Customer Disservice - I

Just before lunch today, I visited the customer care centre of my telecommunications company to inquire about my data service. For the last few days, my email delivery to my phone was very spotty. As noon today, the last delivery was from yesterday evening. A review of the mail history showed that two days, no email was delivered.

I walked into the service centre and made my way to one of the agents who listened to my explanation and promptly handed me over to another support person who was at that time helping another customer out. The support person took my phone and tried to carry out two conversations at the same time. I waited for my turn each time to provide details and the support person moved his attention from the other customer to me and back.

About 10 minutes into this, I was privileged to get his undivided attention – so I thought, before he disappeared to the back – later I found out, it was to consult the data guru (name I coined for the technical escalation person at the service centre) the nick, who himself was supporting four customers at the same time.

‘’Sorry, but you have run out of data’’, was the eventual response, ‘’this is a post paid line’’, I protested, ‘’oh, let me check again’’. Next I was told by this same support person that I needed to purchase additional data. I told him it was difficult for me to understand why I should purchase additional data on a line that was within credit limit and delivered mail just the day before. Anyway, I conceded and told him to go ahead and provide the same data bundle that I had before. Another disappearing act for 8 minutes and was later invited to the presence of the data guru.

The data guru sat behind a desk with 3 or so devices in front with an equal number customers waiting to receive wisdom for their data troubles. The data guru provided his own diagnosis of my problem. When I reminded him that he had other customers waiting, ‘’I am multi-tasking and what am doing is working’’ was his response, dispensed with the composure of a medical doctor.

Not so, data guru, according to Joshua Rubinstein, Jeffrey Evans and David Meyer, people who do more than one task or switch between tasks lose significant amounts of time as they switched between multiple tasks and lost even more time as the tasks became increasingly complex.

Specifically, multitasking can reduce productivity by approximately 40-percent according to some researchers. Switching from one task to another makes it difficult to tune out distractions and can cause mental blocks that can slow down your progress.

Back to data guru, I told him, I will take an appointment and come back when he will have the time to give me his undivided attention. With that I was handed back to the original support person who took back to the waiting area, while elaborately trying to convince me to wait upon the data guru.

As I made my move for the door, a soft spoken gentleman (who later introduced himself as the Director of Marketing) came forward to apologize and offer to help. He made phone call and another guy from marketing (he introduced himself as Manager, Data Services). The Manager Data services took 7 minutes for diagnosis and solution and I was on my way home. At this point I was too tired to get details on the problem so I accepted his ‘’we need to reset your profile’’ as solution and ‘’you ran out of data’’ as root cause.

While on my way, I kept thinking why companies will staff service centres with people and processes that combine to provide a disservice to customers? Maybe people know what to do but don’t do it, like member of the audience told me over the weekend at a talk I gave on exceptional service to a leading financial institution in town. People know how to be polite, how to do effective diagnosis and deliver a remarkable service but strangely will choose to do otherwise.

In this specific case, it was clear that the support person and the data guru had little or no idea of what type of service to provide. So disappearing after every ten minutes to ‘’consult’’ was normal and so was the terrible idea of having four customers stand around your table while you ‘’multi-task’’

I know operating a service centre can be quite a job, recalling from days in telecom but I learnt which true today, is that we must have the customer and the type of experience we to create. When we leave the customer experience to chance and ‘’data gurus’’ we use the very same processes, people and tools to provide a disservice.

According to the American Express Global Barometer on customer service for 2014:

·         Excellent customer service means getting questions answered by knowledgeable representatives. Just like the Manager, Data service in marketing who took 7 minutes to diagnose and solve not 23 minutes to tell me why my service is not working.

·         The most important attribute of a successful customer service professional is ‘efficiency – the ability to answer questions or handle transactions quickly’.

·         Consumers also find it important that a customer service professional is ‘empowered to handle requests without transfers or escalations’.

·         More than nine in ten consumers talk about their good customer service experiences, at least some of the time (93%), while 46% tell someone about them all of the time, similar to the past two years (48% ‘all the time’ in 2012 and 2011).

·         When it comes to poor customer service experiences, nearly all (95%) consumers talk about them, with 60% reporting that they talk about these experiences all of the time.

·         On average, consumers tell 8 people about their good experiences and over twice as many people about their bad experiences.

 So I am likely to tell 16 people about poor experience at the service centre. However, it would have taken less time and better experience if the whole experience was designed with the customer in mind.

 

Employee Enagement And Productivity

The flight Purser on our flight from Dubai to Entebbe earlier today came to welcome my wife and I on-board. I noticed she had a hand held device that provided our background information –previous flights, seat and meal preferences, etc. The Purser took her time and answered question I posed about Emirates in-flight crew selection criteria, interview process, type and duration of training, etc.

Earlier the ground staff at the check-in counter directed that I take all seven passports of my family and after identifying each one, said ‘’have them take a seat across, we will only need you during the check-in process’’. Here again, I asked a few questions about Emirates employee selection process and training. The attendant mentioned that she observed that Emirates recruited a lot staff from the hospitality industry because ‘’we know how to smile’’.

In the two encounters above, I thought it is one thing to have a service process designed it is quite another thing to have engaged employees execute the process to customer satisfaction. So does the level of engagement of the employee affect how the service is delivered or the overall productivity of the team?

I did not have to look for answers. In a recent study, Gallup Organization examined 49 publicly traded companies with Earnings Per Share (EPS) data available from 2008-2012 and Q12 (the Gallup Employee engagement instrument) data available from 2010 and or 2011 in its database and found that organizations with a critical mass of engaged employees outperformed their competition, compared with those that did not maximize their employees potential.

 Kevin Kruse, author of Employee Engagement for Everyone, referenced a study that was published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology organizational commitment has more impact on business unit performance than vice versa. Researchers Silvan Winkler, Cornelius König and Martin Kleinmann used both a longitudinal design and looked at the organizational commitment of 755 retail bank employees from 2005—2008, along with financial performance and customer satisfaction of the business units they worked in. The study showed that indeed there is a reciprocal relationship between job attitudes and business performance within a one-year time frame, but when the time frame is increased to two or three years the correlation only remained in the direction of engagement preceding business outcomes. They write:

Results indicated that organizational commitment had a more persistent influence on performance at the business unit level than vice versa. Consistent with prior research, this suggests that job attitudes may come first, and that practitioners might be well advised to aim to improve job attitudes in order to boost performance.

According to Kruse, this study looked at the size of the effect (i.e., the strength of engagement) on customer satisfaction. Using a binomial effect size display for the link between engagement and subsequent customer satisfaction the findings were r = .43.
To put this effect size into perspective for everyday practitioners, it can be compared to the effect sizes of many drugs as reported in the journal, American Psychologist:

• Chemotherapy and breast cancer survival: r = .03
• Antibiotics and the cure for pediatric ear pain: r = .08
• Smoking and incidence of lung cancer within 25 years: r = .08
• Effect of ibuprofen on pain reduction: r = .14
• Alcohol and aggressive behavior: r = .23
• Sleeping pills and improvement in insomnia: r = .30
• Viagra and improved male sexual functioning: r = .38
• Employee engagement and customer satisfaction: r = .43

Indeed, the authors make a direct comparison, “the correlation between male consumption of Viagra and sexual performance has been calculated to be r = .38…which is similar to the relationship between employee commitment and subsequent 1-year customer satisfaction.”

No wonder companies like Southwest Airlines and luxury hotel Four Seasons emphasise creating an engaged workforce to achieve the level of superior customer service that they consistently provide.

To be clear, the customer experience still rule but it takes engaged employees to make the magical happen. According to Gallup, engaged employees are the best colleagues. They cooperate to build an organization, institution, or agency, and they are behind everything good that happens there. These employees are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work. They know the scope of their jobs and look for new and better ways to achieve outcomes. They are 100% psychologically committed to their work. And, they are the only people in an organization who create new customers.

On the other hand, Gallup says, not engaged workers can be difficult to spot: They are not hostile or disruptive. They show up and kill time with little or no concern about customers, productivity, profitability, waste, safety, mission and purpose of the teams, or developing customers. They are thinking about lunch or their next break. They are essentially “checked out.” Surprisingly, these people are not only a part of your support staff or sales team, but they are also sitting on your executive committee.

 Actively disengaged employees are more or less out to damage their company. They monopolize managers’ time; have more on the-job accidents; account for more quality defects; contribute to “shrinkage,” as theft is called; are sicker; miss more days; and quit at a higher rate than engaged employees do. Whatever the engaged do — such as solving problems, innovating, and creating new customers — the actively disengaged try to undo.

 And here is the troubling part, in the US, 70% of its estimated 100 million workforces is either not engaged or actively disengaged. With 30% most of the innovating and delivering on customer satisfaction, it is clear if we want dramatically increase our service experience feedback like the Net Promoter Score (NPS) then we must provide the leadership to drive higher levels of employee engagement.

 So where do you start? According to Professor Harter, Chief Scientist at Gallup, one way to simplify it is to focus on purpose. Communicate the purpose of the organization, and how employees’ individual purposes fit into that purpose. When employees “clearly know their role, have what they need to fulfil their role, and can see the connection between their role and the overall organizational purpose,” says Harter, that’s the recipe for creating greater levels of engagement.

 

 

Customer Experience Counts

I called the Emirates Airlines to book a flight from Entebbe to Dubai in December and in between on availability, the reservation agent took time to ask me ‘’what plans do you have for the holidays?’’. Oh, that was a surprise, usually when I call to make hotel or airline reservations, beyond the customary greeting of the day, I have grown used to the pause which is usually punctuated with ‘’are you still there’’.

Was this agent using a script, I wondered. But the agent continued effortlessly to keep me engaged while he answered all my questions. I went on to book an Economy ticket, even though it cost one hundred and forty dollars more that Fly Dubai (the recent low cost carrier on this Entebbe-Dubai route). No surprise here as the American Express yearly survey on customer experience found that three out of four (74%) consumers say they have spent more with a company because of a history of positive customer service experiences, similar to the past two years (75% in 2012; 73% in 2011). Over two thirds (68%) of consumers state that they are willing to spend more with a company they believe provides excellent customer service.

The Emirates agent re-confirmed to me through his knowledge, engagement and quality of responses, why my family and I continue to prefer Emirates even on long haul flights to New York and elsewhere. The same survey by American Express found that in order to provide consumers with an excellent customer service experience, representatives must be able to ‘provide a satisfactory answer to their question’ (86%) or be able to ‘connect them with someone who is knowledgeable’ (78%).

Like the folks at the Conference Board found in their research, a company’s brand, product service and price to value ratio accounts for 47% of customer loyalty. While 53% of loyalty comes from the experience customers have with sales people. In other words, it is not ‘’what’’ we sell but ‘’how’’ we sell that gives us the greatest leverage with customers. You may charge zero fees on the use of the Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) but what experience do I get when I walk into your branch or meet my Business Banker?.

Companies that want to reap the benefits of loyal customers must look to achieve the following;

Make customer experience an integral part of a culture of excellence

It is not just the reservation agent on the phone; it is from the check-in counter to picking up your luggage at your destination. In the case of Emirates, at check in, you get the ‘’welcome back Mr. Egbuson, how was your last flight to New York?’’. By some miracle this agent at the counter new the last time I flew and was genuinely interested in my opinion about the trip. She made eye contact and stopped my check-in process until she got my feedback. On board the flight, the purser came by to welcome me on board and assured be of his service throughout the flight. In a way, I felt the entire Airbus A380-500 experience was designed with me in mind. And my children have the same opinion, especially my 5 year old Anabelle.

This above experience will be similar to going to Cafe Javas in Kampala where it is not enough that the food is served with fifteen minutes but waitresses are stationed to make eye contact with the tables and are on hand to provide assistance. If the wrong order is served and you complain, the order is replaced. Contrast this with another experience where I complained about a wrong food order and the waitress retorted with ‘’who is going to pay for this one?’’.

US chain Wegmans sent Carol Kent, who runs the Cheese department for the Pittsford, New York store, to Italy several years ago to see how parmesan cheese is made. It was important that Kent not just sell Cheese but also sell the culture and pass on the mystique of that culture.  Wegmans not only provides great variety and excellent experience, it has also consistently ranked as a great place to work.

The customer experience is not only a ‘’touch point’’ issue but it is a journey, from check-in to check-out. It is the way ‘’we do things’’, the culture.

Leaders should commit to and model the culture of excellence

Anytime we run into the Group Chairman of Mandela (owners of Cafe Javas) at any one of their restaurants, we are struck by his willingness to serve customers and interact with the children. Any wonder why Cafe Javas consistently provide such quality service – it is not a matter of telling front line employees what to do but it is the very senior leaders, who model the behaviour of excellence. While a number of restaurants in Kampala will emphasize pony tails and lipstick, Cafe Javas places their emphasis on what the customer values – great service and healthy portions. Pony tail and lipstick is good for appearance of the waitress but it is the entire experience reinforced by leaders that will have customers come back.

The actions of leaders, managers and supervisors, according to Isadore Sharp – founder and chairman of The US luxury hotel, Four seasons, ‘’speaks louder and clearer than words’’. And this is especially true when a company or team is trying to get a common and consistent way of doing things.

Employees must embody the culture of excellence
I went to Stanbic Bank at Forest Mall a few months ago – during my lunch break from a workshop (so I had very little time to spend) – to send money to wife who was in Istanbul at that time. I told the branch manager that I wanted to wire money but had very little time to wait for the paperwork. So requested to sign all the necessary paperwork and leave the rest to him and my niece who accompanied me. To my surprise, the manager said that was no problem provided I had the money in my account. Within minutes, I was on my way back to my workshop and later my niece informed me that the transfer was done. In fact, I had to go back to the back to pay for the transfer fees later that day.

For me that branch manager delivered value and delivered it excellently. No recital of Bank of Uganda regulations about wire transfer or we need various copies of my identity card. Now, getting everyone in the company to embody prompt, delightful and remarkable service is no small feat. A challenge that was well captured by Isadore Sharp, Founder and Chairman of Four Seasons Hotel – a hotel know for is legendary service. According to Sharp, ‘’our customer – frontline relationship is crucial. Customers seldom see or talk to general managers. They interact almost solely with frontline, three to seven junior employees. If that contact disappoints the customers we want as lifetime patrons, they become ex-patrons. But when our employees remember them, greet them, know what they want and provide it quickly, they create a loyal customer whose referrals and long-term repeat business can often run well into six figures. That’s the cycle of success, dependent entirely on junior employees’’.

Build on-going process for customer feedback

My family and I spent the Christmas holiday at Kampala Serena Hotel and within less than 24 hours of check out, we received a guest satisfaction survey. The survey was in addition to the numerous checks in with us by the Hotel senior staff – from General Manager to Waiter. All inquired about what else they could do to make our stay great.

While some companies play guessing games with what their customers want, others like Serena have a made it part of the way they do business to ask the customer in near real time. Not suggestion boxes like one of the telecommunications company in the region. This telco gets eight thousand walk in clients daily but spends little time getting feedback. When asked, the Service manager responded with ‘’that is why we have suggestion boxes’’.

Conclusion

While it may seem daunting to provide consistent excellent service, the reward makes all the effort worth the while. Bain and Company survey in 2013 found that it pays off on the bottom line—loyalty leaders grow 2.6 times their competitors’ average.

 

 

 

Managing your Boss is a requirement for great health

A Human Resource supervisor at a local bank told us recently that her Boss rated her a poor team player. And she wanted to know what she could do to change that situation. Beyond the rating, she felt she was working under a ''bad Boss'' for a number of other things she wanted to keep confidential.

Her colleagues and I told her during the workshop that she could do any one of the following:

1. Find out from her Boss what she can do specifically to be a better team player

2. Ask her Boss to support her (coach and mentor) in the process

3. Take full responsibility for implementing the action plan from (1) and (2) above

3. And if (3) above doe not work, look for the possibility of getting another Boss at her current place of work or elsewhere

Now the last recommendation  was met with stiff opposition. Another participant reminded me of the harsh job market that makes it almost impossible to get a low level job. Current unemployment in Kampala is 11% according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics. Somehow, most participants felt that the Human Resource supervisor should ''just continue to work'' for this Boss no matter how bad the situation got. After all, I was reminded, Bosses are known to be that way ''especially in the public sector''.

Now the image of an employee who chooses to work under a bad Boss did not sit well with me no matter the unemployment rate. I believe that people should take responsibility for their actions and decisions, including managing the relationship between you and your Boss. The consequences of not doing so could be dire.

According to A study from Baylor University found that the stress and tension caused by an abusive boss at work also filters through to an employee's personal relationships and ultimately the whole family. When people reported having an abusive boss, their significant other was more likely to report increased relationship tension and family conflict at home.

Like a Swedish study from 2008 that found bad bosses increase employee heart attack risk, the Baylor study puts the onus for fixing the problem on the organization, the same organization that hired and promoted the abusive boss. People with an abusive boss are usually advised to first try speaking with him or her and if that doesn't help, to take the problem to higher management. 

 

This Stuff Works

Not long a ago a prominent Ugandan Journalist stopped our Franklin Covey display at the entrance to the Sheraton Hotel Ballroom and made a comment to my Client Partner Boba Kabaramagi ''this stuff doesn't work..I don't believe in self help''. And he left leaving Boba reeling from his harassing behaviour.

When Boba narrated the story, I thought  ''this stuff doesn't work?''. Now for those who do not know about the company, Franklin Covey is the product of the merger between the late Dr, Stephen R. Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) Leadership Centre and Hyrum Smith's Franklin Planners. Today Franklin Covey is a New York stock exchange listed company with a mission to enable greatness in people and organizations everywhere and vision to impact billions of people throughout the world in how they live and work to achieve their great purposes.

At Franklin Covey, we help, as Bob Whitman, the global Chief Executive Officer (CEO) put it ''organizations achieve results that require lasting changes in human behaviour, often the most difficult challenge any organization faces. When accomplished, it is also the most durable  competitive advantage. We believe it is one thing to for an organization to announce a strategy-it's quite another to reshape peoples' behaviour and the organizational culture to successful execute that strategy''

Building on the work of Stephen Covey and Hyrum Smith in leadership and productivity, Franklin Covey deep expertise now extends to helping organizations and individuals achieve lasting behavioural changes in seven crucial areas: leadership, execution, productivity, trust, sales performance, customer loyalty and education. Today, Franklin Covey has a global footprint in 165 countries who account for 66% of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It's client list include Shell, Bayer, China Mobile, BMW, Daimler, Lego, Google, Microsoft, etc. Locally, Stanbic Bank, Vision Group, Ecobank Uganda and Rwanda, Citi Bank, Vivo Energy, Ministry of Finance are some of Franklin Covey's clients.

So what doesn't work? Self help? does gravity work everywhere? well so does self help. Writing in 1859, Samuel Smiles captured the power of self help ''The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless''.

So what doesn't work?

 

 

The Choice to Serve

Judy - The Manhattan Grille

My wife and I had dinner today at The Manhattan Grille located inside the Grand Hyatt Dubai - next to Wafi City. We may have another Grand Hyatt in Dubai by the next time we visit, just like The Hyatt Regency - for the longest time, we had one in Deira and now there is a new sprawling complex called Hyatt Regency - that is a piece for another time.

Back to our dinner. After waiting for twenty minutes, I went to the bar area to request one of the waiters to come take our orders. And that is how we met Judy, the waiter who by his deliberate choice to engage with us beyond our orders for Nebraska Steak, recovered the evening. Judy, who is Chinese, told us of his remarkable story of working in a 500-seater restaurant in Geneva, Switzerland, where he learnt French by memorizing client order and repeating it to his supervisor. With very helpful clients and a support supervisor, Judy is now able to speak flawless French (my wife, who is a native French speaker confirmed to me).

When asked what he attributes his success in learning French and ability to be an engaging waiter, he said ''Attitude'', with a broad smile across his face. Wow, is that something.  What we would have chalked up as a poor customer experience, was turned around by Judy and his charm.

Judy exemplified the definition of accountability I found in the book OZ Principle by Roger Connors, Tom Smith and Craig Hickman, which defines accountability as ''A personal choice to rise above one's circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results-to See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It. It goes on to say that this definition includes a mind-set or attitude of continually asking, ''What else can I do to rise above my circumstances and achieve results I desire?''. They say this definition ''requires a level of ownership that includes making, keeping and answering for personal commitments''.

And Judy, in his engaging style - right questions, eye contact, knowledge of the menu and speed - was rising above circumstance of taking our orders late and initial cold entrees. He could have added to our frustration but did everything to make the evening a pleasant one. Judy saw the situation, owned it and solved most of it.

The experience with Judy reminds me of the various encounters we have with service providers - those who will choose to serve and those who will make you feel like they are doing you a favour. Or by their service or lack thereof, suggest that your presence is an inconvenience. I thought of providers who do it well had developed the ''script and compliance'' culture - you know those who will follow a script beyond the point that it is becomes a boring monologue. Now, no doubt, there is the script and lots of training but in the end, it takes the ''Judy'' to rise to the occasion, to truly choose to serve.

Just like the Dubai Taxi who offered to carry my family - all 6 of us - when most other cabs will go to great lengths to tell you how it is against the law to carry more than 4 people. There is the policy and there is understanding that Family of 6 with children below the age of 10 should be an exception - provided done safely. This particular Taxi was so helpful that we paid him the equivalent of two cabs for the trip.

And there is the Banking Assistant at Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) who went the extra mile to redeem my dividend cheque from Safaricom even though I did not have a KCB account. The Cheque was drawn on KCB but the procedure was that if you did not have an account you had to wait 3-5 business days for the cheque to clear. But this Assistant quickly saw the difference between the ''spirit'' and the ''letter'' of the law and cashed the cheque within ten minutes.