Journal Entries
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Customer Service
Posted Jun 21, 2005
Don't get me wrong. I don't bang on about people or individuals. Your teenage call centre worker is no ruder, less helpful or inefficient in himself or herself than the average shop boy or girl might have been fifty years ago.
It's the world that's changed. Serving customers has become an industry in itself. If you believe the hype, nobody is selling products anymore.
£350 wasn't buying a train ride.
It was buying the Virgin Train Experience.
Now that’s progress.
But how do you get your people to deliver 'an experience' let alone ‘ your expensively branded experience'
The answer right now seems to be measure them within an inch of their lives
Average call handling time, number of calls a day, hour, minute, number of times they mention a product, their name, the customer's name and the brand name are all examples. The list can be and often is ridiculous.
All this measurement not only costs money, it also – guess what – drives behaviour.
The thing is - in my vast experience of such things – it never drives the behaviour the management want it to.
Hence – You need to get sixteen friendly touchy feely customer focused ‘welcome to your account meetings’ a month becomes Tsh you can’t do that now I'm afraid. You’ll have to come back.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jun 21, 2005
Bad customer serive experiences
Posted Jun 21, 2005
Don't get me wrong. I don't bang on about people or individuals. Your teenage call centre worker is no ruder, less helpful or inefficient in himself or herself than the average shop boy or girl might have been fifty years ago.
It's the world that's changed. Serving customers has become an industry in itself. If you believe the hype, nobody is selling products anymore.
£350 wasn't buying a train ride.
It was buying the Virgin Train Experience.
Now that’s progress.
But how do you get your people to deliver 'an experience' let alone ‘ your expensively branded experience'
The answer right now seems to be measure them within an inch of their lives
Average call handling time, number of calls a day, hour, minute, number of times they mention a product, their name, the customer's name and the brand name are all examples. The list can be and often is ridiculous.
All this measurement not only costs money, it also – guess what – drives behaviour.
The thing is - in my vast experience of such things – it never drives the behaviour the management want it to.
Hence – You need to get sixteen friendly touchy feely customer focused ‘welcome to your account meetings’ a month becomes Tsh you can’t do that now I'm afraid. You’ll have to come back.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jun 21, 2005
Hoodies
Posted May 31, 2005
I have - because it feels the right thing to do - been smiling at every teenager I come across wearing a 'hoodie'
And without exception I have been smiled back to and have never once felt close to being happy slapped.
It seems it is all about respect after all.
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: May 31, 2005
New disease
Posted Apr 28, 2005
Every now and again there's a scare story about technology inspired sickness.
Laptop infertitlity and mobile phone brain tumours being two classics of the genre.
Few of these are based on proof. But I know of one. Because I have it.
I-PSHITS.
This charming abbreviation refers - as you might guess - to I-pod Shuffle Inspired Tourette's Syndrome.
The I-pod shuffle - for those who've been living in a cave - delivers 150 songs to your headphones at random. Complete random as it happens so you can imagine the symptoms.
It might start with a change of rythmn while walking, a smile or laugh of recognition, an impomptu outburst of singing along or the occasional skip.
Sounds harmless? That's what I thought however within minutes any of these can turn into the horror of a little public dance.
And not just any dance the smug dance of someone who has somehow 'won' a good tune in a 150 to 1 lottery.
This has happened at the top of an escalator at rush hour at London Bridge station.
So please help sufferers like me by not pointing and laughing.
As yet there is no known cure.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Apr 28, 2005
Churchill
Posted Apr 25, 2005
I feel the need to share an anecdote sent to me by the Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler personally. I suspect I've subscribed to a BBC list somewhere and I am being marketed to. A sensible use of my licence fee ? Who knows? I have yet to watch the program.
I digress.
The anecdote -
After the surrender of the Africa Corps in North Africa, a Labour MP in the Commons asked Churchill what steps he was going to take against Montgomery for fraternizing with his defeated opponent, General Von Thuma, by inviting him to lunch.
"Poor Von Thuma," answered Churchill, rising to his feet. "I, too, have had lunch with Field Marshal Montgomery."
Not a focus group in sight; just a man with sufficient wit to run the country.
Oh for a simpler time..
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Apr 25, 2005
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