In a previous life I had a title of Customer Success Manager at a tech company. As the name implies, I was tasked with ensuring the desired outcome for our clients was met on every level.
Sometimes clients just wanted to be heard and I was a therapist. Other times there were specific business criteria that had to be achieved and I felt like a CFO that was building my case to deliver to the board.
One thing was clear though. Success meant different things to every client.
My title no longer carries that tag line of CSM but the desire to exceed customer expectations continues. As I am in a client facing role (and can’t imagine it otherwise), success is still top of mind within my interactions.
However, I sometimes wonder if I am truly achieving it and what is the measure for success?
We have all been delayed at airports. You fly more than once in your life and it happens. Typically I don’t get too upset, because a lot of it is out of the hands of the crew. They don’t want the delay either.
However, there are a variety of ways the crew can deal with it. I have seen some that ignore the issue and hope it goes away. Pro tip, it doesn’t. I have also seen crews decide to make it a party by giving out extra snacks or drinks.
Same situation, different outcomes.
As the veil is lifted between brands and consumers, it become easier than ever to vocalize your displeasure.
This has had the effect of highlighting those brands that are nimble and responsive and those that double down on the trashcan fire by pouring gasoline on it.
I’m looking at you United Airlines. #notafan
But what does success really look like? There are KPI’s, surveys and referral programs. In the end, success has many forms, but for me it comes down to this.
Was I happy with the interaction? Would I talk to a friend positively about said company?
That’s it. I know it’s hard to quantify, but, in my heart, those two questions are the key to success.
What could be the world’s first complaint about shoddy service is on a clay tablet that was first sent about 3,800 [BCE; they forgot to add 2,018 CE years to the total–ed] years ago in southern Mesopotamia from the city of Ur…
Here is an excerpt from it.
Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:
When you came, you said to me as follows: “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: “If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!”
What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? (…) Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.
What I found most interesting is that the complaint wasn’t limited to the shoddy product or the initial lies in service of making the sale.
It sounded angriest at being “treated with contempt.”
Update the product and delivery method and it could be a template for almost any 21st Century customer unhappy with a product or service.
Decades ago rotten customer service was more a function of little-to-no training and draconian scripts, but the advent of technology raised rotten customer service to new heights — think Ma Bell and Comcast.
And it was tech companies that added contempt to the rotten customer service recipe in ever larger doses.
If contempt is yin, then arrogance is its yang.
And there is no question that tech companies excel at arrogance.
I am a frequent Home Depot shopper, other than during the Nardelli regime, mainly because my Amex points a good conversion rate to dollars for HD gift cards.
Now it seems I only have to deal with corporate purchasing stupidity.
Let me explain.
I live in Washington State, just across the Columbia River about 20 minutes from Portland, Oregon, an area known locally for it’s dozens of micro-climates, multiple rivers and fast elevation changes.
This means that when it’s cold and rainy by me, it’s probably cold and snowy at my friend’s who lives about 15 minutes and 800 feet away.
But in general, we don’t get a lot of freezing weather — but we do get it.
A couple of weeks ago the entire area got walloped with the worst storm in 16 years and it stayed cold, with temperatures in the 20s.
So I wasn’t surprised when I finally got to HD to buy ice melt they were sold out.
However, I was flabbergasted when I went back this week and was told that they wouldn’t have more until October.
A very chagrined manager explained that they had sold out their year’s allotment and had no way of ordering more.
When pushed, he said that central purchasing decided how much of a given product would sell annually and if a store sold out tough luck.
So, based on the weather forecast, it was back to Lowe’s, where I shopped when Nardelli was in power.
Retail DIS-service; better know as retail stupidity.
More proof that what What Walmart really excels at is PR and spin.
After years of angry customer complaints about dirty stores, unstocked shelves, uncaring employees and an exodus of customers to the competition Walmart had an epiphany.
What if paying workers more, training them better and offering better opportunities for advancement can actually make a company more profitable, rather than less? “Efficiency wages” is the term that economists — who excel at giving complex names to obvious ideas — use for the notion that employers who pay workers more than the going rate will get more loyal, harder-working, more productive employees in return.
Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 per day wage ($110 today), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers. (…) The move proved extremely profitable; instead of constant turnover of employees, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, bringing their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs.
However, these days, money isn’t everything. People want more challenges, more ways to grow and better career opportunities.
“We realized quickly that wages are only one part of it, that what also matters are the schedules we give people, the hours that they work, the training we give them, the opportunities you provide them,” said Judith McKenna, who became chief operating officer in late 2014, in a recent interview. “What you’ve got to do is not just fix one part, but get all of these things moving together.”
“Quickly?” Considering the years of complaints, falling sales and stock price I’m not sure “quickly” is particularly accurate.
Just think. People who earn more money have more discretionary money to spend.
Rocket science? No, just logic.
But making your company look like a hero for paying people $18K a year definitely is rocket science.
Google is supposedly packed with smart, above-average-intelligence people who are savvy to the ways of users.
Assuming that’s true, one wonders why they violated the number one caveat of software for their traditional April Fool’s Day fun by changing Gmail’s long-used UI (emphasis mine).
The premise of the joke was simple. In Gmail, next to the standard “Reply” button, Google added a “Mic drop” button. Using it would reply to the email, archive it — and also add a GIF of a “Despicable Me” minion dropping a mic. (…) Its placement directly next to the default Reply button — replacing the “Send and archive” button — meant it was easy to click by accident, especially if a user didn’t understand what it was.
Unbelievable. Even non-biz people know you don’t change long-used/well-loved anything (think Coke/New Coke), especially without warning, and expect your users/customers not to react strongly and, most often, negatively.
Especially as a joke.
Google’s product forums are full of furious users claiming they pressed the button by accident, often on important professional emails.
If you think Gmail “Mic Drop” stories of lost jobs/opportunities/etc can’t be true, remember: there are 900m Gmail users. It was live 12hrs. — Charles Arthur (@charlesarthur) April 1, 2016
Doing this was stupid, but Google’s response made it worse by totally ignoring user feedback and blaming a bug.
In a statement, a company representative said: “Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the MicDrop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.”
How’s that for uncaring, it’s-not-our-fault, smug and inane?
Perhaps Google should have renamed itself Arrogance instead of Alphabet.
Last month, United personnel once again stuck their foot in it when they first refused to provide hot food to an autistic teen, although they finally relented.
The girl was fine, but the idiot pilot called for an emergency landing, called the paramedics and the cops.
When the officers started to leave, the captain stepped out of the cockpit and said something to them, Beegle said. They then asked her family to leave, she said.
“He said, ‘The captain has asked us to ask you to step off the plane.'” Beegle said. “I said, ‘She didn’t do anything’ … But the captain said he’s not comfortable flying on to Portland with [Juliette] on the plane.”
All of this with the full support of management.
United said its “crew made the best decision for the safety and comfort of all of our customers and elected to divert to Salt Lake City after the situation became disruptive.”
Passengers who witnessed the whole thing and posted videos said it was total bunk.
Of course, what UAL did to this child was far worse than breaking a guitar, but it goes to show their motto is still “the customer is always wrong, no matter what.”
First, I had reason to contact CrystalTech (my host) and had another great experience. In spite of being acquired over the years (twice, I think) tech support has always been fabulous. The reps spend as much time as necessary on the phone with me until this tech dummy understands.
Second, I came across an old video that, along with being hilarious, is a graphic answer to what customer service is NOT.
When the economy slows, Wall Street tends focus on cutting costs (of course, they do that in good times, too), but cutting is rarely enough put a company on a strong financial footing—only sales can do that.
And no matter what you’re selling or to whom, sales are far more cost effective when you focus on relationship, because at some point all customers are new. While acquiring a new customer can cost thousands, selling to those you already know or to whom you’re referred costs far less.
This, of course, assumes that your product did what it was supposed to do and your customer service solved any difficulties that arose.
As your sales people start mining your client lists they need to stay hyper-aware for any dissatisfaction, whether overt or covert and address it. In today’s world an unhappy customer is a far different animal than in the last downturn and can sink your sales efforts with a few clicks of his mouse. By the same token, a customer who appreciates your products and services is a far more powerful advocate than ever before.
The relationships you have with your customers are one of your most powerful shields when it comes to the whims of the market.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
When the economy slows, Wall Street tends focus on cutting costs (of course, they do that in good times, too), but cutting is rarely enough put a company on a strong financial footing—only sales can do that.
