It was one of those days

It was one of those days. Judy got really upset with Snapfish about a $6.95 transaction. Bruce got really upset with Jetstar about plane tickets worth $1500. One of my customers got a little upset with me about a value-added free service that they haven't got yet.

I thought it was really interesting that Judy got just as upset about her $6.95 transaction as Bruce did about his $1500 transaction. When expectations are not met - no matter what the financial value of the transaction - damage is done. It turns out that customers expect you to do what you say you are going to do and they get upset when you don't.

It's alarming how often service is delivered badly. Long wait times calling in to contact centres and unprofessional face to face experiences are standard fare for Australian businesses. If you experience bad customer service my advice is to either adjust your expectations accordingly - let it go - or tell the companies management that you are about to take your business to a competitor and why. Preferably tell them in writing. Faxes and posted letters are far more effective than emails for this purpose.

If you have provided the poor customer experience and receive a complaint here are some guidelines on how to handle it.

Whatever the details of the issue it's important to listen to your customers story. Never talk while the upset customer is talking. That really winds them up. Keep quiet. When they have finished telling you their story empathise with them. Acknowledge the customers concerns. Then apologise for not meeting their expectations. Ask them what you can do to provide resolution and most importantly make the customer feel important. It's basic customer service and sales. In fact, if we put on our sales hat, overcoming issues the right way is an opportunity to deepen the relationship with your customer by building trust. Deal with the problem professionally and you build a bond that may even see that dissatisfied customer become an advocate of you and your business.

1 comments:

Steve Willis said...

"hmmm true dat. Do you subscribe to seth godin's blog?
Liked yr tuna entry too. Food for thought indeed!"
February 18, 2009. 20:04 PM

Fwd: gnome

Let's see if that email to blog thing is working properly?

---------- Forwarded message ----------

OK. Yes it is.

A lot of controversy recently about graffiti artists/ taggers. A few comments flying around the office. It seems an Australian first offender, 18yo woman, was jailed for 3 months for a graffiti attack. While in NZ a 40 yo man stabbed a 15yo kid to death for tagging his garage door! This greatly upset his parents. (The 15yo's ones). It seems that graffiti is a very emotional topic for some people. OK ok I hear you protest. It's actually a property issue.

Meanwhile in Surry Hills this little gnome appeared in a door way. No one was killed or jailed (as far as I know) but I did receive a glaring look from Judy for delaying the next coffee by 3 minutes to photograph him. Cute I say!

2 comments:

Mike Ringdahl posted a photo:



"liked yr blog on Graffiti - heres one of my favs - taken in High Street a few years back - always been a fan of good street art - this was just too cute"
February 18, 2009. 20:21PM


.......................................................................................................................................

bobogal said...

Graffiti or vandalism is indeed about property. One person's right to free expression ends where someone else's right to their property starts. It's all about respecting someone else's property rights.

February 18, 2009 2:53 AM

Save the tuna

Save the whales, sure. How about the tuna?

The Economist recently ran a feature on the state of the world's oceans. They reported on the diminishing stocks of tuna. Apparently, among other things, the growing taste for sushi and sashimi in the west and protein in the east is contributing to over fishing of tuna. Some species of tuna are now endangered.

This photo shows 185gram cans of tuna selling for 50c at Coles supermarkets in Australia. The low price point is clearly stimulating demand as these empty shelves show. Surely this is unethical retail behaviour?

It is interesting to me how there is general sympathy with the save the whales campaign, and consumers would probably not buy and eat ocean mammals like whales & dolphins, yet tuna is purchased and eaten with a seemingly ever increasing appetite. Canned tuna is particularly offensive, being the stored outcome of over-fishing which could not be consumed fresh, it is preserved stored and ultimately sold for next to nothing. I wonder why the tuna issue hasn't caught on with the environmentalists, vegetarians, Greenpeace and the like?

Maybe it is time for legislation to target canned tuna with some sort of sustainability tax to slow demand?

1 comments:

bottlingclouds said...

yep, so true... and I bet that 99.9% of the members of that facebook group 'Fuck off Japan leave the whales alone!' will happily chow through tins of tuna without any conflicted feelings whatsoever.

I fear though that the only way we can save them is by making them taste disgusting. Mass hypnotherapy?

February 3, 2009 2:36 AM

School boy errror

I had to laugh. I almost walked into this bus stop advertisement. Can you see what's wrong with it?

There are so many schools teaching graphic design and 'visual communications' these days and yet simple errors, like the relationship between text and image, are often overlooked. The team that designed and proofed this ad should have noticed that the names of the actors are clearly misplaced. Kate is on the left, Leonardo is on the right. I had to remark "school boy error!".

1 comments:

Kitt said...

unfortunately it's more common than you'd think

It used to annoy me until i realised that the poster designers didn't really care about the relationship of the the position of the stars names to their pictures


Here's a few i found doing a quick scan

http://sorenz.dk/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/124.jpg

http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Deception/deception_movie_poster_version_2_onesheet.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLgB2O9LXaLA_DfXYRoXe3DgCoOYwEmvZNNVQ4bjjU6HNbEr9RlLxzPrY_AWhWWtNaG54OUIjX3hviCsBe1GLK_cLmvwxyD4KvDcNpWH_5qbBns6O3IRfm3EWzshBHeUr1bWSC41Rm-2w/s400/WildHogsMoviePoster.jpg

February 18, 2009 4:49 AM

Kitt said...

I have an explanation for the supposed logic used here. I think it's in order of fame/importance from left to right?

February 18, 2009 5:20 PM

International marketing

I read recently that aspirational businesses will need to invest more in developing multi-lingual web content. This is of course a fairly obvious aspect of international marketing, and not a striking observation, yet an important one. Today I noticed a sign in a Sydney foodcourt where the translation from chinese to english wouldn't drive the sales of "Spicy Pork Bowel in Szechaun Style' or "Cellophane" with Ground Pork. What the?

Customer service today

If today is any indication I'll have plenty to blog about this year. I've nominated my interest area as sales and marketing. Today I went shopping and I found many noteworthy items to discuss. Thinking of sales, I have always said how closely connected sales is to customer service. As a customer, I don't want to be sold to. I want to be serviced. When customer service expectations are not met then sales are lost.

Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to build a companies brand identity. The value of a strong brand is measured in sales revenue. The retail experience, the customer facing aspect, is perhaps more important than above the line and below the line advertising in building and positioning a brand and therefore generating sales. Or put that another way, when the customer experience is bad, no amount of spending on advertising or PR will work to turn around a customers negative perceptions. Their business is lost.

Happy new year

Oh, OK it's 2009 already. As I look back on 2008 I realise that I didn't write very many blogs. This is partly because I've been so busy with actual work. In 2009 I will try to be less busy (good luck to me) and write some more.

I'll keep uploading photographs of clothing in unusual contexts but I'll also start blogging about media sales and marketing which is where I ply my skills during the day. There is a lot of talk, especially in media & advertising circles, about digital media and how it is usurping traditional print media. I have some thoughts on this, and where the publishing media are heading, so I'll share them here during the year. Basically though, the argument goes that audiences and advertising revenues are migrating organically from print to digital. I'll claim that, while this is true, another important consideration is the behavioural change from mass media to niche media. This is an important strategic point which has been largely over-looked by media companies themselves. There is also a strain of thought that says audiences are choosing to move from print to digital media because digital media is more environmentally friendly. Given that sustainable forestry practices now exist, and the increasing amounts of electricity needed to power the world's PC's, much of which is generated by burning fossil fuels, this is a claim that needs further investigation. So plenty to talk about.