Famous for 15 seconds

Radio 4’s You and Yours programme picked up on our mission “how do we stop doing dumb things to customers” today and included our sound bite. How do you sum up the answer to customer experience in 15seconds?

The thing to do is to recognise that customers know what’s wrong, so listen to them and act on it. Short and sweet eh?

You and Yours are looking to reward good service by accepting nominations which they'll broadcast on air. Today’s were:
Nat Savings & Investments’ call centre
A lady in New Maldon post office

To keep nominations coming in, they ask you send them via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/youandyours_contact.shtml

Saving on the Xmas cards

Just a quick thank you to all of you who didn't notice we were scrooge like with the Xmas cards (again !) . We gave the money to a charity called Odyssey www.odyssey.org.uk which "enhances the quality of life for people with cancer through imaginative programmes of challenging and dramatic activities using the outdoors".

Hope your mission statement is as useful as theirs...if not change it! If you can't change the world, get another mission...well, 23rd January is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year.

Seriously, some mission statements can, at best, be called fatuous..... They don't need to be. Look hard at what turns your people on, what changes their world, where the stretch is. Does your mission do it for them?

Our mission? Thought you'd ask that: "How do we stop doing dumb things to our customers and people?" We've been at it a while now - hard yards, but inspiring stuff !

Customer services songs to brighten your Monday mornings !

“There’s no service like no service
it’s the best service we know
Everything about it is appealing
Everything about it is a wow
Customers can get that happy feeling
And we can show you how!”

Send us your songs (peter.massey@budd.uk.com ) or publish them yourself under the comments !!!

Happy at work? And a fast+simple Amazon experience

Jonathan Wilson is moving from our advisory board (see www.budd.uk.com/people.html) to lead Budd's executive coaching and change management. He reminded me the other day about the Gallup data on the 12 key questions to ask your staff ( and yourself !) if you want to know what happy bunnies they are.

I won't fire them all at you, but the first four are an interesting self test. Try them:
1 Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2 Do I have the right materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3 At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4 In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?

Let us know what you find.... Email us - peter.massey@budd.uk.com

I started to find the 12 questions by Googling but, as is too often the case these days with Google, lots of intermediaries are top of the list. Luckily Amazon was one of them. I pressed one click to go to the book that contains them "First, break all the rules". I pressed one click to add it to my basket, one click to check out and one click to confirm. Approximately 20 seconds. That was Thursday and the book arrived today Saturday. That's what we call fast+simple.

Had any similar experiences? Email us with them - peter.massey@budd.uk.com

Smart People…don’t buy on price

I had the need to contact my contents insurer yesterday to check whether I could make a claim for my recently damaged camera. Ok, in itself it’s not a situation that creates a lot of emotion in most people, unlike a tree falling on your house or car as we could expect in the gales tomorrow, but to me, my camera is pretty important.

First attempt was quickly answered but after the initial chat I ended up on hold for 2 minutes before the call was unceremoniously dropped. Second attempt was answered by Guy who said “oh yes we have had problems with the phones today”. His attempts to put me through to the Claims team (funny, I thought I’d rung the claims number) failed so he proceeded to take all the details of the claim from me in person. Name, age, occupation, name of your insurer, burglar alarm fitted (“I DROPPED my camera…!”)….on and on.

“Isn’t this all on the system?”

“I don’t have access to the system here”

“So given that I have accidental damage cover, can you confirm that the camera will be covered?”

Silence for a moment… “We are not your insurer, we are only an agent and cannot confirm any details of a claim”.

“But you sold me the policy so you must know what is covered ‘in principle’, I’m asking ‘in principle’ ”.

More silence while a more empathetic response was considered. Then… “We are not your insurer, we are only an agent and cannot confirm any details of a claim”.

It’s absolutely true that we buy on price but wouldn’t it be great if insurers were willing to participate in an independent claims service rating? I’ve just begun this process so I’ll let you know how I get on. If I hear the word ‘sorry’ or ‘I understand’ at any point in the process I’m making a note!

Talking of queues.....

A last minute run to Mumbai caused me to make a personal visit to the Indian Embassy on the Aldwych this morning. What an amazing taste of the real India... At 8am I joined a 400m queue round the building that looked like we were waiting for tickets to a reincarnation of the Beatles. Why didnt I stop and get that coffee to keep me warm! The prize of this queue was to get a hand numbered ticket. We moved rapidly down the pavement as if someone was pulling the end of a rope trick. Once at the window, the handwritten ticket was passed over and a brave man, protected only in his woolly cap, smuggled people into the side door. Once inside, a large room crammed to the rafters with bewildered people. We watched a numbering system tick down with alarming alacrity as 10 windows were besieged and paperwork mountains professionally grew behind tins of cash. No cheques please, they take time. Go away for coffee and you pick up your passport duly stamped an hour later, scrum permitting. By 10.30am, the queue had been beaten, numbered, administered. An hour later the whole thing was done! That's one side of India. Hugely efficient administration marked by chaos, lack of signposting and directions. Stress levels raised by lack of clarity, a certain lack of style, and a whole lot of indifferent but efficient staff. The other side of India? A tiny drop from the inward investment and the tourist budgets, together with a entrepeneurial restaurant owner would have the whole experience dressed in turbans, colour, technology and the kind of service that India can do so well. After all it happens every day apparently.

Check in online and avoid the queues....not

Virgin Airlines bag drop queues are a joy ! (see photo). You check in online before traveling to speed up check in, save trees, know you can sit together and leave home later. Sounds great but as the photos show, Virgin hasn’t worked out how to avoid queues to “not-check-in” in the year since I last flew with them. The bag drop queue being longer than the check in queue. 2 simple things to do – forecasting the relative number of checked in vs check in customers so the spread of desks is matched; alter the process at the desk. There’s no recognition of anything you did online. Same questions, same process as if you hadn’t checked in. To cap it they still give you an extra paper folder marked tickets to put your boarding card in. Come on Virgin you can do better than that !

Fraud direct

first direct called a couple of weeks ago – the fraud department – to check on recent dodgy transactions. These calls always annoy me and seem to have very little logic behind them - checking whether I made the 11.67 payment to Tesco DVD rental –“yes, just like I do every month on standing order”. But today they proved their worth and stopped 2 transactions which I hadn’t made. One was for £365.

That’s all well and good but then they screwed up. Rather than trusting me to cut up the card they want it returned in pieces as proof. They stopped the card leaving me without access to my current account in the week before Christmas and the replacement will take ‘5 to 7 working days’ to reach me.

You’re feeling so grateful they’ve caught the transactions that it seems hard to complain about the two points above. After all if I didn’t buy anything on my card then it would never be cloned, so it is my fault!!

We actually think first direct is a pretty good company when it comes to not doing the dumb things to customers. You can read our '100 Things...' whitepaper on them in the library via the link.
PS. The card arrived in 2 days.