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Good service

What is good service? This is the question which I usually put to myself.

Today early morning (around 6:00 AM), door bell of my apartment rang. Usually, I do not wake up with doorbells but today was different. I woke up and did not disturb Zoobie. Lazily, I moved out of bed with eyes still half closed. I opened the door and cool breeze of air hit me. I realized that it was raining outside. With my eyes still half shut, I saw my newspaper guy standing outside.

I usually see my newspaper guy only when he comes to take payment from me. And he comes on second Sunday of the month to collect his payment and he usually comes late in the day. "Today is not his payment day and this definitely not the time to collect payments", I told myself.

"Sir, yeh apka paper hai (Sir, this is your newpaper.)" Newspaper guy said. "Bahut zor se baarish ho rahi hai aur darwaze pe paani khada hai. Maine socha ke aapko paper de doon. (It is raining hard because of which there is water outside your apartment. I thought it is not right to throw it in a pool of water so I decided to ring your bell and hand it over you.)"

How thoughtful? I was amazed and stunned by his gesture. I guess he would have been doing the same with other people too. Ringing doorbells of hundreds of houses is hard work and he might have had to listen some expletives and face some angry people as it was early Sunday morning.

But I simply learnt a lot from him on early Sunday morning. Small act of thoughtfullness can make someone's day.

And I considered this a good service.   

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Special treatment for your best customers

Google is launching a real time communication tool called Google Waves later this year. Tool looks cool and is already generating lot of good word of mouth. But this post is not about the tool. It is about why best customers of yours should be treated special.

Below is the presentation given in Google I/O. You view it for three minutes and you will realize that  Google has played a masterstroke by treating its best customers differently and special.





In the beginning of presentation, Google guy announces that all those who are present in conference will be given invitation to use the new tool.

"Passwords will emailed to all as we already have your email IDs."

I found this gesture fantastic. People who are attending conference are techies who love Google. They have spent some time and may be money (if the conference is paid one) to attend this conference. They are clearly people who love Google and if there are some critics, they will find this gesture special and will convert themselves as Google fans.

Best customers should be given something more so that they can feel special. Special enough so that they can tell others about it. Special enough so that it can become a conversation starter. Special enough it can create a movement.

Google clearly understands this and has mastered the art of spreading good word about their products. Without spending any fortune on ADs, they are creating a big community which is waiting for their new tool. 

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Meeting expectations = satisfaction II

In response to my this post, Rads and LEB shared their views on how marketing come up with amazing advertisements for an average product and mislead the customers. 

I tried to dig deeper into this topic and found this cartoon strip by Tom.


Before buying a product we do involve in lot of research and most of the time our beliefs in  brand is strengthened by marketing efforts of an organization. They bombard us with product information through advertisements, salespersons, dealers, product displays and mass media.

Most of the information thrown us are from commercial sources and it is  supposed to be least effective. Yet, we could not help ourselves and fall into this well laid trap. By the time we realize that we did not get what have been promised to us, it is too late. Brand has moved onto to its next target and we are struggling to get hold of customer service representatives to get what is promised to us.

And we all end up with 'One Night Brand' stands.

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Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen - How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Possible

Recently, I was looking for a book which I could gift to my CEO. Suddenly my eyes stuck on 'Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen - How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Possible'. I picked it up out of curiosity.

I have always believed that Indian companies do not innovate often and not many Indians try to take off beaten path and try new things in business or in life. But this book changed my belief. The stories of organizations have captured my imagination as they are doing something interesting, useful and changing the rules.   

As the name suggest, there are stories of 11 organizations, which have done innovations not only on scale but also changed the rules of game. Apart from ideas and dreams, there are three more common  factors in all stories.

Customers:- All the innovations revolve around customers. They have not taken customers for granted and gave them what they wanted.  And all of them given something different to their customers and different enough to cause large scale migration of customers.

Resources:-  How many times we have thought that if we have resources, we could have achieved great results. In all these stories, innovator is not limited by any adversity and disheartened by lack of resources. Everyone has bend the situation to their will. In fact lack of resources made them to think hard for an alternative.

Challenging the establishment:- Innovators are not intimidated by bigger players. They created level play field by using customer insights and challenged the larger establishments. Bigger players did not have any choice but to play according to new rules.

As said by George Bernard Shaw, progress depends on the unreasonable man. An unreasonable man is driven by unreasonable challenge. An unreasonable challenge which is over come by  larger dream, clearer vision and greater purpose. 

If you have not, I highly recommend you to read Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen - How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Possible.  
 

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Meeting expectations = satisfaction

Read on one of the forums
Company: We provide best, amazing, eeficient and excellent customer service.
Customer reaction: And invisible also?

BusinessWeek article suggests that there is huge gap between expected service and service delivered. Lot of companies believe that their customer service is great, their support staff is extremely customer friendly, the value added services are highly admired by customers and companies are able to manage customer expectations. According to customer, it is not so.

In these tough times, every bit of business is important. Every business is trying hard to hang on its customers by providing superior customer service. Truth is customers do not share this feeling.

Customers are readily exposed to good service levels provided by other industries and they compare and expect same service levels from other industries as well. Lots of customers are changing their service providers because of poor level of service.

It is not about providing great customer service. It is also not about providing most efficient customer service. It is about meeting customer expectations which will lead to higher customer satisfaction.

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Customer interaction

Customer interactions with call center representative can be fruitful, frustrating, rewarding or hilarious.

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100 Creative people in business

Fast company has come up their list of 100 creative people in business.


Creativity cannot be captured in barriers and cannot be measured. This makes ranking creativity all the more difficult.


List contains people from wide range of industries - from charity organizations to automobiles to musicians to socail media to architects. You name it, it is on the list.


All those who are in this list are rock stars in their own industries. All of the them are changing the rules of the game. Everyone has some purpose. Most of them are the ones who work hard behind the scenes.


One Indian is also featuring in this list. And he is Oscar winner, A R Rahman. He is at number 47.


This is definitely a list to look at and no creativity is required to go through this list. 

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Twitter comes with risks

My yesterday's post was on advantages which Twitter offers to small businesses. They are tremendous and lot businesses are lapping it up.

But there are some risks attached in using Twitter. According to me, they are

No Revenue Model :- Yes, you read it right. Twitter do not have any revenue model. It has huge audiences. Celebrities are endorsing it. VCs are gung ho about it. But Twitter has yet to think how they will earn money. This is a risky proposition for you. If Twitter is a tool around which your marketing, CRM, branding strategies revolve, you have to be careful. Keep your plan B ready.

It is free :- If free is an advantage then it is also big risk. Email is personal and free just like Twitter. Email is free and it is spammed with offers which you have never opened, mails which you never intend to open. Already there are thousands of unwanted tweets which one recieves but do not intend to recieve.  Needless to say such tweets go unnoticed. Free things can be abused. Businesses need to be careful and Twitter should be used judiciously and everyone's privacy should be respected.

Defunct rate is high :-   Nielson reported that 60% of Twitter users leave it after trying it for one month. Well, this is HIGH rate of attrition. Users do not announce before leaving this platform and they just stop using it. You spent some productive time in building relationships, initiating conversations with your prospective customers and you do not want that effort go down the drain.

I am not saying Twitter should not be used for your business but I am suggesting that strategy should not be built around Twitter. Use Twitter as tool and make it a one of the pillars of your success.

But have your plan B ready.

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Twitter as marketing tool

In last six months many companies especially smaller ones have started using Twitter actively for marketing, CRM, building relationships with clients and customers. Twitter is fast emerging a great marketing tool for small businesses.

Now, companies are going a step further. They are tracking their RoI on their marketing efforts on Twitter. It has not happened so far but now companies want to check the effectiveness of their marketing efforts from Twitter.

Twitter has many advantages because of which small, local and medium businesses are using it. Biggest of all is, it is free. At no cost, you can pull up a huge marketing campaign.  It is easy to use. I would say extremely easy. Few clicks and you are ready to go. It has audience. Well, 10 million and still counting. Micro blogging site, Twitter started slowly but picked up and in February they have more than 10 million users. And according to one report, it is not only youngsters who are driving this growth but middle aged also using this micro blogging site wit great zeal. Entry barriers are negligible.

All you need is an art to use it effectively. Art to communicate, art to initiate interesting conversations, art to build relationships, art to track conversations around your brand and respond to customers. It is easier said than done but companies are trying.

PS - There are some risks attached which I will discuss in my next post, so stay tuned.

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Share of wallet



Tom Fishburne has come up with nice cartoon on how consumers are preferring to spend. I am glad to see iPhone over there :-)

As Tom puts it

Yet Apple still managed to blow away iPhone expectations this last quarter.  Even in the midst of a recession.  And value-oriented attack ads from Microsoft.
I know, I know, Apple is the stereotypical poster brand.  It's almost cliché to talk about them as a marketing case study. And, yes, their computer sales are down.  But I still find the iPhone example pretty inspiring.  The average high street has shuttered shops and desperate Sale signs, yet the Apple store always feels crowded.
Why? Because Apple creates meaningful products.  They pass the "recession litmus test".  And because they excel at "share of wallet".

I would also like to add my quota of whisky and beer in my share of wallet.

What are your additions?

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Biggest losers are in demand


In any business the most important thing is to know the customer. Duh.

Companies have spent millions of Dollars in building customer databases. They have spent this huge amount of money so that they can build relationships with customers and stay ahead of their competitors.

Now is the time when everybody is busy in trying to maximizing their returns on customers database which they have collected over the years.

Casinos are no different. Researchers are using their extensive customer data to find most profitable customers - biggest losers. They would love to avoid their unattractive customers.

Frequency of visits to casino and amount of money spent in casino is important to them but more important is how many times customer has lost. Based on the previous data they intend to calculate how much more money they can make in future from such profitable customers.

Casinos will give best of the treatments to their biggest losers. Airport pickups in best of the cars, best of the hotels to stay in, best of the rooms to put up and in the end casinos will hope customers take this bait and lose big time. I wish I had not listened to my parents and should have taken up gambling :-(

This year companies will follow one simple mantra - love them, lose them and love anyway.
 

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Compelling story and remarkable product

Fans of Colgin wine wait for more than four years to lay hands on their favorite wine.

Reason is that every Colgin wine has a compelling story to tell. A visit to their website will inform you that they have recorded the smallest possible details of wines. The kind of soil used, kind of weather grapes faced, texture of grapes and methods used to make wines. They also have wine tasters note on their website. Every effort gone into making this remarkable wine is recorded with great honesty. And this effort conveys a compelling story behind this remarkable product.

Colgin wine is sold only through selective restaurants and mailing list. Mailing list has already more than 3500 customers and they get either 3 or 6 bottles of wine. And mailing list is called (rightly so) as 'waiting list' as customers who have signed up in 2005 will be getting their wines this year. Four years and still waiting!

Colgin is able to earn love and respect of its small set of customers.Their small customer base helped them to grow. Without compelling story and remarkable this would not have been possible. So many times we try to target mass market in one go not realising the worth of impressing small set of customers who will spread positive word of mouth, if satisfied. Satisfying small set of customers will help in growing the business but not as fast as you wanted but faster than you have imagined.

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Participation

New age business is all about participation. It is no more case of product thought off by someone, designed by someone else, modulated by someone else, tested by someone else and made for someone else.

And everything happened behind close walls where one department was not talking to each other. The result was something which is not simple and user friendly. But not any more.

Participation of all stakeholders is important. If you will not ask for participation, customers will write you off on day one and in less than 140 characters.

Thanks Raj for this wonderful tip.

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Enjoying the journey

At the onset I apologize for this shameless self-promotion.

Last year I started this blog about customer service and customer experience. And this is my 100th blog post.
First fifty posts were tough to write but later on I started blogging actively. Blame it on tough times! 

Some of the posts written on my blog are half-baked and others are well cooked. In case you like my blog, please drop in regularly to read it. If you feel that blog is not good, please forward to all your friends telling them not to write a blog the way I do:-)

Looking forward to stay in touch through my blog as well.

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Ducks and eagles

Andersen is doing a wonderful job.
About five years ago, Andresen began taking steps toward building what has come to be known as Innovation Institute. “The mission of the school is to get products into the hands of the disabled that they couldn’t get anywhere else or they couldn’t afford. Also, to give them some skills so they can earn some money for the first time in their lives.”

It is a dream come true for Andersen's customers. He is passionate about what he is doing. He is innovating continuously and building new products which can be used by people who cannot afford. And he is tackling one problem at a time.

Andersen is also passionate about sharing his skills with others. He is training students in his institute and it might become a movement one day.

Andersen like all movements, started very small. He did not wait for big money to come his way. He worked hard and kept honing his skills. While working hard, he kept his focus on bigger vision. Vision of helping people with disabilities. Vision of providing help to people who cannot afford. And today he is making difference to lot of lives.

I read somewhere, ducks quack and eagles soar, we do need eagles like Andersen.

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An inside view of Zappos

Zappos is one company whose business model revolves around great customer service. According to their CEO, they are a service company which happens to sell shoes.

Here is an interview with Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh who has shared some insights about his organization.

Zappos now boasts systems that are breathlessly praised by academics, entrepreneurs, and, of course, the customers who seem eternally tickled by the company's free shipping and unbelievably responsive service. At many companies, talk of corporate culture dulls the luster, inducing cynicism among employees and creating hours of busywork for managers. At Zappos, the culture is the luster.
A long but interesting read.

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Change rules to win

Ramesh was kind enough to feature a guest post from me on his blog "Business Musings". My post talks about how small players can win over large and established players.

Please do share your opinions regarding the post.

Cheers,
Adesh Sidhu

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Treading less taken path

I came across a website of a copywriter who is laid off and looking for a job. I found website little weird as well as humrous. But Lawson is trying to be different.
With number of jobless people around us, one needs more than a word resume. Tough times ask for innovative approach. The attention span of a recruiter is less as he has to deal with pile of resumes. Setting up a website resume, making a video resume or making a PowerPoint resume will help someone stand out.
In tough times people also start questioning the status quo. In most of MBA institutes students are told to make resume in a certain format and students follow that advice as that they feel it is followed everywhere. In these times it is good to have something interesting, something provocative and something which can start positive conversations.
Lawson is treading less taken path and only time will tell whether his approach is successful or not. BTW I liked Jack Daniels print advertisements by Lawson.

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Planning, thoughtful and hardwork

My passion for eating usually kept my dadi and mother busy in kitchen. They try to learn new dishes for me. During these cooking sessions, I find they have to plan well, they are always thoughtful and overall it is hard work for them.
They need to plan things well in advance. They have to plan on what they are going to cook. They have to plan so that they can research on new dishes. They plan so that they can buy all ingredients in time. They have to plan well so that they can finish their cooking in time.
They have to be thoughtful with their cooking as well. They think about my eating preferences and of other family members. They have to be thoughtful of spices that they can use in their dishes. They have to be thoughtful about dishes - whether non-vegetarian or vegetarian.
Cooking is hard work as well. They spend lot of time in cutting and chopping of vegetables. They have to stand in hot kitchen while they are cooking. This is hard work. 
Planning, thoughtfulness and hard work is important for delivering good customer service as well. To deliver great customer service, planning is important to make business's back-end strong and correct its boring bits. 
Customer service is also about being thoughtful. The front-end staff who is interacting with customers need to be thoughtful about the actions they demonstrate in front of customers. Call center employees should be thoughtful about words they use in their conversations with customers. Online businesses need to be thoughtful about the design of their websites. 
Customer service is also hard work as expectations of customers keep going up and one has to keep delivering great experience.
Take away point:- Planning, thoughtfulness and hard work can do wonders in life as well.

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Customer Service is all about getting the boring bits right


I'm pleased to present today a guest post by Ramesh. This is the first guest post I have done  and I'm curious know thoughts on this. If you have an opinion, leave it in the comments. 
Cheers, Adesh.
There are airlines and airlines – some good, some bad and some horrible for their service. But there is one I deeply admire for their customer service. What I especially admire is that they seem to have achieved sustained good customer service and on scale. In all organizations, there’s always a person or two who is outstanding in service. But in this airline, it seems to be a habit. 
How did they achieve this ? I asked their operations director many years ago. What he said was very interesting. 
He said service was not a warm , touchy thing. It was not just the smile and the pretty young stewardess. It was more systems, processes and numbers. As an example, he said, one of the things they wanted to deliver as a service was that when you got off a plane and entered the terminal, your bags must be coming on a conveyor. 
They try to achieve this in the following way 
  • The guys who get off the plane first are the business class travelers. These are the guys this airline wants to vow with their bags on the conveyor when they walk into the terminal
  • At check in, they tag the business class traveler bags separately. These are placed at the front of the baggage hold.
  • When an aircraft arrives and when the blocks are placed under the wheels, the timing starts
  • One sequence of events that is set in motion is that the aircraft doors are opened, the ramp is placed, the passengers get down and are whisked by the bus,
  • The second sequence of events is that the cargo door is opened, the bags are unloaded and the baggage trolley takes the bags away to be put on the conveyor belt in the terminal
  • They have configured their operations such that the two processes take roughly the same time.
  • They measure the times for each and every arrival, in each and every airport and he gets a daily summary of the number of times they are out of synch.
  • The two crews are incentivised on sticking to their target times.
This was a different perspective for me. He said that the warm, touchy stuff can lead to occasional flashes of service brilliance. But it’s the hard nosed operational stuff that keeps customer service at a high level. 
Another nugget he shared with me was that he had a team of QC inspectors who routinely flew on his airline flights . Amongst other things, they carried a thermometer. When the coffee was served – they measured its temperature and checked if it was in the prescribed range. This was measured and reported daily !! 
Wow . Wonderful perspective, I thought.
Ramesh is an Indian, living in China, and currently on a sabbatical after many years of corporate life. He blogs on business issues of interest.

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