Poll Finds That Customer Service and Recognition Trump Privacy, Pricing

Consumers to Providers: Do You Know Who I Am?

I was interviewed last week by Advertising Age about the influence of technology on customer service. Here is the AdAge.com article published on their website on March 10, 2008.

Privacy concerns? Not so much. A Harris Interactive poll finds that a whopping 95% of people believe it is at least somewhat important that companies know "who I am, my buying history, past problems or complaints, preferences and billing record." Some 37% said knowledge of personal history is important, and more than a quarter -- 27% -- called it "very important."

But you can't just know your consumers; you have to love them to keep them. "There's a whole generation of people coming up that will vote with their feet," said Frank Florence, VP-chief marketing officer of Chordiant Software, which commissioned the poll.

• Some 62% of people surveyed said they would not hesitate to cancel or switch services if they had a negative experience, and 60% said they had already done it at least once.
• Of the 28% of people who had never switched service providers, 78% said they would change if they received poor customer service. Enduring bad rapYounger consumers, in particular, are more likely to be less understanding of bumbled customer service, Harris' survey found.

That only makes sense when you consider what this publication has said again and again: This is the age of the tech-empowered consumer, where customer-service rants don't begin and end in a call center but live on in vitriolic e-mails, blogs, broadcast blasts and web videos. One bad customer-service episode doesn't fade quickly; it is revisited, repeated and replayed in perpetuity. And that, of course, puts a new spin on the old customer-service adage that says if people like your product, they'll tell one person, but if they hate it, they'll tell 10 people. Now, thanks to technology, those 10 people are more likely to be 100, 1,000 or even 1 million. "The technology age has really made consumers develop a real-time mentality," said Eric Fraterman, principal of Customer Focus Consulting.

More interactionMarketing executives who think negative chatter doesn't do real damage to their brands should rethink their mind-sets, said analysts and customer-service-industry insiders. "Your brand is impacted by all of your customer interactions," said Forrester Research analyst Bruce Temkin. "Today there are many more opportunities for the customer to interact with your brand -- and there are many more opportunities for people to discuss the interaction they had." The good news is that technology cuts both ways. Companies can use it to better address consumers' comments, needs and complaints. For example, companies such as Chordiant have developed sophisticated call-center software that can predict customer behavior and offer solutions in real time. Say a credit-card customer is upset with a monthly service charge incurred while stuck in an airplane with no internet access. The software can evaluate the customer's payment history and other behavior on file, analyze the problem and offer a set of solutions. In one case, an agent may be given authority to give the consumer a credit of up to $300 (rather than a standard $100) based on the software's conclusion that the solution has a 70% chance of satisfying the customer.

Of course, technology works best when mixed with quality people. "It's tremendously seductive to think we can use technology to solve all our problems. But customers, as tech-savvy as they are, just want to be helped," Mr. Fraterman said.

There is no better way to measure the customer service strength of a company than by the quality of the choices its employees make every day.

Several of my blog entries have echoed the chorus of people who emphasize that great service and an endearing experience is all about people. My first blog entry on this topic was bluntly called: It's about people, stupid...

No surprise then that I felt compelled to quote below a section of an eloquent article by the excellent and insightful author Lior Arussy, published on MyCustomer.com . The emphasis is on the numerous interactions taking place with customers and front line employees such as call center reps, tellers, (inside) sales people, order desk people, etc. Each Moment of Truth provides an opportunity for influencing the perception of the company or the brand. Each interaction will require the front line person to make choices and it is in the final analysis the quality of choices made by employees that matters in winning from the competition.

Quoting Arussy: "Daily choices take place in front of external and internal customers every day. They are dominant in interactions with other people, including staff meetings, email exchanges, phone conversations and in any situation where an individual is in a position to help someone else. Any time there is a recipient on the other end of the action, there’s a daily choice involved.

The real power of organisations is their ability to create excellence, to differentiate themselves and, as a result, to build strong customer loyalty, earn repeat business, and charge a premium for their goods and services.

This power (or lack of it) is directly linked to the quality of millions of daily choices made by employees. The bottom line is that a company’s overall excellence is equal to the sum of the total excellence-seeking daily choices delivered by its people.

There is no better way to measure the strength of a company than by the quality of the choices its employees make every day.

The more excellence delivered, the stronger the customer’s commitment and the greater the amount of business and profits generated. The weaker its employees’ commitment to excellence, the weaker its overall performance.

This is a new way to view the power and strength of organisations, and it requires a different way of leading and motivating people in order to generate daily choices for excellence and exceeding customer expectations.

This bottom-up organisational definition runs contrary to the way most organisations define themselves today. A top-down organisation views its power, strength and brand as an abstract entity, loosely connected to its people. The employees are subservient to the larger organisational definition. According to this line of thinking, even if all the employees leave the organisation, the brand will remain strong; the brand makes the people and not the other way around. In a bottom-up organisation, the organisation is defined by the character and performance of its employees.

The people in the company make the organisation what it is. They are the one creating the assets of the organisation. Although some management and marketing theories claim to have an organisation based on assets other than employees such as brand strength and reputation, those assets are dependent on employees and their choices for excellence. Missing one excellence-oriented employee will make the company weaker. Poor performance by just one employee will make the company weaker. The company does not exist without the people who, through their daily choices, breathe life into the company’s mission statement, values, objectives, strategy and overall definition.

One employee at a time, one daily choice at a time, a company’s strength is actually created. This company’s definition is not an event or a milestone that, once achieved, always remains valid. It is, rather, an ongoing process that can reach new heights (or lows) depending on the daily choices made by employees. The company’s success is not measured by some annual study of corporate brand strength, but by the daily performances of the individuals who are the company. Most companies declare their total commitment to their employees and tout their initiatives to promote employee welfare on the pages of their glossy annual report, while relatively few companies truly understand what it means to treat employees as your most important asset."