In America we have a saying, “Squeaky wheel gets the grease.” According to UsingEnglish.com, “When people say that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, they mean that the person who complains or protests the loudest attracts attention and service.
If you have worked in any service industry for any length of time, then you know this is true. You also know it is true as a customer. As soon as the transaction starts to go bad, the first thing out of our mouths is, “I would like to speak (squeak) to your supervisor.”
I would like to say, unequivocally, that I am tired of squeaking. We should be better than this that this is our default strategy when delivering customer service.
The Situation
Unfortunately, I have many situations to demonstrate this, but I will highlight two. One makes me scared and sad, and the other is simply needless.
Situation 1
My friend’s mother has been in the hospital for a few weeks. Her condition has put her in a great deal of pain, and to help her doctor prescribed morphine. It is a serious drug, and it is understandably seriously regulated.
My friend waits in his mom’s room for over an hour for the morphine to be administered. Nothing. He goes to the nurses’ station and asks what is the delay. The nurse replies they are waiting for the pharmacy to fax the prescription due to morphine’s high regulatory procedures. More waiting. Mom is still in pain. My friend returns to the station, upset, and still no fax. My friend(!) ends up calling the pharmacy, and the pharmacy said they faxed it. My friend said, “I am standing right at the fax machine and there is no fax.” Within 3 minutes the fax comes through, and the drug given to his mom.
Situation 2
Every Sunday, the newspaper’s travel section features a column with travelers who have a service recovery issue. They have squeaked through all the proper channels with the company, and out of lack of fair resolution or frustration write to the columnist to tell their story. The columnist is consumer advocate Christopher Elliot. (Check him out at http://www.elliott.org/. )
Nine times out of ten, Elliot will talk to the company and reach a settlement. It is almost always overturns the decision made at the lower levels of the organization and reimburses the travelers for pretty much the entire amount in dispute.
Summing Up
Of course, it is situation one that makes me sad and scared. What scares me is many patients do not have someone to squeak for them. I understand staffing is short, and the regulatory practices make it difficult to keep things together, but our population is aging so this is only going to get worse.
The second situation makes me crazy. Crazy as in it isn’t until the organization receives negative press that they simply fix the issue. Yes, there are contracts and policies, but there is also doing what is common sense fair for the customer. They should not have to squeak all the way through negative publicity. When I put a negative comment on Facebook about service I received within minutes someone from the organization contacts me via email. And I always go through the proper escalation phone or email channels before I resort to Facebook.
The Guru’s Solution
This applies to all service providers that you have to develop procedures to manage ad hoc request. The pharmacy not faxing the sheet was probably an innocent mistake, but an individual’s health is at stake. I am sure there must be an emotional detachment somewhat to keep sane, but I hope health professionals keep just enough of a connection to realize how important it is to follow up with every promise or procedure they make to a patient and their family. Someday it will be them in that bed.
The second, I would be interested in conducting a cost analysis to see how much money it really takes to solve a customer issue. For those issues that eventually the consumer feels so strong to contact a third party (legal or otherwise), my guess is several people from the company have worked on the issue, costing labor dollars and resources, so from a cost perspective it is works to benefit the company to do the smart thing sooner than later. If it does not violate policy or a legal rule and can be done, then just do it.
Final Thought
Pay just as much attention to those customers not squeaking. To be a business of integrity and success, do the right thing at all times whether the customer complains loudly or not. It should not take someone repeatedly complaining to make this occur. Be compassionate with your customers. They do not want to yell, but you have conditioned them to think that is the way to receive fair treatment.
To quote the great Native American Chief Joseph, "I will fight (squeak) no more, forever."
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
To Forgive and Forget, The Art of Service Recovery
One of the most requested training topics at The Customer Service Gurus is Service Recovery. Service Recovery is the idea that once a customer service transaction goes bad, either through company or customer error, or something like a Force majeure, through the actions of the customer service representative and perhaps adding compensation of some sort, the customer will forgive and more importantly forget when it comes time to complete the important customer service survey.
I wish I had a magic formula for Service Recovery because I could sell it at a price that would cancel out the nation’s debt! But Service Recovery, much like Customer Service, is part art and part science. There is no mathematical formula that if Event A happens + Compensated with B = Customer Forgets at Survey time.
But it doesn’t mean you cannot do something impactful that solidifies a positive relationship with the customer. The good news is throwing money at the problem is rarely necessary. Customers care more about compassionate actions than a key chain.
The Guru’s Experience
During the holidays, my family cruised on Holland America’s ship the Prisendam. It was a beautiful experience, overall, but we had a maintenance problem at the start of the cruise. We heard a strange knocking noise in our cabin, which made it difficult to sleep when the boat rocked in heavy seas.
We guessed something was loose in the panel between the closet and the outside hallway, and with the motion of the ship it banged against the wall. We mentioned this to our cabin steward, who directed us we would get a faster resolution if we went directly to the front desk with our complaint. Complaint is really too strong of a word. We weren’t upset; we only needed the problem fixed. (That we were directed to take our complaint elsewhere is a blog for another time.)
A concierge comes to our room to inspect the problem. Yes, she confirms the issue and explained an engineer would come the next morning to fix it. (It was near 9pm when we went to the desk). We are happy with this, and she was sincere, friendly and kind. It would be great to have it fixed now, but we understand engineers do not work at night unless it is an emergency. It was annoying, but certainly not an emergency.
An engineer arrives the next morning. He dabbles in the closet, but we are pretty confident he did not fix the problem. The seas were smoother, so it was difficult to tell. We could not say 100% that the knock was still there, but we could not say the knock was gone either. That is the end of the actual transaction, and now comes the attempt at service recovery.
On the Road to Service Recovery
The concierge leaves a voicemail later that day asking if everything was fine, she hoped it was, and we should let her know if we needed additional service. She truly seemed concerned. Nice job!
The next day she leaves a second voicemail, similar to the first. That is similarly a nice touch, but it wasn’t necessary. We were good, and we appreciated her attention.
She calls the third day and speaks to me. She asked again about the issue. I said it seemed OK, but we did not know for sure, but we appreciated she followed-up with us and we would let her know if something changed. At no point in this situation were we, the customers, upset.
The fourth day, a bottle of wine is delivered to our room with a detailed personalized note regarding the maintenance issue. It was a lovely gesture, but we weren’t sure the problem was fixed. The kicker is we don’t drink wine.
The Guru’s Thoughts
In our situation, the wine was certainly gracious, but it was not what I as the customer valued. Therefore, it needlessly cost the company compensation dollars and labor tied to all the effort to manage the issue. If the team had stopped at the first follow-up call it would have been fine for us. But I recognize for other passengers, they would have even wanted more.
I do not fault the concierge, as I am pretty sure she was following a specific protocol provided by Holland America.
As a service professional, I am on the fence whether it is ever adds value to compensate a guest or customer. If you do, the greater risk is training them to think every issue will be compensated, and that is a no win scenario for the organization. They are purchasing your products or services, but life happens. If it is the organization’s fault, then fix it, apologize for it, but confidently move on that you have helped them. Compensation is an attempt to manipulate the customer, and people are too fickle for manipulation to be an effective strategy.
It is classic psychology. You cannot be responsible for how someone responds to your best efforts. I believe most customers, and more importantly the customers you want to keep, are satisfied with a sincere apology and education how to prevent it in the future. The key is knowing your staff is trained to do the best they can with the knowledge and tools available to them, and empowering everyone to stop this crazy train of compensation we seem to be on as a society. Prevent the root cause, and do not just treat the disease.
Final Thoughts
This week the Carnival Triumph was stranded in the Gulf of Mexico and had to be slowly towed to Mobile, Alabama. As I understand it, there was a fire onboard, and to extinguish the fire there was damage to the ship’s electrical system. Cabins did not have electricity, food was in limited supply, and the sanitation system could not be fully used (Yuck!). There are four thousand people on the ship, between passengers and crew, and they were stuck at sea for five days. It was a nightmarish situation.
Whatever Carnival decides to do for those passengers, my guess is they will never cruise with Carnival again, so what is the point of Carnival compensating them with another cruise? What is the right gesture to win those customers back to their brand? Can it happen, ever?
My best advice for service providers is to think through the situation from the customer’s point of view. Simply ask this question, “If this happened to me, what would I reasonably expect the organization to do?” Execute the answer to that question, and 95% of the time you will be fine. The other 5%, let them go bother your competitor.
Bon Voyage!
I wish I had a magic formula for Service Recovery because I could sell it at a price that would cancel out the nation’s debt! But Service Recovery, much like Customer Service, is part art and part science. There is no mathematical formula that if Event A happens + Compensated with B = Customer Forgets at Survey time.
But it doesn’t mean you cannot do something impactful that solidifies a positive relationship with the customer. The good news is throwing money at the problem is rarely necessary. Customers care more about compassionate actions than a key chain.
The Guru’s Experience
During the holidays, my family cruised on Holland America’s ship the Prisendam. It was a beautiful experience, overall, but we had a maintenance problem at the start of the cruise. We heard a strange knocking noise in our cabin, which made it difficult to sleep when the boat rocked in heavy seas.
We guessed something was loose in the panel between the closet and the outside hallway, and with the motion of the ship it banged against the wall. We mentioned this to our cabin steward, who directed us we would get a faster resolution if we went directly to the front desk with our complaint. Complaint is really too strong of a word. We weren’t upset; we only needed the problem fixed. (That we were directed to take our complaint elsewhere is a blog for another time.)
A concierge comes to our room to inspect the problem. Yes, she confirms the issue and explained an engineer would come the next morning to fix it. (It was near 9pm when we went to the desk). We are happy with this, and she was sincere, friendly and kind. It would be great to have it fixed now, but we understand engineers do not work at night unless it is an emergency. It was annoying, but certainly not an emergency.
An engineer arrives the next morning. He dabbles in the closet, but we are pretty confident he did not fix the problem. The seas were smoother, so it was difficult to tell. We could not say 100% that the knock was still there, but we could not say the knock was gone either. That is the end of the actual transaction, and now comes the attempt at service recovery.
On the Road to Service Recovery
The concierge leaves a voicemail later that day asking if everything was fine, she hoped it was, and we should let her know if we needed additional service. She truly seemed concerned. Nice job!
The next day she leaves a second voicemail, similar to the first. That is similarly a nice touch, but it wasn’t necessary. We were good, and we appreciated her attention.
She calls the third day and speaks to me. She asked again about the issue. I said it seemed OK, but we did not know for sure, but we appreciated she followed-up with us and we would let her know if something changed. At no point in this situation were we, the customers, upset.
The fourth day, a bottle of wine is delivered to our room with a detailed personalized note regarding the maintenance issue. It was a lovely gesture, but we weren’t sure the problem was fixed. The kicker is we don’t drink wine.
The Guru’s Thoughts
In our situation, the wine was certainly gracious, but it was not what I as the customer valued. Therefore, it needlessly cost the company compensation dollars and labor tied to all the effort to manage the issue. If the team had stopped at the first follow-up call it would have been fine for us. But I recognize for other passengers, they would have even wanted more.
I do not fault the concierge, as I am pretty sure she was following a specific protocol provided by Holland America.
As a service professional, I am on the fence whether it is ever adds value to compensate a guest or customer. If you do, the greater risk is training them to think every issue will be compensated, and that is a no win scenario for the organization. They are purchasing your products or services, but life happens. If it is the organization’s fault, then fix it, apologize for it, but confidently move on that you have helped them. Compensation is an attempt to manipulate the customer, and people are too fickle for manipulation to be an effective strategy.
It is classic psychology. You cannot be responsible for how someone responds to your best efforts. I believe most customers, and more importantly the customers you want to keep, are satisfied with a sincere apology and education how to prevent it in the future. The key is knowing your staff is trained to do the best they can with the knowledge and tools available to them, and empowering everyone to stop this crazy train of compensation we seem to be on as a society. Prevent the root cause, and do not just treat the disease.
This week the Carnival Triumph was stranded in the Gulf of Mexico and had to be slowly towed to Mobile, Alabama. As I understand it, there was a fire onboard, and to extinguish the fire there was damage to the ship’s electrical system. Cabins did not have electricity, food was in limited supply, and the sanitation system could not be fully used (Yuck!). There are four thousand people on the ship, between passengers and crew, and they were stuck at sea for five days. It was a nightmarish situation.
Whatever Carnival decides to do for those passengers, my guess is they will never cruise with Carnival again, so what is the point of Carnival compensating them with another cruise? What is the right gesture to win those customers back to their brand? Can it happen, ever?
My best advice for service providers is to think through the situation from the customer’s point of view. Simply ask this question, “If this happened to me, what would I reasonably expect the organization to do?” Execute the answer to that question, and 95% of the time you will be fine. The other 5%, let them go bother your competitor.
Bon Voyage!
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