Sometimes working in and around customer service environments gives you an opportunity to stand back from a situation and just see it from above, and most importantly, from “outside”. Seeing first hand how failures in notification, communication and co-ordination effectively destroyed customer trust really brought home to me, again, how much value there is in CEBP coupled with service design and a customer experience focus.
Recently I was in the United Kingdom and hired a car to get from A to B for an important family event. The short version of the story is that car was malfunctioning badly, and only barely got me to my destination, shaken and stirred. This is where my customer experience journey began. First of all let me outline how that proceeded.
(1) When I phoned the hire company they told me to phone the breakdown service.
(2) The breakdown service gave me an ETA of within an hour, and turned up 3 hours later.
(3) They didn’t actually fix the car, and next day it didn’t work, so I was late form my family event. I had to get cabs, back and forth and pretty much I lost half my day.
(4) I phone the breakdown service and am told I can’t book ahead for a mechanic, I have to call from my hotel and wait until one shows.
(5) I phone the car hire company and am told that unless the car it toable I won’t be able to get a replacement, or/ and could I bring it back to the airport to get a new one today, because they are understaffed and can’t get out to me.
(6) Mechanic arrives but didn’t know the car type, my phone number, or any other details, that made it hard for him to find me on site. I had given them to the customer care people fronting the breakdown service, who were representing the car hire company and were “there employees” Anyway, the guy fixes the car.
(7) I call the car hire company, and front desk apologizes for the bad experience I’ve had, and she says obviously we won’t be charging you.
(8) Next day I get back to the airport and the staff at front desk have no record of my interactions and my experience to date, they can’t refund me because of some technical issues, and I’m given the name and email address of the location manager.
(9) I email the location manager with a full, and detailed description of my experience on the next working day, Tuesday morning. I don’t receive any notification that my email has been received or read. Nobody contacts me on the next business day (Wed) to tell me they are on top of this etc so I phone them. As a part of this telephone conversation I am assured a cheque will be issued, and that the systems did have my details, and that the notes on my experience were on the system.
(10) Today, still no cheque. Still no notification from the company as to where it is in process: is it sent, is it in the mail, when can I expect it to arrive? Still no trust in the company. Real and significant Brand Damage potential.
Some Take Away Points:
(1) ”My experience” was what I lived, and what lives with me. That’s just how human memory works. You may have many good reasons why things just didn’t work out, but that’s not how the customer will view it;
(2) Although “Company” are not “crazy bad” the cumulative effect of all the mis-matches, mis-communications, and un-ordinations is that I lost Trust. Once my Trust was gone, no amount of reason would bring it back. Customer experience is almost an “emergent quality”, a culmination of all the little things you get right.
(3) It could have been all very different. Let me hypothesize another scenario.
Using CEBP to Delivery Customer Care Experience
(1) You take my phone number and make it a unique identification. When I ring you, you should know who I am. You tell me who to ring if there are any problems and you send two numbers to my phone (via sms/ email/ or as a contact) so that I have those numbers at point of need.
(2) You ask do I have a map to get me to my location; have I been on this journey before; you ascertain if there are any special contexts to my journey that might enable you to understand my total journey (going to a wedding, important meeting, holiday etc.). You figure out what kind of traveller type I am.
(3) When the car breaks down, I call the number I have been given and the person I was last speaking to answers at the front desk. She greets me by name and listens to my problem. While on the call she locates the AA service, ascertains where I am, and directs them to my location. She assures me that they will be there in under 20 minutes, and informs me that if the mechanic thinks it will be more than 20 minutes to fix when he gets there, they can arrange a cab back to the hotel, and the car will be delivered to the hotel car park for me. Basically don’t worry, we’ve got your back.
(4) At 20 minutes after our call, the AA is running late due to traffic. An automated call is generated by the AA (reading the van location and the traffic flow) calling me, and telling me that my AA mechanic John, is approximately 20 minutes behind time. If I’d like to activate a call to a local cab company to get a taxi sent to my location, just press 1) and you will be connected to the nearest taxi cab provider.
(5) The AA mechanic receives an email with all my relevant details: my name, the make of car, the hotel I need to go to, and the name of the person to contact in the hire company if anything more needs to be arranged. This is all a part of their Service Breakdown InterAct. The mechanic fixes the car and signs off on his mobile device that the car is fixed and the job is closed out. This triggers a call to the car hire front desk and to the customer. The AA mechanic drives it to the local hotel, and gets a cab back to his own van.
(6) Because the Car Fix event has been closed out the car hire people are prompted to phone the customer to ensure that they made it to their event on time, and also to ascertain how they felt about how the Car Hire Company has responded to the situation. Would you use us again? recommend this service to a friend etc.? OK. Push button 1 to activate your credit card repayment. Thank you for your continued custom.
(7) I receive a full report from the car hire company detailing the days events, the times and reports from all parties, and a total due balance of zero on my statement.
So Finally, Finally.
I saw a lot of comparisons with my Ashcloud experience. In this instance it was the car company that was impacting on my wider life, on my connections, on my commitments. The car hire company needed to co-ordinate with other service providers such as the car repair service providers, potentially with taxi cab companies, with airports, and with other car hire providers. They were part of a network of service providers and being able to Pull on the Resources of these other providers in a real time, synchronized fashion was the key to delivery. Of course, getting your own systems, processes, and people lined up properly in the first place is stage one.
