Customer Service Marketing – The Good, The Bad and The Angry!

I’ve written before that customer service is crucial in brand and consumer marketing. For a provincial agency we are always striving to give good customer service. For some reason it seems to be one of those areas that is all too often overlooked and missed by companies. And so again I need to vent my comments on customer service that I have recently experienced. Luckily one of these below optimises the best in customer service.

THE GOOD

OneClick Technologies Ltd (oneclickpower.com)

You may not have come across these guys, but please I implore you to support them by buying their products. They sell a range of eco, energy-saving plugs and adapters that control power consumption. I have one of their multi-socket adapters to control our server at home. I recently moved things around and ‘mislaid’ the cable that links the adapter to the server – basically the intelligent switch that makes it work. My fault. My problem.

So a quick email over the holiday weekend to them to ask how much for a replacement and where I can order one from. And an instant response, by return post – a replacement cable and a brochure on their complete range of products. No questions. No hassle. And it was my stupid fault that I lost the cable but they looked at me as a valuable customer and helped me out. No cost.

Customer service par excellence. Takes service to the next level and incorporates marketing by saying (without saying it) “Look, you bought our products and if we help you out of a jam then we know you’ll come back and you’re likely to tell others about us”. Spot on and probably the cheapest most effective form of customer retention marketing.

OneClick – I applaud you.

THE BAD

SouthWest Trains

I don’t travel by train often, perhaps once or twice a month when I need to go to jolly old Londinium on business. This week I had a business ‘trip in’ and left from my local station on a return ticket to Waterloo. I live one stop East of Bracknell where my office is located (this becomes relevant shortly).

On my way back to Waterloo, mid-afternoon, I’m thinking that an early day is called for! But of course the obligatory call means I need to travel back to the office. I leave Waterloo to travel back to Bracknell – one stop further than my return ticket is booked for. On arriving I seek out the South West Trains platform guards to pay for the extra stop. And there on the platform are two guards. Which I’ll refer to as Bracknell Guard and Security Guard….

Bracknell Guard sees my proffered money and listens to my request to purchase the extra stop ticket and says, “OK. No problem. You need to see my colleague here.” and points to Security Guard.

Security Guard takes me to one side, away from the exit barriers – I assume he does this so that I don’t try to vault them to escape. Bearing in mind that I’m suited and booted with the obligatory briefcase with heavy laptop, I’m hardly likely to.

So just to reiterate – I approached them to pay for the ticket that I knew I had to buy to cover my journey, I wasn’t running away and got nabbed….

“Do you know that it is illegal to travel on South West Trains without a valid ticket to cover your journey?”, says Security Guard and looking at someone (which, I realise, actually appears to be me) as if I am unsavoury and trying to dodge paying.

“And do you know that if you don’t have the obligatory ticket you are liable to a fine of a minimum of £20 plus the cost of the ticket?”

Well I do know this, so I say simply “Yes”.

“So why didn’t you buy a ticket  at Waterloo?”, he continues.

“I didn’t think it was necessary”. Which is true. Having had this happen a couple of times before over the last couple of years this had never been requested of me and so never even entered my mind.

“And why didn’t you approach the guard on the train? I was on the same train for the last few stops and so I know the guard came down the train, you have no excuses. Do you?”

At thsi point I need to give you a visual picture of Security Guard Have, you’ve seen Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds?

Well Security Guard had definitely seen it!

Currently modelling himself on Christoph Waltz who played  Col. Hans Landa! (however Security Guard was about 6ft 2″ – a tad taller than Christoph)

I paused. Why was I feeling so much like a criminal? I didn’t think that travelling one extra stop and then being honest and actually volunteering to pay was such an onerous crime. By all means point out that this isn’t how the system works. Then it’s clarified for me. But all these pointed question… isn’t that just a tad too over the top? A bit Monty Python Spanish Inquisition?

So, obviously, while I was getting progressively annoyed. I just apologised very meekly.

Then there was a long pause while he rubbed his chin with his hand, considering the penalty he is going to hand out and relishing this moment of ultimate power.

“Well. I should fine you because you were in contravention of the South West Travel regulations. However, on this occasion I will let you go.”

The money in my hands was raised and as I asked how much Security Guard started tapping his ticket machine while Bracknell Guard coughed, nodded to Security Guard who in turn said “OK.”

And Bracknell Guard ushers me through the turnstile FOC.

Why the charade of trying to make me look stupid, feel guilty and very small? security Guard could have taken the money, pointed out that I shouldn’t do this and what I should do in future and send me on my way.

Unbelievably bad customer service. The phrase ‘Jobs Worth’ takes on a whole new meaning when you experience it.

I’ll be driving into London next time I need to go.

And finally…

THE ANGRY

British Telecom (btopenzone.com)

Last week a client of mine that runs a large covered/open air market asked me if we could arrange to install a wi-fi network for their clients. We had two routes, 1) install a commercial system that we/the client maintained or 2) turn to BT and install a BT OpenZone option. We opted for the latter as it would be easier to install and easier to maintain.

Pleasantly surprised I pulled up BT OpenZone in my browser, saw immediately a link for PartnerZone and a list of service options. I clicked on the option we needed for my client and it’s all there, plus contact details. Superb. A simple to follow site, with everything I need and a way to get the ball rolling.

Email spins off into the ether and by return I get a response asking a few more questions. I duly respond and a response comes back smartly saying that they can now come back to me to arrange a site visit.

5 days later… still waiting. Client wondering what’s happening. So a quick call and I talk to a really helpful BT guy who says he’s surprised that I haven’t had a call. “Leave it with me”.

Another 2 days and nothing. Another call. Another helpful front-line BT response and then the real truth comes out.

“Well we handle customer enquiries on this but the next stage involves our ‘other’ department. But we can’t talk to them only send a request then they will call you.”

“OK, that’s fine”, I reply, “Give me their number and I’ll call them directly”

“But”, my friendly BT man continues, “I don’t have a number. I can’t call them and neither can you. They only make outgoing calls.”

I know – I couldn’t believe it either. 10 days now another call from me and another helpful BT man. But still no progress on BT PartnerZone and client becoming more irritable (with me not BT) every day.

So, that’s why it’s under the heading angry. Its’ like dealing with a schizophrenic company. One half is so helpful it’s not true. The other half doesn’t own an incoming phone line (yes in BT!) and portrays such an unhelpful customer facing appearance it’s hard to see how the two co-exist.

Suddenly installing a commercial system starts to seem much more attractive and will maintain our client relationship which BT are eroding daily.

So please..

If you are providing customer service (which basically we all are) learn from OneClick – they have it just right.

When is a CMS a CRM?

Strange world we live in when the title of a blog post is mainly acronyms. But then that’s what marketing technology revolves around. And quite frankly I appear to enjoy these terms. So does that make me me sad? or Marketing sad? Whatever, the main thing that matters is that you found this page because of the acronyms, so you’re on the same wavelength.

For many years now, too many to recall, I have been involved with Content Management Systems (CMS). They’ve come on in leaps and bounds where it’s hard to define what constitutes a CMS and what constitutes an on-line application like CRM. Both are accessible from anywhere with a browser and an internet connection, both interact with a user to change things and both end up reporting/changing/viewing etc. So when a client of ours, VR Property Group (VR) came to us and asked us to look at their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system – not an area that we are experts in but VR wanted our advice , our views and our thoughts as marketers and business people. It was then that the similarities of requirements between CRM & CMS came fully to the forefront. What VR wanted was:

• A CRM that they could access from anywhere in the world – they currently have offices in Spain, UK & USA.
• An administrative interface that would allow them to update CRM contents, add users and generally change ‘stuff’
• View reports on properties that they sold
• View sales consultants progress and forecasting
• Manage client details
• Interface with their suppliers and various authorities
• Manage sales activity in a CRM way – track leads, follow-ups etc
• Can be used by a wide variety of technology users i.e. from the very basis to the very technically advanced
• And communicate via email to the outside world and via messaging internally

They had been using a traditional CRM, the third CRM they had tried in a row. Nothing wrong with them but they were all based around being flexible so that any industry could use them, which effectively meant they weren’t tailored to VR’s working environment . Yes there were templates/add-ins available that would tailor the CRMs to a property industry, but still not right, still not VR – and besides once they had done that the price was verging on the ridiculous.

So hence the call to me to ask if I had any ideas. After assessing their situation, they did have very specific requirements and their commission structure was unique, actually very creative and inventive, which in turn meant that a standard system or a tailored system still wouldn’t match what they wanted without a lot of bespoke work. And yes the costs then got higher and higher.

The old grey matter got working and I approach Kameleon Digital, our number one provider of CMS systems. They themselves are very creative and very amenable to new ideas. So bounced the idea off them about the CRM and the men at Kameleon said “Yes.” Basically what VR wanted could be done using the current CMS with some tailored work.

A few months, several iterations of a functional specification, lots of meetings with VR in Spain and Leeds add in a handful of changes to the CMS and VR have a CRM. A CRM that is based on a CMS, that didn’t cost a fortune, exactly matches their environment and can be used by everyone from the casual sales consultant through to the tech. savy administrators.

So on the face of it, you could say, ‘Nothing unusual there’.

But, I disagree.

Where are the lines that are drawn in the sand that say CRM is only CRM . CMS is only CMS. On-line accounting, HR…. are only what they describe themselves as and are fixed in a single box? Yes there are integrated solutions out there that will put several boxes together into one box – but they end up being either too fixed, too limited or too inflexible and you end up back at square one but this time for everything in the box.

But what we have achieved here with an ‘out of the box’ marketing approach and a technical team that  ‘can do’ is meet a clients requirements by using a system (CMS) that wasn’t originally created for CRM but does exactly what the client needed, at a price they wanted. Who wins?

• The client? Yes. They got what they wanted and it has a direct effect on the productivity and profitability of their business.
• Me because Insight gets the sale? Yes.
• Insight, because they are seen as thinking outside of the marketing square? Yes.
• The client – Insight relationship. Yes - the client now knows they can talk to Insight about anything for business advice and we know our long term relationship just got stronger.
• Kameleon because they now have another string to their portfolio? Yes.

Does it mean we now sell CRM and that we’re experts? Hardly, but what it means is we’ve understood a marketing requirement and used creative marketing approach to meet their needs. It means that the application of technology marketing is literally only confined by your thought process. Which probably brings me back to where this blog thought arose from.

Marketing solutions shouldn’t be fixed, we’re creative in marketing so don’t let the acronyms and descriptions hold us back. What we do is provide business development solutions for clients which we call marketing. So start with an open marketing mind and you can achieve most things, we took that approach and we have a happy client that has met their objective – and we all won.

Isn’t that what business, and in this example, marketing, is all about?

I think so.

Branded Email is the new Black

You know how it is, every season designers come out with trends and grey [or pink, or blue, or...] is the new black. That is, it’s THE colour to be seen in. Well in marketing, BRANDED EMAIL is the new black. And I just couldn’t resist mixing the ‘darling’ culture with ‘marketing technology’:

This is the ‘new’ activity to add to your marketing mix – the ability to add marketing messages to your everyday email without your company/client users needing to do anything.  It’s very powerful, centrally controlled, very easy to implement, very flexible, means everyone sending email becomes a marketer and overcomes a lot of the challenges with email marketing today.

I say ‘new’ in quotes, because I came across branded email about 5 years ago. At that time it was called something else, which escapes me, mainly because it hadn’t really arrived and had lots of different names and descriptions depending on who was supplying the technology. At that time, it was very clunky and cumbersome and was nowhere near as transparent to the user as it is today and worse, it only worked with a few email setups and only then if you reconfigured your whole IT infrastructure [OK, I exaggerate - but you get the drift].

But this year, branded email has really come of age and I truly believe it will become the next ‘big thing’ in marketing promotion – especially in the post economic downturn era where sales are king and marketing budgets are tight.

Basically, branded email adds a graphical banner to your emails. Get excited. The banner is added to emails that are sent from ‘the company’. That is all and every email that your company sends so everyone gets to hear about you, your products, your services, your events, your promotions.

• Marketing (or your agency) create the email banners.
• The user creates an email as normal and sends it.
• When it arrives at the recipient inbox they see the email that was created but it also includes a marketing message.
• The message can be anything the company wants, e.g.
• ‘See us at xxx show’,
• ‘Please note we have a new telephone number’,
• ‘XYZ product has just been updated to version 99, click to download’ etc.

I think you probably get the drift. But the most important factors here are that the user does nothing. The company promotes its current brand messages – from every user. The company (marketing, IT, HR, CEO, MD) gets to choose what messages are sent and by whom. When the messages are sent e.g. if you are running an event then you can time banners to start and end displaying at a specific time. You can override banners so that  only specific banners show at specific times. You can exclude senders or indeed receivers. Basically it does what you want how you want it – which is pretty much a first in marketing terms – OK exaggerating again, but you know how many times you have bought ‘that product’ only to find that you have to change the way you work or live to get it working for you. Well this isn’t one of those.

CLICK TO ENLARGE. Create email, banner automatically inserted from library. Job done.

So why is this so important?

Because it’s a way of managing that hidden marketing resource – your customers, your prospects and your suppliers. Everyone but everyone in marketing and sales knows that referral marketing is the most powerful form of promotion and sales. Branded email is referral [and reminder] marketing.

• You send your email to your contacts.
• They open it because they trust you and are doing business with you so want to open and read it.
• They see your email, but they also see your marketing message in the form of a banner.
• They may click through or they may refer it to a colleague or friend or a business contact.When they click you are notified – so even if you don’t want to pounce straight away, you can mention in conversation details of what they clicked on.
• They might see a message you have and do a mental click of the fingers to remind themselves that you provide that service or product.So you don’t lose that additional opportunity.

How many times have you chastised yourself or your sales team when a long term customer buys a product or service from one of your competitors because they ‘didn’t know you supplied it’. Let’s face it we’re all guilty of that – we talk to prospects about our offerings, we mention at the beginning of the relationship our full portfolio, then focus on what we are supplying relying on branding and marketing to remind them of the bigger picture. But in all truth everyone needs direct reminding about what you provide – and this does it without the embarrassment of having to talk to a client who says ‘Thanks but don’t pressurise me…’.

Branded email takes each of your messages and cuts them into bite sized nuggets, and inserts into successive emails. You and your users do nothing. The messages are created and rotated for you. Marketing controls who actually sends messages, when the messages are sent and who should and shouldn’t receive them.

You have got to take a look.

I’m biased, a convert and I love it. I love it because of all the reasons above but I love it the most because one of the biggest challenges our clients always face is databases. Sourcing them, managing them and keeping them up to date.

Your company has a targeted, regularly cleaned, unused database in everybody’s address book. This releases the database and its contacts and puts them to good use. Marketing don’t even have to manage the data because it’s managed by everyone individually in their email address books.

And the most wonderful thing about this?

The contacts in your address book all know they are going to receive messages from you. So your email domain name is accepted by them, white-listed, de-spammed, un-junk-mailed – however you want to reference it – and your message always gets through. So delivery rates are 100%, click thrus are tracked and promotion is up.

So does it work?

A recent survey using this method showed that click-thru rates averaged between 6%-20% compared with email marketing click thru rates of 1%-5%.

Check it out here. I’m a believer and a convert – but you probably got that

Sky.com A perfect example of how not to do marketing

Sky, that massive organisation, you would imagine, judging from their advertising, online, off-line and on TV, would be able  to teach us a thing or two about marketing. Based on my experience they seem to have a better external marketing department than they do for customer marketing.

Picture this. I have a SKY+ box and I’m very happy. Then at the beginning of this year I start receiving lots of communications – direct mail, email and telephone asking me if I wanted to upgrade to SKY+HD. I had been considering an HD television so I was receptive. The communications kept coming and then the offers started and I succumbed. Several key marketing points were raised, one of which was the ‘new on-screen HD guide which was going to be ‘far superior’ to the old SKY+ guide. I saw a demo and was duly impressed – but then I’m easily pleased.

The unit came and was installed. The engineer, nice guy, was quick and efficient and then gave me a quick whistle stop tour of the new box.

“Great”, says I. “So how do I access the new guide?”

“Ah”, says he. “They don’t come pre-installed with that guide it needs to be downloaded. But his model is not getting downloads yet.”

Calls to SKY central ensued and I was told that it would be “…about 2-3 weeks before you get the new guide downloaded.”

That was July. 3 weeks later I called. “Soon.” Came the reply.

Then I called again in August, September & October. Then I gave up. It will come when it comes.

Then 4^th November I receive ‘the’ email:

—

Subject: Important Information for Sky+HD customers

Gripped with excitement and in a state of uncontrolled fervour I opened the email to see the news I had been waiting (a little longer than 2-3 weeks for):

Your new Sky+HD Guide is on its way (complete with trumpet fanfare – no, I made that up!) 

Look out for your new Sky+HD Guide. It will be with you shortly.

Here at Sky we’re always looking for ways to evolve our products and services to make them better for you. That’s why we’ve developed the new, beautifully simple Sky+HD Guide exclusively for Sky+HD customers.

Soon you’ll be enjoying great new features such as a Mini TV and enhanced search and record functionality that will make it even easier for you to find, watch and record the programmes you love.

—

Soon, in my time frames of soon, came and went.

Then today, November 26^th I received a direct mail piece from none other than: Mark Anderson, Customer marketing Director at Sky

I felt important that he should be writing to me, even more exciting because it was about the new SKY+HD guide, I read on excitedly:

“As you know, we recently added the new Guide to your current SKY+HD box and we hope that you like its new look….”

I stopped reading, I’d only just got home so not had time to turn on the SKY+HD box. So I did and…

No. Mark was wrong. No new guide and no I don’t know if I like its new look.

So assuming there had been an error I call SKY technical service.

I explain what has happened and ask when I will receive it.

I hold. I wait. I’m told that I should talk to customer service and I am transferred.

I explain (again) what has happened and ask when I will receive it.

I hold. I wait. I’m told that I should talk to technical service and I am transferred.

I explain (a third time) what has happened and ask when I will receive it.

I hold. I wait. I’m told that I should talk to someone else.

I shout “STOP!”

I’ve done this, I’ve been there. But I am informed that I will be put through to a specialist department.

I explain (for a fourth time) what has happened and ask when I will receive it.

I hold. I wait. I’m told that I should have received it because all boxes of my make have received the new guide.

I tell him I haven’t.

“Have you switched it off at the mains?”

“No”, I reply.

“If you switch it off then it won’t happen”

“No, I haven’t it always remains on standby eco mode”

“You need to make sure it is always on”

“It is always on”, I reply, for the second time

“If you keep it switched on it will update automatically”

“Ok, I say, we need to stop here, because I’ve told you that I do keep it switched on and it hasn’t updated so let’s not go down that route when will it be updated?”

“Well we’re updating the Thompson units now and you don’t have one of those”

“OK. So when will mine be updated?”

“The next time your make is updated”

“OK”, starting to slightly lose my patience now… “When will that be?”

“We don’t have a schedule. I can put your through to customer service and they..”

“STOP!” Yes, lost my patience now

“Just put me through to marketing I would like to speak with Mark Anderson”

“Accounts?”

“No, marketing please!

“Sales?”

“No, marketing please, Mark Anderson your Customer Marketing Director”

“Marketing?”

“OK, forget it!”

It really does illustrate just how customer support and customer care must be linked to marketing.

The people I spoke to from different departments didn’t have communication between them and did not appear to have the ability to pass information between them. They were not aware of the marketing communications I had received and even though I used the same language that was in the email and direct mail, it confused them. Not their fault, very helpful and nice people, but not kept in the loop.

Marketing is a very powerful tool, when used correctly, but when it’s not joined up with what is happening to the customer and not communicated internally, it becomes negative marketing. I know, I’ve just experience it from one of the largest marketing organisations around.

If you do see Mark Anderson around give him my regards.

Update: 3rd December 2009

I got home today and found a letter from Sky on my doormat. The envelope proudly announced ‘Your new SKY+HD Guide Wil be here soon’. So either someone at Sky read my blog and decided to put things straight or they just have no idea what is being delivered, when and to whom. I know which option my money is on…

Further update: 4rd December 2009

Just received an email to say “Important Information for Sky+HD customers – Your new Sky+HD Guide is on its way”. Am I excited? Not really, no idea when or if it will come. The problem is that now there has been so much hype and hassle it’s become an anticlimax.

Further update: 7th December 2009

I’m nearly so excited I can hardly write. It’s here. Finally, after what seems like forever, but is actually only 6 months, we have it. And you know, I can’t remember why I wanted it now!