Don't be so bloody presumptious! #customer experience

I bought a new car a few months ago and received this postcard in the post yesterday from the company I bought it from. I wasn't very impressed.

It's perhaps relevant that when I bought the car I wasn't very pleased with the service I received. The garage had promised to put petrol in for me and they didn't. Also, I had a business meeting that afternoon so arranged to collect it with time to spare to drive to the meeting. When I arrived it wasn't ready and it was a further 90 minutes before I was able to drive away. I arrived 20 minutes late for the meeting! It made it even worse when they showed little remorse for inconveniencing me.

And as a result, when the car needed servicing in December of last year I'd no intention of asking them to do it. I took it somewhere else instead.

Now clearly the previous experience has coloured my judgement of Arnold Clark. I wondered yesterday whether my concern about the postcard would have been as great had the initial experience been more positive. My conclusion is that I would still have been annoyed, for two reasons:

1. They assumed that they have my business
2. Because I had to take action if I didn't want to proceed

The customer experience lessons to be learned? Firstly, NEVER PRESUME YOU HAVE MY BUSINESS! You have to earn the right to my business, again and again and again. And secondly, THINK FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS PERSPECTIVE NOT YOURS. In this case what this means is ringing the customer (they have my number) to ask if I'd like to have the car serviced, not making me ring to tell them I don't want to. Their assumptive sell does nothing to develop their customer experience.

I did ring them. I don't think they understood my perspective, it's too difficult for them to see beyond what they assume to be the most effective sales technique.

For more information on the things to do to truly engage customers see my blog posted on 9th January entitled 'A Customer Engagement Manifesto for 2012'

LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield
Twitter: @accordengage
Telephone: (0044) 07906650019

Contrasting Public Sector Experiences - and lessons learned (Part 2)

Following on from the poor experience with the Office of the Public Guardian, on Friday of last week I had a completely different experience with another public sector organisation - NHS Blood and Transplant, who manage the voluntary donation of blood by hundreds of thousands of people across the UK.

My appointment to give blood was last Friday afternoon. I took with me the letter I'd received confirming the appointment. Actually I'd had a busy afternoon so could have done without having to finish early but when I got the letter out I couldn't not go. The strapline 'do something amazing' was on it, and it also thanked me for donating. I felt valued already and so it didn't seem right not to go.

I felt I'd made the right decision as soon as I walked into the room. A nurse took my letter and thanked me again for going. The same happened when I was called to give a small sample, and again when I was called to actually donate. The nurse who looked after me couldn't have been more pleasant and was made sure that I was comfortable. She checked I knew what was going to happen and had no concerns, and then came back to me a couple of times to make sure everything was ok.

Afterwards, they sat me down, made me a cup of coffee, offered me a biscuit and stopped to talk. And then when I left several of the staff there said "thanks" and "goodbye". I felt valued and was pleased I'd gone.

As with the previous experience, I know it wasn't personal to me. The process is designed to be the same for everyone. But it's 'outside - in', thought about from the customers perspective - and on the basis that I seem to see the same people there everytime I go, I suspect it produces the results they're looking for - loyal customers who go back time and time again.

I guess they're forced to get the process right because if it's not, they wouldn't get sufficient people going back, and whilst I suspect that's true, it's more than that. I believe that because the process is customer focused, the behaviours of the nurses follow almost automatically and then then the whole thing comes together to deliver a great experience for their customers, time and time again.

Design your processes to evoke positive emotions for your customers, make them feel good, and they'll come back....

Short Termism: The Dumbest Idea in the World

I must reference Stephen Baishya for this post. Stephen responded to my post on Monday 9th January entitled 'A Customer Engagement Manifesto for 2012' and pointed me in the direction of another blog post.

It's entitled "The Dumbest Idea in the World: Maximising Shareholder Value"

I've since read it and it contains some powerful thoughts with huge relevance for these troubled economic times. It's also full of extraordinary common sense that will appeal to anyone whose role is about the delivery of service to customers. Here's a few of the snippets I like best:

“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy… your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products."
Jack Welch

“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value.” The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on
delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders. If you take care of customers, shareholders will be drawn along for a very nice ride. The opposite is simply not true: if you try to take care of shareholders, customers don’t benefit and, ironically, shareholders don’t get very far either.”
Roger L. Martin

"Admonishing CEOs (and investors) to ignore the expectations market and refocus on delighting the customer isn’t going to work, says Martin. It’s as likely to be “as effective as admonishing frat boys to stop chasing girls.” For CEOs, there are massive incentives for staying attuned to it and severe punishments for ignoring it. Investors, analysts, and hedge funds continue to reward firms
that meet expectations and punish those that do not."
Roger L. Martin

"We must restore authenticity to the lives of our executives. The expectations market generates inauthenticity in executives, filling their world with encouragements to suspend moral judgment. They receive incentive compensation to which the rational response is to game the system. And since they spend most of their time trading value around rather than building it, they lose perspective on how to contribute to society through their work. Customers become marks to be exploited, employees become disposable cogs, and relationships become only a means to the end of winning a zero-sum game."
Roger L. Martin

Customers become marks to be exploited, employees become disposable cogs, and relationships become only a means to the end of winning ....WOW!

"American capitalism hangs in the balance. A large number of rent-collectors and financial middlemen making vast amounts of money are keeping the current system in place. The fact that what they are doing is destroying the economy will not sway their thinking. As Upton Sinclair noted, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it.”"
Roger L. Martin

The blog also quotes Peter Drucker, who said, very succinctly: "There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer... The customer is the foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. He alone gives employment. And it is to supply the consumer that society entrusts wealth-producing resources to the business enterprise."

In my blog I referred to it as short termism. We're sufferering from chronic short term thinking in business. It's deeply embedded in the very structure and the way in which business is conducted. Life revolves around this week, this month, this quarter, in order to get the right results for this half year, this year. And I think it's becoming more firmly embedded directly as a result of the economic environment we're in.

The blog concluded that change will happen and that customer value will replace shareholder value. Some strong visionary leadership is required I think.....

The blog is by Steve Denning and is Roger L. Martin's book Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL and you can read it at http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/

What's the problem at Tesco?

I was reading an article by Robert Peston this morning following Tesco's results announcement. In it he questions whether their poor relatively performance is a blip or something more fundamental.

He comments:
"The big question is whether Tesco's British problems are mainly the result of pricing errors made in the past few months by the new chief executive, Philip Clarke, who took over from Sir Terry Leahy in March, or whether they represent structural flaws that Mr Clarke inherited.

To put it more crudely, is this Mr Clarke's mess or one bequeathed to him by his predecessor, who ran the company for 15 years and turned Tesco into the global giant that it is today?
And, if the problems are structural, how easily can they be sorted?"

The fall in the share price would seem to suggest that the market seems to think it could be the latter.

If that's true, what's causing it? I know of an unofficial Tesco staff website so I decided I'd have a quick look and see if it provided any clues. Here's some of the comments I found (all posted during the last six months:

"...in my experience, around 99% of tesco staff are unhappy with tesco. they pay well though and that is the only reason they do their jobs and i cant say i blame them but that does not excuse poor service. as a customer i cant really fault any of the shop staff that i have come across although there are a few grumpy ones on the back door of the odd shop. i personally do not put it down to individual shops or even regional management. tesco as a company are obsessed with image and cost cutting and it is the staff and customers who are suffering as a result of these ill thought out ideas and company policies."

"It's down to training and staff self esteem. If staff are so demotivated that they don't care how they act, in front of customers, then something is wrong. Tesco, as a company, has gradually lost the ability to identify with the customer and customer dissatisfaction is growing. The emphasis put on one in front and till speed has outweighed service. While I appreciate that some customers can be difficult and even rude, there's no reason for bad manners from staff."

"I'm a (long-time) ex-employee of Tesco and I'm seeing the same thing in stores all over the country. I travel a lot as part of my work, and every single store I go in these days has problems with customer service. I've actually come to expect distant, uninterested and visibly stressed out staff at Tesco - it's really not a lie to say I can't remember the last time I had good service in one of the stores.A few weeks ago I went into Sheffield - Infirmary Rd store (my nearest), got round with a basket of purchases and found that more than half of the checkouts were unmanned with queues an absolute mile long. The staff who were managing the checkouts were trying to herd everybody into one big queue - which was stretching along the front and half way down the wines and spirits aisle. But people coming from the other side didn't realise this and were joining single queues. It was a total disaster and I was hearing call after call going out for the management team to get to the checkouts and nobody came. There was no way on God's earth I was standing in those queues so I went to the service desk - it was mobbed with angry customers - and gave them my basket.I was advised by the staff there to submit feedback on the comments website, as this issue had been caused by budget cutting and the staff in store were as angry about it as the customers were (didn't quite explain why so many replenishment staff weren't being moved to checkouts though). I felt very sorry for the people having to take the flack over it and I did submit my comments. Roughly five weeks later, still no reply. Is this really how badly wrong Tesco is getting things these days? If it is, how long is it going to be before sales start to suffer spectacularly?"

"Sounds about right, its ok Tesco wanting more from their staff but there comes a point where you can only cut so many hours before the quality of service suffers. You see this in most stores!It is highly annoying as a shell filler to be pulled from the job you are supposed to be doing to go and support checkouts, which to be fair, should have a full bank during busy periods anyway! It’s not unheard of in our store for shelf fillers to spend half their shift covering tills and it’s just compromising availability and the presentation on the shop floor. Then this member of staff often gets complained at by management for not completing the tasks they were given on their department.This isn’t the customers fault, but unfortunately when you have a demoralised and unhappy member of staff then service is going to suffer."

"i informed customer service that customers are being overcharged at the self service 6 months ago and they still haven't fixed the issue eg: price on the shelf £1.40 ...at self service £1.89!"

The reasons why certainly start to become clear when you read comments like these. In a cost cutting environment, having employees fully engaged becomes even more important. Without that , the customer experience suffers. My own experience of Tesco's service is that it is now mediocre at best and I no longer find myself driving an extra few miles to seek out one of their stores. And the sales results speak for themselves!

I wonder a) if they'll be able to turn it around and b) how many other organisations are storing up exactly the same problem as a result of decisions they've made in recent months.

By the way, if you want to have a look at the comments, you can find the website I mentioned at http://www.verylittlehelps.com/index.php?topic=10513.0

Footnote: Robert Peston updated his article following an interview with Tesco CEO Philip Clarke. Mr Clarke indicated that:

"However he concedes there was a more fundamental weakness, which is that the group under-invested in the UK stores over the past few years, as it concentrated its expansion on Asia, Eastern Europe, the US, banking and the internet.

In the years since the 2008/9 recession, the UK managed to generate maximum profits rather than maximum sales, he implies. And in his view this means there were and are too few employees in stores. So, for example, checkout queues can be too long and shelves may not be as well stocked as they should be. He is planning to remedy all this. In the next year and a bit, there will be a big investment in what he describes as the "experience" for British shoppers, with thousands more people hired (Tesco already employs 300,000 in the UK and half a million around the world) and store layouts changed."

The number of employees in stores obviously came out in the comments above. I guess it would be surprising for him to admit there's an engagement problem but I suspect that employees would have appreciated an acknowledgement of that from him.....