiosks, a majority (59%) of passengers check in at the main counter, which takes an average of 19 minutes. Just 18 percent use a self check-in kiosk, which averages 8 minutes, while 10 percent check in at curbside, which averages 13 minutes. While many airlines now allow passengers to obtain their boarding pass through the Internet, currently only 5 percent of passengers use this option.

Anyone remembers the 1987 book Moments of Truth by Scandinavian Airlines’ then-CEO Jan Carlzon?

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Late fees are gone, but attorneys' fees will continue...

2005-02-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

The State of New Jersey has sued Blockbuster for deceptive advertising in its “No More Late Fees” campaign.

(Via plenty of places, but The Experience Economist blog nails it:

[This] is a great example of what happens when your words and actions don't match. Once you make the statement, you need to back it up completely with your actions or the word will get out. There are just too many choices for the consumer to stay with a brand that breaks its promise)

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Air Passenger Rights

2005-02-21T18:32:00.000-08:00

Airline travelers in the European Union recently gained additional rights in case of problems with their carriers. For example, if a flight is delayed for more than five hours, the airline must refund the amount paid for the ticket (plus a free flight back to the initial point of departure, in some instances). Also, a passenger can claim monetary compensation for any resulting damages due to the delay. Oh my.

Obviously, airlines –particularly the cash-strapped ones- are complaining that they are being held responsible for problems beyond their control, like the weather.

If you wish to turn green with envy (assuming you are a non-European frequent flyer), read this poster that summarizes these rights.

Technorati Tags: Airlines Customer Service Business

The Airline Attendant

2005-02-17T16:08:00.000-08:00

You’ll learn something about managing difficult customers, and you’ll also have a good laugh reading this great post from Trevor Gay’s Simplicity Blog. Go visit it.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Soft-drink-damaged Licorice and ISO 10002:2004

2005-02-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, employees don’t care about comments made by customers. Here’s a great example from Des Walsh in his Thinking Home Business blog, where he writes about an Australian supermarket that apparently didn’t care much about Des’s comments regarding soft-drink-damaged licorice.

Just like ISO 9000 is an international standard for quality management, there are ISO guidelines for handling complaints in organizations: ISO 10002.

From the ISO.ch website:

ISO 10002:2004 provides guidance on the process of complaints handling related to products within an organization, including planning, design, operation, maintenance and improvement. The complaints-handling process described is suitable for use as one of the processes of an overall quality management system.

Also, in the ISO1Stop.com online forum, there is a quite comprehensive review of the ISO 10002:2004 standard. Now we have to make some businesses read it and apply its concepts. Like that supermarket in Australia.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service Business

Anger, and how to be Intelligent about this and other Emotions

2005-02-15T21:54:00.000-08:00

Customers can be angry because someone cut them off on the freeway on their way to your business, because they had a fight with their significant other, or just because they just are ticked off for no particular reason.

To get an overview of what anger is, visit this page from the website of the American Psychological Association: Controlling Anger -- Before It Controls You

Also, there’s something called Emotional Intelligence (EI), a concept that has some advocates –such as David Goleman, author of the 1995 book Emotional Intelligence- and quite a few detractors. Most of the discussion is about the scientific validity of Goleman’s work. To give you an idea about the extent of the contest, the neutrality of the article in Wikipedia about EI is currently being disputed.

Here are some “copy/pasted” parts from the Wikipedia's article:

John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey introduced the term [Emotional Intelligence] to psychology in a series of papers. They suggested that the capacity to perceive and understand emotions defined a new intelligence. The Mayer-Salovey model defines emotional intelligence as the capacity to understand emotional information and to reason with emotions. More specifically, they divide emotional intelligence abilities into four areas -- in their four branch model:

the capacity to accurately perceive emotions

the capacity to use emotions to facilitate thinking

the capacity to understand emotional meanings

the capacity to manage emotions

...

[David] Goleman divides up emotional intelligence into the following five emotional competencies:

To identify and name one's emotional states and to understand the link between emotions, thought and action

To manage one's emotional states — to control emotions or to shift undesirable emotional states to more adequate ones

To enter into emotional states associated with a drive to achieve and be successful

To read, be sensitive to and influence other people's emotions

To enter and sustain satisfactory interpersonal relationships

Debate aside, there are many things we can learn from EI. The main one is the possibility of managing our own emotions, particularly those ones that may tarnish our relationship with customers.

Just remember. It's not personal.

Technorati Tags: customer service business

Service productivity and service quality don't mix?

2005-02-12T21:23:00.000-08:00

Are service productivity and service quality completely incompatible?

Not necessarily, writes A. Parasuraman, in this essay in the Managing Service Quality journal (pdf. See details below). If for productivity’s sake, resources are reduced in an area that directly impacts the service that customer receives, then service quality is adversely affected. However, if expenses are reduced in items not perceived by the customer, then service quality levels remain practically unchanged.

The essay Service quality and productivity: a synergistic perspective by A Parasuraman; was published on Vol. 12 Issue 1 of Managing Service Quality on 2002, and it is one of two samples of this journal at Emerald, from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The cost of customer service by phone at FedEx

2005-02-10T05:43:00.000-08:00

From Baseline magazine (via Business 2.0 magazine's weblog): FedEx saves $1.87 each time a customer uses FedEx’s website instead of calling a rep over the phone.

Why spend money on a call center? Here’s a copy/paste:

One reason for this expenditure is that the cost of a customer being frustrated by the company Web site is incalculable, and most customers are easily frustrated given the current state of Web design. People are willing to encounter one or two obstacles in a system, maybe three at most, says Eric Mathews, associate director of the FedEx Institute of Technology. But then, "they totally abandon it."

Also, “chatty” customer service reps do more harm than good to their employer:

FedEx studies reps' behavioral techniques to discover which ones work best with customers. Steward's technique is considered effective. The company found that reps who have no time limits with customers tend to talk too much. Customers view them as "chatty" or "overly nice" and ultimately develop a negative impression of FedEx. "Customers want the facts," says customer service VP Sheila Harrell. Better if the rep solves the problem the customer called about and gets off the phone.

But remember, what works for FedEx will not necessarily work for other companies. Including yours.

Lean Services

2005-02-08T18:39:00.000-08:00

The website from the Lean Enterprise Institute has slides for a presentation about applying “lean principles” to optimize services (free registration required).

“Lean principles”? Manufacturers have been applying them for years. The main idea is to make production more “productive” by getting rid of all the steps in the process –or “waste”- that don’t add any value to the product itself. For example, soldering two parts of a bicycle together adds value to the bike, but moving the uncompleted cycle around the factory floor from one workstation to another other does not. In lean lingo, the waste is called “muda”. Obviously, getting rid of the steps that don’t add value to the product or service makes the process faster… and guess what? It also saves money!

From the customer perspective, the main difference is a faster service, and because there are fewer steps in the process, there are fewer “opportunities” to make a mistake, which improves quality.

Next time you go to a fast-food place, take a look on how they do things. One of my favorite examples is getting the soda machine out into the dining area where customers can help themselves. It makes the food ordering and fulfillment processes much faster and cleaner, and the consumers get a sense of choice and abundance.

But keep in mind, some fast food won’t help your own body get leaner.

Perception thru the Ages

2005-02-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

Perception equals reality. It is one of our favorite mantras here at Servimétrica. Perception is also affected by many factors, both external and internal. Is the age of the “perceiver” one of them?

Take a look at this entry from David B. Wolfe’s blog, Ageless Marketing. It is about how perception changes across the lifespan of a person. Here’s the copy/paste of a juicy paragraph:

In the first half of life, beginning in adolescence on, perceptions generally reflect an objective bias – more strongly influenced by external factors than by inner-sourced factors. However, as midlife approaches, perceptions generally begin taking on a more subjective bias. What a person feels is the truth increasingly carries greater weight than what others say is the truth. Faith begins to outweigh logic, subjective perceptions often trump objective conclusions.

This has implications on how we want our customers to perceive our service, depending on the demographics that we have chosen to serve.

We will not have a TV ad in the Super Bowl (but GoDaddy.com will...)

2005-02-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

For the record, CustomerServiceQuality.com, Servimetrica.com, or any of their affiliates, will not advertise during tomorrow’s TV broadcast of the Super Bowl.

But, let us point you to a very interesting discussion at the brand autopsy blog, about the pros and cons of GoDaddy.com’s intentions of advertising during the Super Bowl. However, some comments to the post were from customers that either praised or complained about GoDaddy’s service.

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that sometimes an innocent discussion about a product or service might bring comments about good and not-so-good experiences from customers. And needless to say, not-so-good experiences make better conversations topics at the water cooler.

The Greatest Experts of Telephone Customer Service

2005-02-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

The greatest experts of telephone customer service are the 911 dispatchers. They deal with stressed citizens in life-or-death situations while keeping their cool. They also have resources like the customer service section at 911dispatch.com

Also, next time you handle a difficult customer on the phone, think about the work that emergency dispatchers do. It should help to put things into the proper perspective.

Some dining out empathy

2005-02-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Really want to know what’s in your waiter’s mind, particularly when you don’t tip him well? (Inquirer minds want to know!) An article on the Dining and Wine section of The New York Times website (free registration required) will let you get that insight, and maybe it’ll make you reach deeper into your pockets when you leave him a tip.

Also, if you own or manage a restaurant, or some other service business, this article will give you an idea of the pressure that front-line employees have to withstand.

More of the same:

Three Interviews in Rotman Magazine

2005-02-01T21:31:00.000-08:00

The winter 2005 edition of the magazine from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto (PDF) has not one, not two, but three interviews with experts about customer experiences (well, the cover is quite unambiguous about the topic of this issue)

First there’s an interview with Joseph Pine and Jim Gilmore, authors of the book The Experience Economy.

How do they distinguish a service from an experience? Here’s a copy/paste:

Goods are tangible and services are intangible, but experiences are memorable.

Second, the questions are for University of Michigan Professor Claes Fornell, inventor of the American Customer Satisfaction Index. This is the reply to the last question in the article, about the key drivers of customer satisfaction. (Ctrl C and Ctrl V again, with some Ctrl B):

In general, there are three: Market matching, quality, and price.

Market matching is the most potent. It simply means that both buyer and seller do a good job – the buyer in terms of judicious choice and the seller in terms of buyer selection, targeting and segmentation. If the buyer selects the ‘wrong’ product or if the seller convinces the ‘wrong’ buyer to purchase, the outcome will not be favourable.

Quality as a general concept also plays a fundamental role.

Price has an effect, but it is much more limited. A low price may make someone buy, but its effect on customer satisfaction is relatively minor. In the end, satisfied customers are very good for business, but dissatisfied customers have even more impact in the opposite direction. A bad customer experience does more harm than a good one does good.

Third, the founder and chairman of IDEO candidly talks about designing products and services, including ‘experience prototyping’.

And as a bonus, there’s also an article by David Dunne, who is a professor at the Rotman School. This is the opening paragraph:

The secret of great brands is the customer experience. If more companies recognized this, brand experiences could go much further in connecting with consumers.

It’s good to see that customer service and experiences are getting more attention from the academic world (check our previous post).

HBR Breakthrough Idea # 14

2005-01-30T16:39:00.000-08:00

Harvard Business Review just published a list of 20 breakthrough ideas for 2005.
Number 14: Toward a New Science of Services by Henry W. Chesbrough. And we have to agree with him. Services Sciences needs to be an academic field of study.

(BTW, Blogs are number 10 on the list)

Before our "pay-per-view" presentation, here’s a word from our sponsors.

2005-01-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

Jackie Huba has a passionate post in her blog about commercials shown before a movie starts… not on TV, but in theaters. And no TiVo remote will make you skip those!

This is an example on how some things can spoil the overall customer experience, even if they seem innocuous on the drawing board.

Your Best Face

2005-01-27T19:01:00.000-08:00

CMOmagazine.com has an excerpt of the book Best Face Forward: Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces With Customers by Jeffrey F. Rayport and Bernard J. Jaworski. (requires free registration)

It is a fresh way to look at interactions with customers, and on how to apply technology to enhance these relationships. The authors also wrote an article based on their book in the December 2004 edition of Harvard Business Review.

Innovating services

2005-01-24T21:43:00.000-08:00

How to innovate something as intangible as services?

Fast Company’s weblog gives us eight basic principles, courtesy of Jeneanne M. Rae and Tim Olgilvie from Peer Insight:

Create a clear challenge statement, expressed in terms of a customer need, not a business need, that focuses on the "white space."

Do strong ideation: a well-designed, well-facilitated process that includes participation from many departments and disciplines and sources of edge-thinking.

Emphasize developing concepts that combine multiple elements of innovation (from your business model and IT platform to the channel) to increase the impact and distinctiveness of the idea.

Use techniques and structures that counter-balance the natural forces of criticism and risk-aversion.

Employ a design that is guided by a base behavioral model of the customer's underlying needs.

Communicate high aspirations for the overall customer experience to stretch the design team's thinking.

Use customer-centric analytical tools to measure the customer experience.

Make creative use of tangible artifacts to reinforced a distinctive experience, the way an ADT lawn sign signals that service or the way Mini Cooper's roadside assistance service is signaled by its window signs.

Real meaning of customer care

2005-01-23T13:22:00.000-08:00

Imagine walking up and down the cemetery looking for a loved one’s plot. In the rain. With your loved ones. Because the cemetery’s office was closed without letting you know in advance.

It happened to Seth Godin, and he writes about this experience in his well-regarded blog.

Fortunately, the cemetery’s caretaker also cared about Seth and his family:

A minute before we were about to give up, the caretaker came by and asked if we needed help. He recognized the name and took us right over. He cared. It showed. He wasn't doing this because he'd get a bonus. He was doing it because it was the right thing to do.

Really caring about your customers helps much more than following manuals and procedures, or framing catchy slogans or mission statements.

You’re fired, and super-size it.

2005-01-20T22:12:00.000-08:00

Lots of blogs blog about The Apprentice.

What the heck. We’ll do it too.

The task for the third season’s premiere (and product placement du jour) was at Burger King.

The losing team was defeated because only two people were trained in the use of the POS terminal (the machine formerly known as cash register) and therefore some customers got impatient and sales were lost because of the long wait times.

Is your business ready to provide great service if things go much better than expected?

And remember, Luck equals Opportunity plus Preparation.

Here's a Tip

2005-01-19T06:55:00.000-08:00

Is there a correlation between the amount of a tip from a restaurant customer and his/her satisfaction with the service?

Not quite, according to research from the Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University (free registration required).

Therefore, the amount of tips that a server receives is not a good yardstick to measure his/her service skills, nor a good motivator to exceed customers’ expectations.

No... we are not going to the Blog Business Summit (we’d love to, though)

2005-01-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

In case anyone’s wondering, nobody here at Servimétrica is going to the Blog Business Summit in Seattle WA on January 24 and 25, 2005.
;^)

Beyond self-service checkout at the store

2005-01-17T06:14:00.000-08:00

Ripped from the headlines from the Washington Post: the latest technologies that help retailers to be more productive and more efficient (ok, to put it more bluntly, to reduce costs), being shown at the annual convention of the National Retail Federation. This link for the article (free registration required)

Among the novelties: a cart that downloads shopping lists and warns customers when you pass a shelf that has one of the wanted items, and videoconferencing terminals at the aisles that allow shoppers to contact an outsourced worker -at a remote contact center- when they need help and cannot find someone at the store.

Obviously, some of these technologies are still being tested.

How many more months until the Wal-Mart greeter is a computer terminal with a camera on top?

Nail It

2005-01-13T23:01:00.000-08:00

Take a look at The Bottom Line column in the January 2005 issue of the “Working Knowledge” newsletter from the Harvard Business School. Titled “Nail Customer Service”, it discusses the importance of using the right metrics to measure customer service, as “managers at different levels of your customer companies will have fundamentally different definitions of effective customer service”.

By the way, did you know that “people will tolerate a much longer wait if they can see themselves in a mirror”?

Complaint Department. Please Take a Number

2005-01-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

Complaint Department. Please Take a Number. (from springwise.com)

Don't like my service? Send a text message to 34007

2005-01-11T21:27:00.000-08:00

From the globetrotters at springwise.com: a South African company called 34007 that offers consumers the opportunity to send their complaints -or just plain comments- about service providers via text messaging, a.k.a. sms using mobile phones. As you may already figured it out, the number to send the text message to is 34007, hence the company name.
34007 acts as an information middleman between the consumer and the business, obviously respecting the privacy of the former. Some more details from springwise.com:

Innovatively, every consumer who uses 34007 gets their own web page on www.34007.com, enabling them to view messages sent to and replies received from suppliers. Suppliers in turn get access to their own web site to view consumer's ratings, feedback, set their own message responses, or determine the benefits they want to hand out each and every time customers interact with them.

Look for similar services coming soon in other countries near you.
And much better and more productive than sending a text message to vote for the next "idol".

You got to know how to hold 'em...

2005-01-10T20:03:00.000-08:00

Seinfeld's “Alternate Side” episode (from the third season) has the perfect come back for those car rental agents that somehow don’t have the vehicles that were previously reserved by customers. This is a "copy/paste" from http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheAlternateSide.htm:

Rental car agent: Next please.
Elaine: Well, go, go.
Agent: Can I help you? Name please?
Jerry: Seinfeld. I made a reservation for a mid-size, and she's a small. I'm kidding around, of course.
[snip]
Agent: I'm sorry, we have no mid-size available at the moment.
Jerry: I don't understand, I made a reservation, do you have my reservation?
Agent: Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
Agent: I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.
Agent: Let me, uh, speak with my supervisor.
(The agent goes into an office with a window in the door so she can be seen speaking with someone.)
Jerry: Uh, here we go. The supervisor. You know what she's saying over there?
Elaine: What?
Jerry: Hey Marge, you see those two people over there? They think I'm talking to you, so you pretend like you're talking to me, okay now you start talking.
Elaine: Oh, you mean like this? So it looks like I'm saying something but I'm not really saying anything at all?
Jerry: Now you say something else and they won't yell at me 'cause they thought I was checking with you.
Elaine: Okay, that's it. I think that's enough, see you later.
(The agent returns.)
Agent: I'm sorry, my supervisor says there's nothing we can do.
Jerry: Yeah, it looked as if you were in a real conversation over there.

Having the TV on as background “music” does help…

Nothing more than feelings?

2005-01-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

So customers are cold and rational, right?
From the Stupid Crimes & Misdemeanors files from Courttv.com, we bring you the case of a disgruntled Verizon Wireless customer who trashed one of their stores at a mall in Fargo, ND.

This is a quite extreme example of how our actions as service providers can affect our customers at an emotional level. At the time we design or improve the experience that we want to provide our customers through our service, we should see beyond the rational and also consider the emotions and feelings that we want to convey.
And this is nothing new. Advertising pros have been doing this for years.

Show Unprofitable Customers the Door

2005-01-04T20:51:00.000-08:00

This comes from Seth Godin’s blog. An Aussie dentist implements drastic measures to be more profitable: show “bad” customers the door. Now he works half the time as before, but makes more Australian Dollars.

Best Buy also tries to do the same, but in a different way.

Mobile Dissatisfaction

2005-01-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

Research done by McKinsey and Co. using data from the Better Business Bureau, shows the main causes of customer complaints against mobile (cellular) telephone service providers in the U.S. (Free registration required):

Billing and related issues, e.g. statement errors.
Carrier’s response to problems at contact centers, such as repeated failure to correct a problem, and contradictory messages from different contact points (even different service representatives at the same Call Center)
“Miscommunication” regarding the terms of the contract between customer and carrier.

The authors recommend that all the involved departments in the phone company -customer service, IT, marketing, and retailing- should be synchronized so the customer receives consistent information at all the “touchpoints”, and to concentrate efforts on billing and call-center operations.

How many different stories is your customer hearing from all the contact points along his/her life cycle?

(Can you hear me now...?)

And CRM means...?

2005-01-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

Quite a while ago, the term “CRM” entered the corporate lexicon, particularly in the Sales and Customer Support departments of large corporations.

CRM stands for “Customer Relationship Management”. According to CRM magazine’s destinationCRM .com website, CRM is “is a company-wide business strategy designed to reduce costs and increase profitability by solidifying customer loyalty”. Siebel, one of the best-known providers of CRM software, defines CRM as “an integrated approach to identifying, acquiring, and retaining customers”.

However, the term CRM still is positioned as the software and/or computer systems that make this possible in organizations, just as the term “Supply Chain Management” is sometimes equated with ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software.

Now… Has CRM delivered results to companies that have implemented it? We think so.

And as a result, are customers more satisfied with their service providers? Has CRM enhanced the customer experience? Well…we wish we could say "yes" to both questions.

How dummies can win over a difficult customer

2004-12-27T19:28:00.000-08:00

On the dummies.com website, there’s an article adapted from their book Customer Service for Dummies about “Winning over a Difficult Customer”.

The basic steps are:

Let the customer vent.
Avoid getting trapped in a negative filter.
Express empathy to the customer.
Begin active problem solving.
Mutually agree on the solution.
Follow up.

The complete article is in this link.

What is "Service Quality"?

2004-12-26T20:33:00.000-08:00

Let’s start with the definition of “Quality” according to the American Society for Quality (ASQ):

Based on customers’ perceptions of a product’s design and how well the design matches the original specifications.

However, in services, the customer compares what he/she received against a “personal” set of standards, which may be quite different from the specifications of the provider.

Therefore, we can define Service Quality as:

The difference between the customer’s expectations of a service, and his/her perception of the obtained service.

Why “perception of the obtained service”?

From the customer perspective, perception equals reality. Also, each customer has different expectations for the same service, even if it comes from the same vendor. These expectations are influenced by many factors, and most of them are not controllable by the service provider, and this is further complicated by the intangible nature of services.

What we need to know is:

what customers expect from our service,
how to influence those expectations,
how to verify if the perceived service exceeds those expectations
and how to provide quality service consistently

This will give us plenty to write about in this blog.

US Airways employees calling in sick (as in "sick and tired")

2004-12-25T22:37:00.000-08:00

Apparently, some US Airways employees decided to give their company a Christmas present: call in sick in record numbers over the Christmas weekend (US Airways press release). To make things worse, winter weather compounded the mess for airlines and their passengers.

This is another example on how low morale can severely affect the operations of a company.

How are your employees really feeling? Is it impacting the service that your customers get?

Happy Holidays

Some holiday shopping empathy

2004-12-24T13:01:00.000-08:00

So you feel tired after hitting the malls for holiday shopping?

Read about how the day is for a Best Buy employee in this Washington Post front-page article titled “Service in a Store Stocked With Stress” (free registration required).

Merry Xmas

Yours truly?

2004-12-23T21:12:00.000-08:00

“Awards-for-loyalty” programs: Are they worth the trouble? Matt Hassan from CapGemini has a good point: in a recent commentary in CRM Magazine he mentions that “customers who stay for rewards leave for rewards”, and that companies should give incentives to customers according to their “inherent loyalty propensity”, as the most loyal customers are the ones that have a higher implicit vendor switching cost, and therefore do not require additional motivation to stay.

We should add something: if a group of customers doesn’t go with the competition because of the cost of switching, it does not mean they don’t deserve good service.

Remember the days before cell phone number portability?

Lean and Green

2004-12-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

Booz Allen Hamilton’s strategy+business website (registration required) recently published an article about the lessons that service companies can learn from “lean” manufacturing operations.

The article (The Lean, Green Service Machine, by Narayan Nallicheri, T. Curt Bailey, and J. Scott Cade) develops these four main ideas:

Improve operations and reduce costs by engineering business processes for speed and quality.
Separate common from unique product characteristics to extract the most value from commoditized processes and to maximize the gains from variety.
Adopt tailored business streams to segment simple and complex offerings and to industrialize the routine while saving more flexible processes for products targeted at the few customers who demand them (and will pay for them)
Push decision making and responsibility to frontline managers who interact directly with customers.

Well, we should check what is being done right: productivity in US manufacturing companies has almost tripled since 1970, but for service providers, it has only increased by 40%.

Quite a long way to go.

Attention Shoppers: Your profile and behavior being analyzed at aisle five

2004-12-21T06:03:00.000-08:00

From the online edition of the Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required): video cameras being used to analyze customer behavior.
Why bother your customers with surveys and interviews? Just have computers analyze what the hidden cameras see about your customers' browsing and buying habits.
Ethical implications (and late-night talk-show jokes) aside, there are companies dedicated to “video mining” of retail shoppers, like Advanced Interfaces and ShopperTrak.

Will this translate to better service, lower process, or more options?

In the meantime, I’ll try to keep my sunglasses on while I shop.

Customer Mania! Hear it from Mr. Ken Blanchard himself

2004-12-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

Remember Ken Blanchard’s best-seller The One Minute Manager from quite a few years ago? Well, this management guru is still writing business books. His latest is Customer Mania! : It's Never Too Late to Build a Customer-Focused Company

In this book, Mr. Blanchard narrates how Yum! Brands (better known by their KFC and Pizza Hut brands, among others) developed and implemented their effort to become a more customer-centered company.

Would you like to hear about it from Mr. Blanchard himself? In the Microsoft LiveMeeting website, there’s the archive of a one-hour web seminar about this book. Plenty to learn from it, even if you don’t lead a multi-national corporation.

The name "servimétrica"

2004-12-19T18:24:00.000-08:00

The name (brand maybe?) “servimétrica” comes from two words:

Servi: from “Service”
Métrica: from “Metrics” or “to measure”

The main idea is, you cannot improve service if you cannot measure it first.

To measure quality in a product is straightforward: you compare it against a set of standards.

In services, because they are intangibles the “standard” varies with each person. What may be “great” service for one customer could be “bad” service from another customer’s point of view.

That’s why improving service quality make such a exciting topic (ok… for me at least).

Stay tuned.

Welcome!

2004-12-18T23:28:00.000-08:00

After blogging about customer service quality in Spanish for a while, I've decided to start a blog in English about the same subject. Each blog will be somewhat independent of each other, but will cover basically the same topic: how to measure and how to improve the quality of customer service and experience.

Almost every day, we experience at least one interaction with a service provider (maybe with a retailer, a phone company, an airline) that leaves us wondering if the businesses we deal with really know what we expect from them. And the worst thing is, every time it gets worse! Great customer service (whatever it means, we'll deal with that later) is the exception, and not the rule. Luckily for us, this gives us a lot to blog about.

Welcome, and enjoy the ride!