Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Conformity, Culture, Customer Service, Effectiveness, Experience, Fake Attitude, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail
NPS – which stands for Net Promoter Score – is a way for companies to evaluate how their customers view them.
The higher the score, the more satisfied they are with the company. Or so they say …
Because while I appreciate there will be a lot of evidence to back up this equation, I find it fascinating that the way they do it is by adding a layer between brand and customer.
More than that, it dimensionalises ‘satisfaction’ into a numerical value … meaning humanity, nuance and individuality is washed over. Now I appreciate when you’re dealing with potentially ‘millions’ of people, it would be almost impossible to achieve this with more texture and intimacy, however I can’t help but feel this methodology also suits the C-Suite in companies because it allows them to be incubated from having to deal with customer issues and simply point to an outsourced number to justify how well they are doing.
Add to the fact that when asked to evaluate a company, most people will just choose a random number – simply because the service they experienced was transactionally efficient rather than something more meaningful or memorable – and the whole NPS score should be taken far more as a guide than a fact.
Of course, we live in a time where everyone sells everything with the confidence of unquestionable authority … which is why I saw two things recently that reminded me what good customer service is, without having t refer to a number between 0 and 10.
First was this:
A young boy was at a baseball game [Philadelphia Phillies] and his father was able to retrieve a ball that had been hit into the stands to give to him. Almost immediately, another fan came up and claimed it was theirs [it wasn’t] and basically intimidated the father into giving it them. Someone in the team saw this and immediately made amends … first sending them a bag of ‘team goodies’ while they were still in the stands, and then following it up by inviting him – and his Dad – to meet the players and receive a signed baseball bat from one of the stars.
It probably cost the team $100 max, but the emotional value was way, way more than that … which was also only increased by the speed of their action.
No processes to go through.
No layers of approval to obtain.
Quick, decisive action from the whole team – rather than just one department.
You can read about it by following these links.
First the incident.
Then the first follow up.
Then the meeting of the team.
Then the positive internet reaction.
The other is much closer to home and involves a courier company I wrote too.
I had got an email saying an item had been delivered to my house. Except it hadn’t.
I wrote to them to tell them that and almost immediately, they responded and told me they’d checked and could confirm delivery. Crucially they were able to tell me what was sent and I realized they were right and had confused their original notification for another product I was waiting for.
I wrote back to apologize and explain they were right and then – again, almost immediately – they sent me this.
Now I appreciate there may be an element of ‘lost in translation’ in this reply … but ‘we wish you a happy life’ is delightful. Even more so given it was my fucking mistake. But the real power of it is that as ridiculously over-the-top as it is … it’s also undeniably human. Not some contrived, often repeated set of words that have been carefully designed to ensure the company does not convey an inch of accountability in any interaction.
That’s customer service.
Everything else feels more like being in-service to the company legal department or C-Suite ego.
So while I appreciate we have to have systems and processes in place to deliver a level of consistency … when they take the precedence over ensuring customers comes out of any situation feeling at least seen or heard, then it’s no wonder we’re seeing more and more companies hiding behind NPS scores rather than listening, interacting and enabling their teams to deal with the needs of their customers, rather than the egos of their C-Suite.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brands, Context, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Customer Service, Devious Strategy, Effectiveness, EvilGenius, Experience, Management, Northern, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Provocative, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Standards, Strategy, Stubborness, Wieden+Kennedy
Maybe it’s because I’m British …
Maybe it’s because I’m naïve …
Or maybe it’s because I’m privileged …
But I’ve always been pretty shit when it comes to ‘negotiating’.
That changed quite dramatically when Metallica’s management taught me both ‘the value of value’ and how procurement is a game … but even now, there are situations where I feel weird to push back.
Ironically, the thing that snaps me out of it is not confidence, but disgust.
Recently a company sent me a bill that was 49% more than the previous year.
My situation hadn’t changed.
I was a long-term customer of theirs.
I had not used their services any differently than any time before.
And yet they sent me the invoice without explanation or consideration.
And I was pissed. Properly fucked off.
And while I could have just walked away, I wanted to play them at their own game.
I should point out my goal was not to get a price reduction; it was more so I didn’t feel a mug just blindly accepting their shit.
I wanted to feel I’d pushed back …
That I wasn’t a pushover …
And while I suspected they wouldn’t care – or maybe even notice – what I was doing, it was important for me that I did it.
Short story is I rang them up and ‘had a chat’ before ending up with all the price increase being removed.
Every last penny.
And while you may think that means ‘I’d won’, the thing is my definition of ‘winning’ had changed … which is why once I got the reduction, I informed the company I wouldn’t be working with them anymore and why.
Petty?
Sure.
Pathetic?
Possibly.
Pointless?
Maybe.
Unprecedented by me?
Errrrm, no.
But as my old Wieden boss – the great Jason White – once told some people, I’d asked him to meet,
“Be true. Be transparent. Believe they want to do the right thing with the right intentions. But if you suspect they think they’re hustling you … make sure you’re hustling them right back”.
Which is why, if you want to know the real art of ‘strategy’ – both in terms of effectiveness and creativity – don’t follow the methodologies or tools flogged by the never-ending list of Linkedin Pundits, study cats or petty bastards.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Audi, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Crap Products In History, Creativity, Cunning, Customer Service, Delusion, Devious Strategy, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Membership
Day 3 of this blog in 2025 and it’s like I’m as pissy as 2006.
You see one of the things I find hilarious is when companies talk about ‘customer service’. The reason I laugh is the ones who talk about it the most, tend to be the ones who care the least.
Oh they don’t say that of course, it’s just they seem to be of the belief that if they say a lot about it, it doesn’t require them to actually do anything with it.
Kind of like the experts on Linkedin, hahaha.
Anyway, recently I came across a phenomenal example of this behaviour.
Phenomenal in so much as the hypocrisy of their actions suggest they’re either utterly stupid, or literally don’t give a shit.
Let me give you a bit of background.
A week after I bought my new car, some fucker did this to it.
Claimed his brakes had failed, despite the fact you can see he was looking at his phone.
He then added to the bullshit by giving me a false address and number – but sadly for him, I had a dash-cam, that not only showed his rego, but proved he was in the wrong.
Anyway, that all has been sorted out … however before the insurance company took it to the garage to be repaired, I wanted to ensure I was on top of all the damage he’d caused so I bought a device that ‘diagnoses’ how the car is performing.
Basically you plug it in and it reads the data of the car to identify how it operates.
Normally I wouldn’t bother with such things, but given the car was only a week old, I wanted to ensure everyone knew what had to be fixed.
So I went on website of this company, chose the device specifically for my car, paid for it – and the subscription – and waited. A week or so later it arrived and I plugged it into my car only to be told it was the wrong one and that I needed a newer version with a subscription to access the information.
Given I had literally ordered – and paid for – the latest model from their website, this was somewhat of a suprise, so I wrote to the company to ask for help in sorting it out.
This was the ‘reply’ I received …
What the absolute fuck?
I mean … how many things can one company get in one email response?
Or should I say, how many contradictory answers can one company write in one email response.
First of all they say the ‘ticket is closed’, despite not actually responding to my question.
Then they say they ‘regret’ I can’t send them a reply to their email … despite the fact the top line of their email states ‘please type your reply above the line’.
Then, to rub things in – or confuse me further – they say they’re happy to assist me anytime, despite the fact they’ve literally not assisted me and worse, have blatantly gaslit me.
I am almost impressed at how much they obviously don’t give a shit.
They’re almost Trump-esque in their deliberate avoidance and ignorance.
It’s laughable given this company is supposedly the creator of a product that tells you things no one else will say. What a shame they don’t practice what they preach. But then, so many companies think ‘truth’ is optional.
So to the people at Carly …
Your product sucks.
Your service sucks.
Your system sucks.
And you suck.
Because as bad my car was hit, the damage is nowhere near as bad as the damage you’ve done to one of your paying customers. A paying customer who will not only never give you a penny ever again, but who has – like the petty little shit I am – found a way to teach Carly’s CEO, Mr Avid Avini, a lesson he will hopefully never forget.
Or should I say, a lesson he may never be able to stop.
Hey, he started it.
Cue: Evil Laugh.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Brands, Colleagues, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Confidence, Context, Culture, Customer Service, Egovertising, Fake Attitude, Finance
Customer service is a funny thing.
Companies make such a big deal of saying they care about their customers, but more often than not, the emphasis is adhering to their internal processes and protocols.
Now I get the importance of that, but the problem is that in most organisations, they forget to include one of the most critical elements to achieving customer satisfaction …
Empathy.
Empathy doesn’t mean accepting blame when it’s not your fault. Nor does it mean blindly agreeing with whatever you’re being asked. What empathy means is understanding what the customer is really saying.
Not their words.
Not what they write.
But connecting to what has led them to act.
Now it is important to note I am in no way blaming the people on the front line for any issue here. Frankly, they have an awful job, full of mental, emotional, and physical challenges.
No, my issue is with the policies they are mandated to adhere to by their bosses because more often than not, they care more about protecting the company than helping the customer.
Of course I get there are reasons for this.
Let’s be honest, some people are assholes and some ‘complaints’ are more about issues the person is dealing with than the company.
But maybe that’s the problem behind many organisations approach to customer service … that their starting point is ‘the customer is having a bad day’, rather than ‘why have we caused our customer to have a bad day’.
I remember working with a brilliant – but consistently angry – brand consultant, who was once hired by a car manufacturer to stop their customer service people being so generous to complaining customers.
After doing an audit on the business, he told the board the solution was simple:
“Stop making bad cars”.
He was right. They were notorious for building vehicles that failed. Or rusted. But that’s the issue behind many of the reasons ‘customer service departments’ face such a battle to do their job properly, because ultimately many of the issues they have to deal with are from issues company bosses know, but don’t want to acknowledge.
There may be many reasons for this situation, but – as we saw in the deliberate ignorance of the Sackler family in relation to the effects Codine was having on society – I can’t help but feel Upton Sinclair’s quote sums it up best:
“Man has difficulty understanding something if his salary depends on his not understanding”.
Maybe that’s why so many of the ‘customer satisfaction metrics and surveys’ that so many companies bang on on about are driven by systems, processes and data that is vague, loose and questionable.
Allegedly.
But as I said, often it’s not really about money … but empathy and that’s why I was particularly drawn to this tweet I read recently.
How awesome is that?
How loyal is that woman going to be now?
How many people are going to recognise an organisation who see’s customers as humans not just walking wallets?
Now I get it, her interact was not based on a complaint so you could argue it was a whole lot less difficult to deal with.
But here’s the thing, for me, the opposite is true.
That it wasn’t a complaint and yet they went out of their way to do something amazing shows a company who actually understands the importance of meeting and connecting with their customers mindset.
I wrote about the time I emailed Texas Instruments about a calculator I had that had been broken on the move between the US and the UK.
I said how – despite being almost 40 years old – it was very important to me because not only had my Mum given it to me when I was a young kid … she had helped actually design it.
I talked about how they wrote back saying that unfortunately they couldn’t fix it, but then did something that blew me away …
They found one in their vaults and sent it to me.
In its box.
With a case.
In perfect condition.
They could have easily just said they couldn’t help.
Hell, they could have just ignored me altogether.
But instead, they actively went out of their way to try and find a solution that would make some random guy who wrote to them from a random country, feel seen, understood, valued and cared for.
I cannot tell you what that meant to me.
I cannot tell you what that still means to me.
And I feel gratitude towards them every single day, because what that individual at Texas Instruments customer service did was not just give me a calculator that I use every day, they gave me a way to feel close to my Mum every day.
They didn’t have to do that.
There was nothing in it for them.
But they did.
And let’s remember, we’re talking about a calculator company here.
A FUCKING CALCULATOR COMPANY.
More than that, a calculator company who I last got a product from over 40 years ago.
And yet they showed more care and consideration towards me than pretty much any other brand I’ve interacted with in recent years.
Brands I’ve spent a shitload more cash with.
Like Audi. And Apple. And Air New Zealand. And ANZ Bank. And countless fucking more.
And while you could point at me and say, “why should they when you buy their products regardless?” … there’s a simple reason why they should re-evaluate.
Because – despite spending millions telling everyone how much they value their customers – their actions don’t come anywhere close to what a Calculator Company or a Fish Company have shown. In fact the very opposite.
For them, customer service is focused on ‘what’s easy and cheap’ whereas I’ve learned real customer service is when a company embraces inconvenience as a longer-term investment in their relationship.
Which iswhy I now have the same level of loyalty to all the ‘customer service imposters’ as they have for me.
Because service is not about what I get for free, it’s about serving what I need.
Even if that is just an empathetic ear.
So much customer service is designed around cliched archetypes.
Cliched archetypes that are more about what the brand wants me to like rather than what I actually want.
Because I fly a lot, I am generally in the top tier of many airline frequent flyer programs … and yet, excluding Virgin Atlantic, [which is more to do with my relationship with Lee than the airline having their shit together] none of them show they see me as an individual. Nope, all of them bombard me with ‘deals’ on golf memberships or wine or exclusive restaurants despite the fact I don’t drink, I don’t like fancy food and I fucking hate people who are a member of a golf club.
And this is not a new view, I’ve always had it.
Which is why the next time you meet someone who says their company is ‘customer centric’, ask them 2 questions:
1. What does that mean to them?
2. What are their people empowered and enabled to do?
Because if their definition doesn’t come close to referencing what the people at Texas Instruments – and The North Atlantic Fish Company – do … which, let’s face it, it won’t … then you can inform them they need to rename their customer service department to what it really is, the C-Suite profit protection service.
Filed under: Collaboration, Complicity, Consultants, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Customer Service, Egovertising, Empathy, Management, Perspective, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
A few weeks ago, I told a private client I wasn’t going to work with them any more.
We hadn’t worked together very long, but while their team were great, this person wasn’t.
The basic issue was they thought they were paying me to be their servant.
Or more precisely, subservient.
It became very obvious very soon that they thought my job was to:
Agree with what they say.
Do whatever they want or demand.
Be quiet when stupid decisions were being made.
In essence, they thought they were God but unfortunately, I’m an atheist.
So I politely told them I wasn’t the person they needed right now and I wish them the best.
Before I go any further, I totally appreciate the privilege I have being able to do this, but this was never going to work.
They didn’t take it very well and wanted me to spell out why I was walking away.
So I calmly explained that for someone who had failed many times in an area where I had a lot of experience and success – they did not want to acknowledge, discuss or change any element of their approach which was objectively, flawed.
On one level I understood why.
This was their company and so to admit failure would mean having to admit they had failed. Or at least been complicit in it. And that’s hard. No one wants to do that. But I wasn’t doing it to make them feel bad, it was – as is always the case – because I wanted to win better.
Now the reality is for them to act this way towards me meant they had acted this way to others before me … and maybe that’s what this point they started to get pretty rude and personal. Given they were wealthy, they were probably used to getting their own way with companies who are fine with being paid well for complicity.
Now I am no Saint, far from it. I’ve made a cavalcade of bad choices and decisions over my time, which is why I won’t judge anyone who chose to accept their expectations – even if I do feel for whoever was told by their bosses to accept their shit – but, to paraphrase Meatloaf, I will do anything for great, I won’t do that.
No no no no no no no.
As I said, I completely get the privilege of being able to have this attitude.
In many ways, its the very definition of privilege on a multitude of levels.
And while I can’t defend that, for what it’s worth it’s one that has taken years to form – of which becoming a Dad has been a major factor – but I am at a point in my life where valuing my sanity, health, self-respect and whatever reputation I have, is worth more than any of their money.
Which, for me, is maybe a sign of success that I can genuinely feel proud of achieving.
I hope everyone gets the chance to do this.
Not just because of how good it feels, but because everything would be so much better with more honesty rather than ‘commercial harmony’.
[And yes, I know I’m living in delusional land, but it’s nice to dream]