Due to a canceled outbound flight/lost bag
situation, which took more than a week of
phone calls to four different service centers
to “resolve”, I have had an opportunity to
observe various businesses and their attitudes
and strategies for customer care.

It all starts with one executive decision.

There is a single, primary, strategic decision that
every company has to make with regard to how much
“care” their customer service staff provides. 

It’s binary.  Either:

1) You decide to provide customer service as a value
2) You decide to provide a necessary customer service “presence” at the lowest possible cost.

All subsequent decisions, staff behaviors, and customer experiences start with this one decision.  Care or Cost?

What service do you get?

When you are face to face (or phone to phone) with a customer representative, ask yourself, is this person instructed, motivated, encouraged and authorized to actually help me? Or are they being instructed and paid to infuriate me by saying, “I can’t help you.  I apologize for the inconvenience, can I do anything else to help you?” 

If Azzarello Group were a big enough company that we couldn’t answer all phone calls personally, and you phoned one of my customer care centers with a problem, this is what would happen:

1.  The issue would be logged as a “customer disappointment”, not as a “trouble ticket”.  The phrase “trouble ticket” enrages me.  It is an internal, information-free, and motivation-deprived name for a serious, real customer issue.  Language matters.

2. But first you would be greeted with a recorded voice that says:
Thank you for calling Azzarello Group.  You made a good decision to call.  Relax, we intend to actually help you. Please bear with us for ONE list of choices so we can connect you directly to a human who can best help you.  We will not make you to talk to a voice activated system and pretend it’s a benefit for you.  If none of our standard choices address your problem, just stay on the line and someone will answer the phone to learn about what you need, and will do what it takes to help you. 

3. My customer service representatives would be instructed to actually help.  They would have the training to turn a customer disappointment into a customer happiness, and the authority and/or budget to do so.

4. They would be measured on the number of transitions to happy customers, not the number of closed “trouble tickets”.  When you measure closed trouble tickets you just encourage your staff to be not-helpful, but more quickly.

Make sure Technology works!

Another thing that I feel very strongly about is that if you substitute technology for a person as in your service delivery and you want to provide actual, good service, three things need to happen.

1. It has to WORK!!!  Don’t require flash plug-ins that not everybody has, or provide links that don’t go anywhere. Test the hell out of any technology that is used in lieu of a person and make sure it works 100% of the time.  I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to use a website to provide feedback or report an issue instead of picking up the phone, and the online process doesn’t work! If you want people to use your online system instead of calling you, make sure your technology works! 

2.  Technology should never make humans feel stupid.  First it should work, and it should work in a way that makes sense to a human.  Every time I try to use a self check-out at a store, what I am instructed to do is incongruent in some way with what you actually need to do to get it to work.  I always end up feeling stupid AND requiring a human to get involved.  Actually watch what people struggle with, make it work well and easily, as expected, then people will use it.  You will keep customers and you will save money. 

3. Technology should never rob people of their humanity.  Never make a person talk to a voice recognition system.  Nothing is more infuriating than talking to a computer in the first place, then having it respond, “I’m sorry I didn’t’ get that …”.  By the time your customer gets to a human, your automated greeting and routing has made them angry, even if they weren’t angry to begin with.  I would never put one of these systems between my business and my customers.  It breaks all rules of customer care, and it’s only real function is to cut cost.  Back to the original primary decision.  Which is your primary strategy?  Care or Cost?
 
A tale of two customer Service Models

You can determine a company’s customer service strategy based on observing their behaviors and noting thier investment in: Motivation, Systems, Authorization and Training.  It becomes pretty clear how they made that initial strategic decision: Care or Cost?

I will illustrate this using my recent experinece traveling on United, but being re-routed on Lufthansa, and losing my luggage as an example.

1. Motivation - Customer Service Strategies:

Care Decision: People believe it is their job to solve the customer problem
Cost Decision: People believe it is their job to close the “trouble ticket”

(Cost)  On Day 2 in the UK of not having our luggage, the United baggage service rep said, We found the bag. It will be put on the first plane to London this morning.  Once it is there, it will be routed according to the lost bag claim you filed and you will be called regarding delivery.  From now on you should call the Lufthansa phone number associated with your lost bag claim. (i.e., Don’t call me again, “trouble ticket” closed.)

(Cost) On day 4 of not having luggage, we called the Lufthansa lost bag people who told us that the bag had been flown to Munich, and is scheduled on the flight from Munich to London to arrive at 16:55 at which time we will be phoned to so the bag can be “rushed to us”.

(Cost) At 18:00, after not receiving said phone call, we called the Lufthansa lost bag people again, who tell us that they have identified the bag and it is in San Francsico.  Outright lying and making up information about flights to Munich was a new twist for me!

(Care!) Next: Finally thinking to call the United 1K baggage service vs. the standard phone number, I got someone on the phone who was actually motivated to solve the problem.  It is a shame that United has made the actual “care” choice only apply to their top tier customers.  But, the agent, Grace, apologized for the problem, took personal action, got a hold of our bag personally, re-tagged it and got it on the next flight to London – the one she said it was on.  She called the next day to follow up, but once it was in London, it went into Lufthansa’s system. 

2. Systems – Customer Service Strategy:

Care Decision: The systems are quipped to allow credits, upgrades, refunds, make outbound phone calls and allow the person to say “yes”.

Cost Decision: The systems are locked down to prevent any cost incursions no matter what the customer situation. No reason or business judgment can make a difference. The service person is only able to report, “the system won’t let me do that”.

(Cost)  Once the bag was actually in London and needed to be delivered to us, the Lufthansa “Express Bag Delivery Service” was not able to call a US mobile phone number to arrange where to deliver our bag.  So they simply didn’t call.  When we called them, and tried to expedite they said “We’ll send a Telex to our depot“.  A Telex???  Talk about technology investment.  How about a pigeon?  ….  I digress. 

We also learned that their system for their “same day delivery service”, only allowed them to, and I quote,“hopefully deliver the bag tomorrow”.  As it turns out their system also did not allow them to update our contact phone number or the delivery address.  So they ended up not calling, and ultimately delivered the bag to the place we were three days earlier. 

(Care)  This did NOT happen, but an example of a system that allowed for care might have an “harmed customer button”, (that may require a supervisor passcode) to get to a screen that would allow outbound phone calls to any phone number and the ability to route the task to a third party, actual “same day” delivery service.

3. Authorization & Training – Customer Service Strategy

Care Decision: People are trained to listen, think, and make judgment, expected and encouraged to actually solve problems. People are allowed to incur cost to solve a customer problem.
 
Cost Decision: People get fired for incurring cost to solve a customer problem. People are trained to only read what is on the screen and instructed to say “I am sorry for the inconvenience. Is there anything else I can help you with?”  

(Cost)  On my way home a week later (still without the bag, by the way) when I told the story to a United agent about being a 1K traveler whose weekend in the Lake District was ruined do to a cancelled flight, and a bag of being over a week late, and my husband is staying in the UK to collect the bag from where it was delivered to the wrong place said only, “my system will not allow me to upgrade you”.  I think we all know that in this case the agent was using the “system” as an excuse for what was a training, authorization, and motivation issue.

(Care)  I waited a bit closer to the flight time, and then went to the transfer desk inside security.  I told my story again to another United Agent.  I was at this point doing an experiment to determine how many United agents I would need to tell this story to, to find someone who even cared a little.  Turns out to be three.  Finally, Hema Amin, at the transfer desk in LHR heard this story and actually said:

That’s terrible.  I’m so sorry your vacation was ruined.  I can’t upgrade you myself, but I will call my supervisor to get a code to allow me to upgrade you.  I told her that whatever happened from this point on that she was a star for being the first person to care at all, and that I greatly appreciated it.  I did not embellish the story I told her, but she called her supervisor on her cell phone after not getting through on the desk phone, and told a story on my behalf including all the details I gave her and ending in “so things just went from bad to worse, and I think we should upgrade her”.  She got the approval, and I am now typing this in business class, sipping a glass of champagne.

Cutting Costs without Cutting Quality of Service

I’m not suggesting that companies provide limitless service and don’t worry about cost at all.  In the next post I will discuss ways to understand the value of keeping a customer and ways to cut the cost of customer service without cutting the care.  It’s possible if you start with the strategic decision of providing care first, then cutting cost as a tactic, not as a strategy.

Heros and Villains

• Companies who made the Care decision:  Zappos, Verizon, JCrew, Ritz Carlton
• Companies who made the Cost decision:  AT&T, ATT&T, AT&T, Lufthansa, Comcast

What has your experience been?  Leave a comment.