On a New Year’s Eve, one of my team members got a call from a customer wishing her a Happy New Year. She did not recognize the customer in first instance but after the customer told her complete incident, she recognized her.
Apparently, the customer had to struggle a lot to get her concern resolved until she got in touch with my colleague. My colleague helped her in getting her concern resolved. And the customer remembered this act of hers and related her interaction as a WOW moment. This is why she decided to call her on New Year Eve and give her wishes.
What made this interaction stand out? I think the problem solving approach of my colleague. I agree it is her job to resolve the customer’s concern but she could have easily passed the buck to some other entity, department, person or whatever. So many times we have seen and observed that people simply pass the buck and do not own the problem. With no one taking ownership, customer’s frustration increases and thus the chances of providing great customer experience is lost.
In a report published by Knowledge @ Wharton emphasis is on this point. The report examines the ways and means of providing wow experience in retail stores to customers. Biggest challenge faced by retailers is lack of problem ownership.
Courtney stresses it is important for retailers to have a clear, simple problem resolution process. "The biggest issue is problem ownership," she says. "If all you can do is train everybody on one thing related to problem-solving it would be getting people to own the problem and not pass it off." Hoch says that while problem resolution was not as great a factor as some of the other five elements, one common thread emerged from the research: "A person stepped up to the plate and figured out how to solve the problem." Having that experience changed the consumer's state of mind from helplessness to, "'Boy, somebody came up and helped me.' We all like a hero, but it doesn't happen very often," Hoch notes.
Every retailer can have best quality products and can create great ambiance, but it is the small gestures that make a difference.
by Ramesh , on July 15, 2009 5:10 AM
Problem ownership is indeed the biggest frustration for a customer - you just get shunted from one person to the other. And when a customer gets an experience like you have mentioned in the post, it stands out and you get a loyal customer for life.
It might be an idea for big customer service departments to be organised customerwise (if an agent gets a call, she "owns" that customer completely till the issue is resolved.
by A journey called Life , on July 15, 2009 8:32 AM
The minute you get genuinely involved and go a little out of the way to help the customer, you know you have one for life.
All it takes is a little more time, if only every customer's difficult problems were treated this way..
by SiD , on July 15, 2009 8:59 AM
From my experience you remove the humanity factor from a retail store and you get a retail mall!!!
Loyalty to the customer sounds good on the books, but nowadays CRM just stands out as a software tool which becomes a high-tech peeping Tom in the customers private life!!!
I appreciate the WOW moment which is as unique as it sounds.
by le embrouille blogueur , on July 16, 2009 5:04 AM
That was a complete story of good service and great feedback .... wish more of these happened in real life !!
by Ashish Sukhadeve , on July 17, 2009 12:02 AM
Yes, i totally agree with you! Excellent service helps in retaining them.