Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Bank Ads, Business, Customer Service, Emotion, Empathy, Finance
This has been a week of big posts. And tomorrow is going to be mega-big … as I’m going to be away for a couple of weeks and given there’ll be no posts, I have a lot of stuff I need to bang on about before I get on that plane.
I know … I know … the thought of that fills you with dread [me too, to be honest] so to make us all feel ready for that nightmare situation, I thought I’d write something a bit smaller … a bit lighter. Albeit it revolves around identify theft. Specifically mine.
You see a few weeks ago, I received this:
It was real.
Apparently someone had got hold of my NZ Credit Card details and was attempting to buy stuff with it in the US. Specifically DoorDash food.
Personally, if someone is going to steal credit card info, you’d think they’d spend your cash on something massive and ridiculous … and certainly not something where you can easily trace where they are by simply following where their food is being delivered. I’m almost insulted to be honest. I remember the good, ol’ days where my credit cards were used to buy computers at Apple in NY and – best of all – tickets for the Orient Express.
But I digress … because in this situation, the bank noticed straight away and shut any spend down before they could go to extravagant.
So far, so good.
Understandably they wanted me to call them to confirm information … so I was just about to dial when I noticed their fraud departments ‘opening hours’.
I must admit, my first reaction was that it felt a bit strange.
Surely a fraud department would be open 24/7? Ready to respond.
But no.
Worse, as all this happened at 9:30pm on a Friday evening, I was in financial no-mans-land.
To be fair, when I called them the next morning, they were very helpful – but then they informed me that my card was now blocked forever and it would take approx 5 working days to get sent a new one.
Five days.
And just as I was about to plead with them to speed it up, I suddenly realised that this meant I wouldn’t be able to buy any more wifi/gadget trash off instagram. Given in the previous week, I’d purchased an ‘ink stamp’ of my cat, a wi-fi/automated Rubik’s cube and 500 stickers of Nottingham Forest … this was an act of mercy.
Which leads me to this.
Banks have a bad reputation.
A lot of it is entirely justified.
But sometimes – just sometimes – you feel they’re actually being proactive and it feels shocking. Good shocking … but still shocking. Maybe they should try it more often, they may be amazed what it does for their reputation and loyalty.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Culture, Customer Service, Mediocrity
There’s no more to really be said is there.
But if you haven’t watched Falling Down … then I really encourage you to. It’s brilliant. Except for the fact it feels like a representation of how we are made to feel as we witness the slow deterioration into corporate mediocrity and self-interest behaviours.
Ahem.
OK, I get that’s pretty heavy. Especially for a Friday … so let’s leave on a bit of a positive.
As tomorrow is April 1st, there will be no blog post. That is not the positive by the way.
Because of that, I thought I’d leave you with the 2 best ones I ever wrote. Given how old this blog is, that is pitifully low even by my standards … but these worked because both were picked up and talked about by various people in the industry as fact. Which, as I am sure you can imagine, filled me with absolute mischievous glee.
With that, enjoy Method Planning and the Power of Poetry.
Have a great weekend.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Customer Service, Experience
As many of you know, I am a big believer in chaos.
Hell, I even did a talk about it with the brilliant Martin Weigel at Cannes.
But the chaos we were talking about wasn’t random stupidity.
An exercise in self destruction.
No, in our version of chaos, there is method to the madness … an attempt to make something more powerful than it would be otherwise. Something that resonates deeply with the audience we’re talking to rather than some superficial, passive relevance.
Basically, it is the opposite of this …
What the absolute fuck?
This was in a lift in Taipei years ago.
I remember walking in and thinking I was in an episode of Punked.
It took me 10 minutes and a severe headache to work out how to get to my floor. And then, that night, I was woken up by my room swinging side-to-side as we were having an earthquake.
I swear the reason I didn’t seek safety on the streets below was because the idea of getting back in that lift was too much for me to deal with.
I didn’t take the photo above … sadly, I lost my phone at the time, which meant I lost the image. But a friend recently sent me theirs, as a reminder of an experience even Tim Burton couldn’t conjure up.
I still wonder what the hell they were thinking.
And why they allowed it to stay that way for a while.
But regardless what it the reason, it ensures that however bad this week is for you, it’s not going to be as messed up or headache inducing as this.
You’re welcome.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Customer Service, Distinction, Emotion, Empathy, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
Just like HR is often about protecting management from their people rather than the other way around, the same can be said for customer service.
Of course, no one says that, but there’s far too many examples of companies stating the importance of their customers, and then using their customer service department to completely undermine them.
As I’ve written before, real customer service is demonstrated when things are bad, not good.
Let’s be honest, when a company can spot a sale, the full charm-offensive is on display.But when things go bad … oh, that’s when the truth is often revealed.
The irony is that this is the exact moment you can create a level of loyalty that can last a lifetime.
I’ve talked about the time VW came good after my brand new Golf GTI had the gearbox collapse and the turbo blow up … and I’ve found another example of a brand making something bad, a little bit better simply because they looked at things from their customers perspective and acted accordingly.
Isn’t that amazing?
Considerate. Compassionate. Personal. Helpful. Generous.
At the worst of times, a company has found a way to not just solve a problem – but help relieve some of the pain, that wasn’t even of their own making.
If a pet food company can do that – with their relatively low priced product – then any company should be able to. But many don’t. Not because their staff don’t want to, but their bosses won’t let them.
Years ago I worked with a consultant called Geoff Burch.
He was a beautiful maniac.
What made him great was he challenged management to live up to their responsibilities – both to their companies reputation and their employees ability to be successful.
We were working on an Italian car brand together and at the client briefing, the CEO said the call centre staff were offering too many benefits to appease dissatisfied customers.
Geoff asked why they were dissatisfied and the response was their were reliability problems.
Quick as a flash, he replied:
“Maybe you need to realise your responsibility to your employees is more than just a desk, a roof and a paycheck, but making a product that is fit for purpose. I can’t help a company who wants to blame others for the faults they have created and protect”
It was incredible.
And while there was a very awkward atmosphere in the room after that outburst, the CEO – after what seemed like a lifetime – acknowledged he was right.
To be fair, it helped that Geoff had an incredible reputation, but he wasn’t saying anything truly revolutionary, he was simply saying ‘reputation is based on what you do, not what you say’.
And while that should be plainly obvious, it’s amazing how few companies still don’t get that. The companies who think making a few dollars more today is more valuable than a lost customer tomorrow.
Seriously, the way some companies operate, it’s like a bloody ponzi scheme.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you should ‘spend your way’ into customers hearts.
This is simply about valuing your customers perspective rather than purely seeing the World through your own.
Which is, unsurprisingly, the true definition of customer service.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Customer Service, Empathy, Management, Marketing Fail
We need systems.
We need them for all manner of how we live.
From ensuring we get our content on Netflix through to ensuring our food is safe.
Systems drive efficiency and effectiveness and are a competitive weapon for business.
But they can also be suicide.
When ‘human centred design’ isn’t that human.
When you focus more on what the system does rather than who it’s for.
When you set rules that become dictatorial rather than accessible.
And while the post below is funny, it’s a good reminder that if you don’t put the needs of people first – rather than what you want the needs of people to be – then you not only run the risk of having to tell your customer/client/colleague “the computer says no”, you may end up calling them a loser … literally and metaphorically.
Worse, the person telling them that is a bitch. Apparently.
Again, literally and metaphorically.
And then you will have invented a new system.
The customer disservice and ineffective model.
