Said here and elsewhere many times. The real foundation of delivering a valued customer experience is attitudinal. It actually works best when you like other people, not for the profit they bring you (although they will). But just because you look around in life and see people that you can help.
Problem is we often fail to see what is right in front of our own faces.
When we care. When we love. When we act. Then a ... Read More
By Randy Saunders
In the latest Customer Creation podcast, Blake Landau interviews Maura Sullivan and Rob Siefker from the Zappos call center management team.
Maura and Rob have both worked for Zappos since the ... Read More
By Randy Saunders
Convergys recently surveyed 5,000 customers on their attitudes towards their primary bank, both before and after last summer’s economic downturn. While many companies struggle in the global recession, financial institutions find themselves especially challenged in the current environment.
The Convergys research report, “Recent Trends in Retail Banking,” finds that while nearly 22 percent of respondents hold banks responsible for current economic conditions, this attitude is not having a significant impact on customer loyalty; good customer service remains the most important factor.
Key findings from the research include:
By Randy Saunders
In the spring of 2008, Canadian musician Dave Carroll and his band were changing planes in Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport. During the stop-over, the band watched in horror as baggage handlers threw their guitars around. Later when Carroll arrived in Omaha, he would discover that his $3,500 Taylor guitar had been damaged.
For nearly a year, Carroll has tried to get United to pay for the damage. But he got nowhere.
So he promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation that he would write and produce three songs about his experience with United Airlines and share his videos with everyone worldwide. They should have taken him seriously. On Monday he delivered on that promise by ... Read More
By Randy Saunders
Amtrak (U.S. national passenger railroad) has an automated telephone agent named “Julie” who answers about 50,000 calls per day. Since her debut in 2001, Julie has earned high marks from callers, who have given her an approval rating of more than 90 percent. As automated attendants go, the system is one of the best. She’s designed to be friendly, pleasant and helpful — and mostly, she is.
For those thousands of passengers that call to check a schedule or make sure their train’s on time, they’ll hear Julie reply with “got it!” to each request. And when she doesn’t understand you she even apologizes, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that.”
While Julie efficiently ... Read More
By Randy Saunders
Delta Air Lines, the world’s largest carrier, has stopped using India-based call centers to handle sales and reservations. The company has decided the cost savings of directing calls offshore are outweighed by the backlash from customers.
Delta had said previously that moving calls to India saved $25 million a year. However, they hadn’t anticipated all the complaints by American customers who say they sometimes have tremendous difficulty understanding the foreign telephone workers.
"Customer acceptance of call centers in foreign countries is low and our customers are not shy about letting us have that feedback,” said Richard Anderson, Delta's chief executive.
While Delta ... Read More
Delivering a perfect customer experience is a tall order … but keep in mind that this, by my definition, is not requiring perfection but instead requires a level of value that turns customers into advocates for your business.
And yet, given the ability we all have to rant out disappointing personal experiences with various vendors, just one disgruntled customer can do a lot of damage — especially if that person is a radio announcer like Wyatt Cox. He has a program where he tries to help businesses by letting customers tell their own stories on the air.
Wyatt, or more precisely, his ... Read More
My posting earlier this week regarding Net Promoter Scoring is not going down without challenge!
I cited a comment by Timothy Keiningham, senior vice president and head of consulting at IPSOS Loyalty, that has provided contradictory findings. Tim wrote back a firey fact-filled and passionate response that I felt should be presented as an article of its own … with that said, here is the other side of the debate:
By Dale Wolf
Claes Fornell, director of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index has plenty of evidence to support the role of customer satisfaction in creating bottomline success. Customer satisfaction shows up faster than ever on a company’s bottom line and companies that score high ratings in the index beat the stock market as a whole.
This is especially true in the consumer retail marketplace where ... Read More
The airline industry on average makes it easy for all of us to complain. What customer experience? All we get is transportation from one city to another. The experience is dreadful. It is easy to rant on the airlines because they have, with a few exceptions, made themselves a target of our ranting. An article by Ginger Conlon (Ending Contact Center Chaos) on the 1to1 Media Blog about Continental Airlines gives me hope. Wow, I did not know there was an airline anywhere in the US that still served an in-flight meal. I recently went from Cincinnati to San Francisco with a box of assorted snacks that I had to ... Read More
Dear Dale –
I would like to respond to your comments regarding to the research I conducted with Professors Bruce Cooil (Vanderbilt University), Tor Wallin Andreassen (Norwegian School of Management), and Lerzan ... Read More