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Contact Vox to learn about how we can help you create a comprehensive Customer Experience that drives bottom-line results dramatically higher.

It is just me or the lines between media channels are becoming even blurrier these days?  Don’t mind campaigns that go cross-channel and campaign pieces that can be followed on facebook or twitter, now they can be followed as well on the CUSTOMER ITSELF.

 ”GirlInYourShirt” is offering exactly what the name says but with a twist:  for a whole day she becomes your company’s evangelist and will showcase your company everywhere she goes, online and offline.  All of that for just $75 bucks…

Look here for more details

One of my fave companies, the online shoe retailer Zappos.com, is laying of 8% of their staff: http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2008/11/10/daily4.html .

That’s disheartening, but I’m still impressed with how they operate. They’re giving those laid off hefty severance packages and extension of benefits, and the CEO Tony Hsieh was very open about the move, even discussing it on Twitter.com. You can tell he takes it personally.

Today, Google is launching a new way of doing searches, using the iPhone as a market test.  If it works half as good as it looks like it does in the video above, then a future where we interface computers just by talking is nearby.

A shift like this does not only change how people interact with Google Search but also with all online applications.  Change is everywhere, from how the user gets to your site - to how the information is displayed - to the flow of interactions.

Now, are you ready to rethink your company’s digital strategy and customer experience when that happens?

“Beam us up, Scotty!  We are done here…”

I’d like to contrast two interesting experiences that run along parallel lines, but are actually worlds apart from a customer experience standpoint. Both involve suspicious activity, and both were resolved in wildly different manners.

The Good…

First, there is American Express. I received a call from a friendly Amex rep, telling us that they were concerned that one of our employee accounts was showing suspicious activity and they were concerned it might involve theft of the card number. Together we reviewed the last several purchases, and confirmed it was indeed fraudulent (nobody in our company, for instance, has been to India recently). She immediately took the suspect charges off the account, and told me that, should I see any other questionable items, just let them know and they’ll delete the charges, no questions asked.

American Express canceled the account and told me they would send a card out in one to two business days “if that’s acceptable.” It was. So they alerted me to something that was not their fault, and then they bent over backwards to take care of the situation. I had to do, basically, nothing. Interesting.

The Bad…

Let’s contrast that with an experience I just had with Capital One. They left me a message to call back because of a “security issue,” and left an 800 number. I called their number, and found myself in their “automated” phone system. There were five options, with none of them being “speak to a representative.” After pressing five for “more options,” there were five more options, with none of them being “speak to a representative.” Once again I selected more options, and the fifth choice was talking to a live person.

The amazing point here is that they originally called me. I was minding my own business until they told me to call them. And then they forced me to negotiate through the back alleys of their phone system to talk to them. Finally chatting with a human, she informed me that my “account information had been compromised.” After some probing, it appears somebody managed to tap into their system and walk away with a bunch of account numbers, and mine was on the list. So now, she needed to cancel my card.

“Will you be sending me a new one?” I asked.

“Yes, but you need to stay on the line while I take care of this.”

“And when will I be getting that new card?”

“About seven days.”

I snickered, considering American Express’s performance. There was a two-minute, cold and impersonal disclaimer she needed to read me before I could hang up. I was pissed.

And the Ugly

Over a week later, we realized we could not go online to pay our Capital One bill; the website was denying me access because my old account number was canceled, and I hadn’t yet received a new one. I called, fought through the irritating phone system, and told them the problem. They couldn’t do anything about it.

“Well, where is my card?”

“We’ll need to send you one.”

“That’s what you said last week.”

“We also need to read this to you…” (start of endless disclaimer.)

“You already did that too!” “I hate you people!” (that last part was in my head).

In designing customer experience, the most potent thing you can do is create emotion based on the interaction. It “tags” the experience more powerfully and you remember it. That can be a great thing, as in American Express’s approach. Conversely, you can also create a specific and memorable interaction by attaching to a negative emotion. That’s exactly what Capital One has done here. Yes, I will definitely remember the experience, and tell many others of it. But it was a negative experience, as the emotion I felt was frustration, and a bit of anger.

What’s in your wallet?

I recently spent a weekend visiting friends in Las Vegas, a city I lived in for many years and that I travel to often.  On my return flight, my friend introduced me to a fantastic thing.  McCarran Airport has housed a row of SpeedCheck kiosks since 2006. What makes these machines fantastic is that no matter what airline you are flying on, you can check in and print your boarding pass from one convenient machine!

One caveat of using SpeedCheck is that they provide no option for checking bags.  But I’ve noticed lately is that the vast majority of travelers are carrying on.  Airline fees have prompted people to opt to travel light whenever possible, and these kiosks could make their air travel even easier!

The biggest problem I saw with the kiosks was their “secret” location.  My friend took me to passenger pickup parking then instructed me to walk up the stairs to the second level, cross the bridge and go in the doors to the upper level.  Following these directions, I found myself in a secluded area lined with empty kiosks.  After quickly selecting Southwest Airlines and running my credit card to verify my identity, the machine popped out a neatly printed boarding pass and wished me a pleasant trip. 

I headed toward my gate, taking a moment to peek over the edge to the lower levels where hundreds of passengers were lined up at airline check-in counters or individual airline self-service kiosks.   It struck me as sad that more people didn’t know about the quick and easy upstairs check-in!  I’m glad someone finally taught me the secret handshake.

These machines definitely add a new level to the convenience factor, but as with single-airline check-in kiosks, the overall experience is still lacking.  Bad placement and few help functions create a real disconnect for customers.  With more careful and purposeful execution, they could do a lot to associate McCarran Airport with “easy travel,” which would be an important and profitable connection to make.  

It’s pretty amazing how proud voters are this year.  Record voter turnout is expected, based on tangible evidence (recent increases in voter registration numbers) and less tangible (record number of supporters at political rallies).  I was thinking about what this was really about.

An election is special because it allows each of us to have a say.  We vote based on our opinions and beliefs, and don’t have to line up with the crowd or even share what we’re doing.

Our psyches need this.  We crave feeling part of the process, even if it means the majority wins and we may not be part of that. 

Pride in the act of voting alone is inspiring people to share with others via social media like Facebook and Twitter in creative ways.  Recently, I saw two great examples thanks to Twitter. 

Wayne Sutton, a reporter in North Carolina, shared a video of himself after voting early.  “I’m live streaming now [qik] - I just voted and this is how it felt.”

I love how he discussed how it felt instead of what he did.  That’s really what we love about it.  It’s an act that is emotionally charged and helps us connect with our government and to one another, even if it means we vote differently. 

Then there was this photo, posted by Brad Garland, also shared via Flickr and Twitter.  Again, it’s about having a say!

So what how does this translate into the customer experience?  Those companies that act right now and harness the power of allowing each customer to have a say will win.  It’s that simple.

Let your customers have a say!  They want to feel connected.  They want to help you help them.  They want to let their voices be heard.  They don’t want to feel like they are shouting in the cavernous lobby of a faceless, soulless corporate building.  Help them feel heard.  Help them have a say. 

Oh, and don’t forget to vote!  Have A Say ‘08.

I got a huge compliment from my audience at the Chicago Financial Women’s event last week.  They asked some great, thoughtful questions after hearing me speak about exceeding customer expectations.    

My favorite question was a simple one: “What are the 3 biggest mistakes a company makes regarding customer experience?”

These are the mistakes that popped into my head.  There is more to say here, but it’s a start.

1.   Focus on only one metric - customer satisfaction.

Satisfaction is a place to start, but it certainly doesn’t tell you the whole story.  Customers can be extremely “satisfied” and still not be loyal.  Just look at all the satisfied VW customers who traded in for Mini Coopers.

Back in 2005, our CEO Bill Cusick had a few things to say about this topic in his article “Satisfaction Schmatisfaction.”  You can find that here.

2.   Attract customers with beautiful marketing materials and then deliver customer communications that are sloppy, ugly or just plain useless.

Banks, I’m talking to you!  Send me one more piece of crap mail about my e-deposit and I’m coming for you.  Spend more money on my experience and less on huge banners telling me about credit cards I won’t get anyway.

Even some of the newly redesigned statements are confusing and convoluted, and totally disregard the customer’s perspective.  Case in point: health insurance statements.  Thanks for the “Summary of Benefits,” but I’d like to know what you’re covering and how.  And please don’t send me something that sounds angry because I missed the footnote on the statement. 

Customer communications are a cornerstone to the experience, and yet often they are completely neglected.  Don’t let the bean-counters create the invoices or statements for your customers. 

Another topic for another day…why bother going through the effort to provide Spanish language marketing materials and then not offering the same courtesy to your customers??  Ay carumba!

3.   Fiefdoms and in-fighting which don’t serve the customer.

The customer experience is not one channel, one product or one transaction.  The customer experience is built or destroyed with every interaction with your company.  When company structures and incentives are created to reward only one area at a time, the customer loses.  For example, web sites sometimes seem to make it harder for a customer to find a call center number.  This is due to fiefdoms within the company. 

The online team doesn’t get “credit” (or worse, commission) if a customer starts online but ends up completing the purchase via a customer service rep.  Likewise, the customer service rep is rewarded for spending the least amount of time on the phone with any given customer.

Then there are the front-line employees who are rewarded in a different way and have the same competing agendas. 

Make the customer the ultimate winner.  Everyone wins if a customer gets what they need when and how they need it - regardless of how your company is set up. 

While none of these are easy fixes, they are extremely important.  There are ways to set your own organization up where the customer wins.  Don’t we know what that means for the organization by now?  

Jason Dabrowski is a friend of Vox, Inc.  He sent us this great example of how one Chicago Restaurant won his trust. 

Jason writes:

A few weeks ago, on a Friday, my partner and I went to take care of my brother’s dog. No big deal, just stopping in to feed him and take him for a walk.  Costello is in a crate most of the day while my brother and his girlfriend are at work.  This particular Friday night, neither of them was going to be home until the next morning.  So rather than deal with a mess and very, very unhappy dog, they asked us to stop in and take care of the pooch.

 
After feeding the dog and taking him for a nice long walk we went in search of food.  We were very hungry and ended up at his place called Caliente. Rockwell and Fullerton, I believe. From outside it looked pretty casual and inexpensive. When we sat down we quickly learned that it was casual but not cheap! Both of us starving, we decided to stay.  We got a little impatient because it had been a few minutes and nobody had come by to take our order. We have a rule, if we have to wait ten minutes, we walk.  We’ve had that happen at a restaurant, where we’re seated and end up sitting for more than ten minutes with no water and no menus. About 30 seconds after I started the timer on my phone the waiter came to take our order. I was worried the price wouldn’t match the food quality but I was too hungry to worry about that.  We got an appetizer, and two entree’s, not to big a deal, but still more than we wanted to spend.

A few minutes later the hostess showed up.  She placed a plate of homemade guacamole and homemade large, round chips on our table and said, “Here is some complementary guacamole while you wait for your food.”  According to the menu she just handed us $8 worth of food, for free! It was very good, well worth the price, but a little too spicy for me to finish it off. Our appetizer came before we had given up on the guacamole, and our entrees seem to arrive before we finished the appetizer. The waiter apologized for the wait, and the hostess apologized again when she brought us our check.
The food was wonderful, and even though it was expensive, we agreed that it was certainly worth the price. It’s funny, I was getting annoyed and disgruntled while waiting to order, but as soon as that delicious yet spicy guacamole arrived I forgot about being annoyed and really didn’t pay too much attention to how long it took to get our food and the check. The apologies were both unexpected and sincere, they seemed genuinely embarrassed.

It could’ve been a horrible experience, but my partner and I would love to go again and plan on recommending Caliente to my brother and his girlfriend and anyone else who wants a tasty dinner at a restaurant that cares about its clients. All they did was give us something for free that we weren’t expecting, apologized for the inconvenience, and sealed the deal with tasty food!  We were so surprised by the free guacamole that the wait for everything else didn’t even register.  We weren’t looking at our clocks, just marveling at how much these people sincerely wanted to give us a good dining experience with them, despite being short staffed. 

If you have had similar experiences, leave a comment with your story!  

Does the economy feel a little scary to anyone else?  Yes?  I thought so.

It’s more than the economy, however, that drives us to focus on customer reassurance as a tool today.  We are living in a world where we fear our personal data will be swiped off the receipt we casually throw in the waste basket.  We are living in a world where we fear our invoices will overcharge us and nobody will care.  We are living in a world where one small typo could mean we lose our health insurance and have to deal with a cumbersome and painful process to rectify things.

It is difficult to be a customer today.  There is little that works the way it should.  There are guarantees created to cover us only long enough to get us out of the store.  Billing has become a complex and convoluted process.

So imagine my surprise when I received a call from Chase Bank requesting Janet Walters call immediately to rectify a serious credit problem.  Two things you should know:

1.      I do, in fact, have an account with Chase.

2.      My name is not Janet.  It’s Jeanne (or Jeannie) and always has been.

I called back the 888 number provided and heard the man answer “Credit Services.”  He requested my credit card number (didn’t have it in front of me) or my social.  I hesitated, but then provided.  I explained my situation and he put me on hold.  He came back and said “It’s done.  You’re out of the system.” 

It was a brief exchange that left me feeling anything but reassured.  Was this even Chase?  What does “It’s done” mean, exactly?  Is my SSN now floating through space to thieves and crooks worldwide?

I frantically tried to find a way to reach Chase.  I was in my kitchen, so I found the yellow pages.  I found a toll-free number to call and wandered through the maze of choices until forcing the darn system to give me a real person.  What do I select, exactly, to inform them they have the wrong J. Walters and I believe I may have been duped??

I explain my situation and am transferred to the credit department.  “I just need to know if you, Chase, just accessed my account.  Is there a way you can do that?  I have the number I called - can you verify this??”

No.  Again and again.  The credit department; the security department…then they go to transfer me again and I’m left cold.  Nobody can reassure me.  Nobody can tell me anything.

I give up.

I have to tell my husband that I may have jeopardized our family’s financial security because of a call from Chase.

I wait for a few weeks to pass.  Nothing happens.  We get no more calls. 

I’m still not reassured.

My only reassurance?  I’ve told this story to a few people who had the EXACT same problem from Chase. 

Reassurance is all we want as customers.  We want to know our faith in people is still valid.  We want to know someone, somewhere is looking out for us. 

Online, reassurance is more than critical.  In any interaction, it can be the difference between feeling like “Phew!  I made a great choice” to “Oh no.  This is a terrible mistake.”

Knowing what we know - that it’s hard to be a customer; that it’s a scary world - we have to do more to reassure people doing business with us.  What can you do to reassure your customers today?  What ways are you leaving them feeling anxious?  Address those things and you’ll have loyalty. 

Back to the economy: it’ll be fine.  Feeling reassured? 

Me neither.

Or… How Staples lost my Confidence

Brand values are powerful tools that help create an emotional connection with customers.  Focused ad campaigns can draw in customers by the thousands, but how well does your company live by these brand values?  Just as important, how well does your company communicate that to your customers?

I order office supplies for my company - Vox.  When I started working here, Officemax was our office supply retailer.  But, among other issues, I felt they were consistently wasteful with packaging materials, so I switched to Staples! 

Staples had an excellent reputation as a company that cares about the environment.  I was impressed with their products made from post-consumer waste.  They even sent me a brochure detailing their progress in reducing greenhouse emissions.  All very impressive.  Clearly, they were in-line with Vox’s commitment to conservation.  So, I decided I should give them our money.

Now, after a year of regular orders, I no longer feel that camaraderie of purpose with Staples.  Nothing major happened.  It has just been the sum total of many small interactions.

One such detail is in ordering coffee.  I order these great k-cups that let you brew your own personal cup of coffee in Keurig machines.  The problem is that if I order 5 different packages of coffee, they will often be shipped to me individually, from different locations.  This is not only annoying, but wasteful.  I have often wondered if shipping them individually really is wasteful.  There’s a chance it somehow saves resources.  If this is the case, it should be communicated in some way, because to me, it appears to be wasteful!

For every one box of coffee that I order, I also receive:

•          One large cardboard box
•          Piles of plastic inflatable packaging materials
•          A separately shipped, fully detailed invoice
•          TWO packing slips

Why Staples feels the need to include two packing slips in each box continues to escape me.   It is such a small detail!  But it stands out to me.  Every time I open a box, I pull out the two packing slips and think, “Why are you wasting paper?!?!”  This tiny detail has helped to fizzle my enthusiasm for their organization.  I still hope that Staples is making a positive impact on the environment, but my day-to-day perception of them is that they are no different than any other office supply retailer - using their green philosophy as a sales pitch, but then failing to show their real efforts toward this commitment.

The lesson I think we can learn from this is that our customers have reasons for choosing us over someone else.  Every interaction creates a perception that contributes to their overall experience.  To keep customers longer, it’s important to understand those reasons and create a Customer Experience that reinforces brand promises on a consistent basis.