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'

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Twitter: @accordengage
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