Conversion Crazed

Customer Service vs. Customer Satisfaction

I'm on a Southwest Airlines flight, something I vowed I would never do again but I didn't really have a choice. It has reminded me of all the things I hate about Southwest, notable exceptions being seat and leg room. It also has me thinking about customer service again... here's my latest thought: Is good customer service obtained by accomplishing the task where as good customer satisfaction is more about how the task is accomplished?

In other words focusing on customer service is getting someone to a satisfactory conclusion where as customers satisfaction is more a function of the journey, the how, you get someone to a satisfactory conclusion.

Take the example of my Southwest flight. Did they meet their obligations? Yes, I got to and from my destination on time. However, the staff appeared unprofessional both in action and attire (again) the flight was oversold (again) lack of seat assignments caused boarding to take twice as long (again), etc. etc. etc. So while the function of taking me from point A to point B was accomplished the poor way with which it was done has reinforced my commitment to never fly them again (unless it's out of my control)

Just musings, I think I'll need to think more about this to decide if this has merit or not. Comments or thoughts?

My Car Dealership Treats Me Like a Prince

Another long post, mainly because I’m sitting here on my overcrowded Delta flight back home for Thanksgiving after having endured yet another bout of abuse thanks to the TSA and Delta Airlines and it has got me thinking of a good customer experience I continually have.

My car dealership service center treats me like a Prince! Notice I didn’t say King, more of this in a bit. I have a Toyota Truck and I have an extended warranty that would be void if I went anywhere else to get my car serviced so that forces me to be there but honesty I think I will continue to pay the much higher rates to have the kind of service I get there.  When you are getting your car worked on often time the quality of the service is directly relational to the people who work on your car so let me tell you about K.C., he is the customer coordinator that has been assigned to me. First off I know when I call he is the one I will talk to. What make K.C. great at what he does is that he keeps it real, no fluff.  He’s honest, efficient (meaning he respects my time), and he is very communicative about my car and what they are doing to it. The other thing that sets him apart is his demeanor with customers. It changes with each customer, and at my last service I had a chance to watch him interact with several customers. I’m a fairly kick-back person with people I trust so with me he is casual but I noticed that when he spoke to another long time customer, a businessman who would fit the bank executive stereotype perfectly, he changed his demeanor instantly to make that person comfortable. With me it’s “Hey, Brian” and some bullshitting, but with this other customer it was “Hello Mr. so-and-so” His conversation was very perfunctory and devoid of slang or superfluous talk. The banker-type customer was very satisfied with the conversation and walked away content. His talent is evidenced in the waiting room where the dealership posts thank you letters from customers. While there are 8-10 other customer coordinators almost all the many letters mention K.C. by name. Another driving reminder that a companies brand value and reputation is often represented by customer service and it’s important to have the right person in the right role.

Now back to not being treated as a King. A friend and I were talking about our getting our cars worked on, Dave bought a new Lexus from a dealership in the bay area. He explained that all he has to is drive up to his dealership and they come out to the car, he signs the paperwork, and they had him keys to a loaner, regardless of how long they will have the car. If they keep it longer that they quoted him earlier the dealership often throws in perks like a free oil change. He truly is treated like a King. My dealership treats me fairly, my customer service experience is good, they automatically fix things under warranty or recall, but instead of free loaners they offer shuttle services and they don’t give me free oil changes.

But here’s the deal, could Toyota treat me like Lexus? Yes, but they couldn’t afford it and what’s more I don’t expect any of those perks… I bought a Toyota not a luxury car for 3x the price. They have done something that is often difficult for a lot of companies to master: how much customer satisfaction can you afford? My Toyota experience highlights to me the importance of understanding that balance between perfect customer experience at a high cost and a good customer experience at an affordable, sustainable, and scalable rate.

In contrast to this principle is my experience recently ordering an Apple laptop. I have high expectations of Apple and it’s products. They have positioned themselves in a premium place and I expected premium service. However, let’s just say my experience has been very disappointing. I might write about this later.

In general, I think most companies could focus their efforts on the small yet meaningful customer interactions that are complimentary to the customer’s expectations of the brand/product and be a whole lot more profitable and have higher customer satisfaction.

Question for y’all, what the most pleasantly surprising customer experience you have had. Not the best but the most surprising. Were you treated like a prince when you were expecting to be treated as a pauper?

You’ll love the way we fly... if you can find a flight

This is a long post but I’m on a plane and have time to spare:

Today I need to throw in my two cents in on the whole conversation about airline business problems. Now more than ever I think it’s a problem of focus on customer service. Being in a city that is a Delta hub I’m going to use them as an example but I think my observations are could be applied to any US carrier today. On the surface of it Delta appears to be really focused on customer service: lots of lovely language everywhere thanking you making you feel better about your choice, nice little brand messages on everything from the back of tickets to the quirky messages on baggage tags, professional uniforms, etc. Scratch beneath the surface though and you find an organization that only gives lip service to customer service, realizing (amazingly pointed out to me by one of Delta’s ticket agents) that Delta is just interested in providing enough service to handle the most economical amount of issues. Just enough not to be considered evil…

Everyone has one but let me tell you my Delta horror story…

First let me set the scene… It was the eleventh hour when I was invited to a conference in NYC. It was MLK week so fares were outrageous and to make matters worse I live in Salt Lake City/Park City and at the end of the week Sundance was starting. This meant that flight were packed, sparse, and expensive. But I had to get there! So I ended up coughing up 50,000 frequent flyer miles for the trip. The flight out was no problem and my conference in NY ended on a Thursday. I was scheduled to fly back with a connection in Cincinnati giving me 45 minutes to catch my final leg to SLC. Flying out of a delta connection flight means taking a bus out to the tarmac to get on your plane… this is when things went very wrong… They had waited until everyone was on the plane and ready to go (even making a stink about everyone having to be off cell phones before we could leave) before testing the steering. Well the hydraulics didn’t work. I would miss my connection but what was worse is that no one cared… First off the pilot was not apologetic at all and not forthcoming with any details and kept making the case “these things happen”, the flight crew was standoffish and hid in the back, if anyone asked them a question the quickly snapped back that “we don’t know anything about what’s going to happen, you can’t ask us you will have to ask a ticket agent” (this really paled in comparison with a story I had read the previous week, make sure to read the story it will make you feel like there is hope). So we were all shuttled back to the concourse where gate agents were just as rude and pretty much told us we were screwed all remaining flights that day out of JFK, Newark, and La Guardia were booked, in fact they were overbooked.

Overbooked? Now that I had all the time in the world I asked them to explain how this works. The agent firmly placed the blame back on corporate saying she didn’t agree with the policy but the lowdown is that flight schedulers look at a large amount of statistical data about how many people fail to show up for flights in a particular market in a particular time going to a particular place and make an estimate for how many seats they can oversell knowing those oversold will take the seats of the no shows. Sounds efficient in principle but it clearly has two major flaws. First, there is no room for error meaning if anything happens out of the statistical norm then they are unprepared to deal with it. Second, obviously regional events are not taken into account. In my case the combination of our flight being cancelled and everyone and their dog trying to get to Sundance resulted in 10 people deep waiting lists on every flight out of almost every airport.

I ended up taking a later flight to Cincinnati hoping to be on the wait list and catch a latter flight to SLC, also asking the agent in JFK to book me on the early Friday flight just in case I didn’t make the late SLC flight, which I of course didn’t make. I was staying the night in Cincinnati. Throughout the process so far every gate agent was polite but all continually said well there is just nothing I can do my hands are tied, only one empathized with me as a customer. Here’s the kicker I went to main ticketed to get Delta to take care of my night stay and found out that the agent at JFK never booked me on the early Friday morning flight to SLC, which was now booked… I’m stuck in Cincinnati for an unspecified amount of time. I finally found a fight connecting through Denver (hoping the same thing wouldn’t happen and I would be stuck in Denver for the weekend) What’s funny is while the agent was very empathetic she used words and body language that made it very apparent that she thought she was doing me a favor by booking my way home and putting up at a hotel. She was taken aback when I thanked her for fulfilling Delta’s obligation to get me home but that I expected to be compensated for the hardship especially since I had just used 50,000 miles for the tickets (obviously flagging me as a very valuable customer if I had that much to spend) She started the dialogue already apologizing that she was only given the abilities to offer limited compensation and put the blame squarely on the big bad corporate office then suggested that I send an email to Delta asking for compensation. This entire experience has highlighted to me that they have the tools in place but that the companies overall policies are out of touch with the needs of their highest brand evangelists, their employees.

Companies who really care about the customer will empower their customer service staff with the means to take care of the most valuable customers and make right any wrongs even at the short term negative impact to the company. People who have a good experience with a company do recommend the company/service to other but those who have had a horrible issue that was either avoided or “made right” in the end will be customers for life and will recommend their services to other passionately. Giving employees this flexibility also breeds pride in your workforce, no longer are they the ones being yelled at, apologizing for their policies, and blaming the company. Now they are the hero’s, the ones in the position to right any wrong and make stark raving fans. The employee who are now empowered to be the hero by the company recognize their unique position and this fosters loyalty (obviously a problem at Delta since three of the ticket counter agents had their study guides out for the real estate license test).

In Delta's case changing their algorithm for calculating overbooked flights will cost them a few empty seats and short term profits, but it will allow agents the ability to help displaced passengers, and give the agents the ability to appear that they are really taking care of the customer by sneaking them onto a “full” plane. If all else goes wrong by allowing your agents to adequately compensate those who they cannot take care of will allow the agent to still be a hero, have a if not satisfied then at least placated customer, and have the airline get repeat business.

Side note: Paper vouchers that are only usable at Delta ticket counters & travel agencies in an age of electronic ticketing and travel are an annoyance and degrade the good will they are intended to impart.