We are REALLY sorry, now about that hard sell?

Some weeks ago I received the attached message and new credit card form Citicards:

I was not happy to hear that my personal data may have been compromised, but at least I live in a State that requires that a company tell me when such an event happens. In too many places that is still not the case and such an event can be quietly forgotten, more than six years after California became the first state to require such disclosure.

As usual, I’m required to activate the card by phone. I call and my home number is recognized and the activation proceeds smoothly. Till I get the message ‘Please hold for a representative.’ Oh, oh. It’s a cunning move as I can’t drop the call just in case the activation isn’t completed properly.

Turns out that there isn’t a problem with activation, but Citicard – in their misguided wisdom – want to do the hard sell on me. I’m pressured for additional services that I neither want or need. This in response to a major cock up in their systems and processes. Who on earth thought that ANY message other than a contrite apology for all the hassle that comes a credit card number change was a good idea?

Is that how you would treat your customer? I hope not. If one of my clients is ever in that situation my advice is to apologize, be contrite and ask what the company can do to make amends. Not to apply the high pressure sales tactics, with not so much as a ‘by your leave.’

And to add insult to injury, I can no longer download transactions from my Citicard account into Quicken which I use for my business and personal finances. 12 weeks later, I still can’t. ‘Customer Service’ tells me that they don’t know when it will be fixed.

Hey it’s only three months, for a feature that I’ve come to depend on. Fortunately, this is not a card I use a lot, so the volume of transactions can be hand entered, but it is a pain. And each time I have to do that for a monthly reconciliation, I’m reminded about the abysmal customer experience that Citicard makes me go through.

Compare and contrast with the customer experience at my other credit card – American Express – they have invariably done the right thing.

Citibank can send me as much marketing bumf and encouragement to spend. It won’t make me use their card, except when I have no alternative. Oh, and the last statement came with a notification that my APR is now 29+%!!!

Definitely feel like a valued customer!

So, how do YOU treat your customer when something bad happens? Do you go out of your way to make amends? And to make sure that each interaction thereafter reinforces the positives – and doesn’t keep rubbing salt in the sore wound?

Are you SURE?

Where is YOUR advertsing dollar going?

I collected mail from a PO box today and was once again struck how many people did what I did. I struggled to get the mail out of the small box; not because there was a lot of mail in there, simply because of all the unsolicited brochures, mailers, junk flyers etc. They come in a huge bundle and a royal pain in the nether regions.

There are big tables and very large trash bins, as far as I ca see only to serve to sort the wheat from the chaff and to dump the chaff. The bins are invariably full.

Someone is paying big bucks to create, print, and mail these items. And all that happens is they get dumped without a second glance. Your ONLY chance of making an impression (positive or not?) is when the recipient sorts through to ensure that there is no real mail in the middle of this stuff.

Is that how you invest your marketing spend? Do YOU pay for creative, print, mail just to see your investment thrown away?

I hope not, but its worth checking!

Your mother is watching you…….

I’m a great fan of Seth Godin’s blog. I like his analysis and feel very comfortable with most – but not all – of his marketing approaches.

He recently posted a very good way for ALL of us to think about our actions whether marketing or not. You can read the article here:

Act like your mum is watching you

Now if only we could get drivers to adhere to this principle too!

Truth in all its Glory!

As regular readers will know, I’m an advocate of truth and authenticity in our relationship with customers. However, I do think that the poor product marketers responsible for Quaker Instant Oatmeal have had to carry this a little too far – something you never thought you would hear me say!

Take a look at this:

“Artificial Fruit & Cream Flavors” plus “AND OTHER NATURAL FLAVORS”.

It struck me how different the two – at first glance – similar product packages were and I wondered if this was legal advice at work, or whether someone in the product department was being overzealous. As I said, I’m in favor of truth and authenticity in marketing and in product information, but I would hope for a little more creativity in presenting accurate information. As I pondered a little more, I started to think that maybe the two packages were so in order to try out different packaging.

But that’s a risky way to do it, live in the field. I always advocate quick and cheap ways to test ideas – like asking directly.

So what’s the lesson? Be truthful, but be creative. If you want to test ideas, ask customers directly.

Just Lucky?

On the subject of brands, and especially the change (or abandonment) of a brand identity and the adoption of a new persona.

I’m struck by the difference in approaches between two recent prominent examples. In California, Albertsons bought out Lucky stores and merged them all under their own name. Recently however, they have changed back to Lucky. They did that, almost overnight it seemed and immediately started talking about Lucky brand values. Albertsons dies overnight.
On their website there is a single mention “There are 72 Albertsons stores targeted for conversion to the Lucky banner; they are located throughout Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties.”

Compare and contrast.

AT&T bought Cingular (a brand I happened to feel had great equity and had succeeded in separating itself from the pack of wireless carriers. They were (are!) far from perfect, but much better than the rest in terms of brand equity, promise and customer experience.

Once AT&T (a much more stodgy brand, with much negative equity, in my mind) bought Cingular, they proceeded to spend the next year of more telling me (and everyone else) that I was now an AT&T customer (formerly Cingular) customer. Did they think I didn’t know? I’m actually not sure what they were thinking of. It seems to me the worst example of how to change a brand, that is, keep telling people what it used to be! I had a much more positive view of Cingular than I do of AT&T and the constant reinforcement is like rubbing my nose in it.

Worse, on AT&T’s web (as the first entry under About US) is this:

“Following AT&T’s merger with BellSouth in December 2006, Cingular Wireless is now solely owned by AT&T. Now that branding from Cingular to AT&T is complete, the new AT&T represents the largest wireless company in the United States, with more than 65 million subscribers who use the nation’s largest digital voice and data network. Cingular customers can rest assured that they will continue to receive the quality of products and services to which they’ve grown accustomed—exclusive cell phones and mobile devices, cutting-edge technology, and a large selection of rate plans.”

So, TWO years after the merger is made, they are still promoting the name. Read the second sentence “Cingular customers…….”

Somebody, somewhere is being paid big bucks to perpetuate this branding mess. Talk about confusing. It is nothing short of abysmal. AT&T (formerly CINGULAR) senior managers should be fired for allowing it happen. They should buy dinner for the brand folks advising and implementing the Lucky brand values and listen to how it should be done They get it, and they know how to execute.

If you care about your brand, make sure that the brand values are clear, clearly articulated again and again (and that you live up to them!!!) and don’t talk about what you used to be, to do, or espouse.

And if your consultant recommends anything less, fire them and come and talk to me.

Advertising, Brand, Marketing, Product, User Experience

Exceptional Customer Focus

I tried out Filemaker’s new personal database, Bento, and am not only delighted with the $49 product, but also the service and support.

All this in spite of some really, really horrible messups that would usually be reported here in much stronger terms.

The story:

I downloaded the preview version and was impressed enough to start on a household inventory (actually, I was sold the moment I could manage all my x years history in iCal – deleting only up to the start of 2006 and having it work perfectly – all from within Bento itself). The product is largely self evident (that is, you don’t need a user manual) and the forums and feedback was excellent to product requests, enhancement suggestions and cries for help. TSGal deserves a huge pat on the back for her work there (and a bonus!).

There were some howlers – the ‘Buy Now’ link resolved to a ‘page not found’ error. A killer for the marketing guy in me, even though this was beta software. There are still some of those (read on) in the released product.

I made a couple of suggestions and had questions (from TSGal) to clarify and feedback that my requests had been passed to the development team. Wow, a response! Score 1.

The initial release is announced and I sign up. Filemaker incurred my wrath for stupid (that is information that MAY be valuable to them, but that i should not be OBLIGED to disclose in order to buy) mandatory questions on the order form. For example, this is a personal purchase but the form would not let me proceed without entering a company (as an aside, MacWorld got a repeat of last years silly inputs to its sign up form again – this time the check in crew had a sense of humor and laughed at my company – MYOB). So I wrote ‘This is not a mandatory field’ in the company slot, and sure enough I was allowed to spend money.

I think there computer has a wry sense of humor though. My purchase completed, I scanned my email for the unlock key. Sure enough, it arrives. I enter my name, as requested, and my software key – carefully cut and pasted to ensure accuracy. Nothing. The unlock button stays stubbornly grey. I continue to use Bento in ‘Try’ mode.

I read the forums, sure enough I’m not the only one with problems. I carefully follow all the suggestions – the cause seems to be that those of us who used the preview version, then installed the trial to unlock were struggling. But that IS what we have to do. So I download the trial again, make sure I delete the old installation and install again (at least on a Mac this stuff is trivial and simple). Same result.

I read the forums, make an entry saying that I’ve done all that is suggested, and still had the problem. More suggestions, try them, comment on the forum. TSGal is there, with good suggestions. None of which worked for me. ‘Send me a private message with a number, dates and times our support can contact you’ says TSGal. Are they kidding? They’ll call me? I respond, and sure enough a great tech support person called me.

Turns out that the unlock mechanism didn’t want my name (I tried all the suggestions: use lower case throughout, use two spaces between first and last name, etc., etc.) at all. For some reason – that is still not clear – the registration mechanism wants the Company details, not my name. This is a bit of a surprise, as it’s supposed to be an optional field. So my software is now registered to ‘This is not a mandatory field’. Who says computers don’t have a sense of humor.

I’m a delighted customer. Really.

The lesson here is that our expectation is not for perfection (especially in beta software), but how a company reacts to correct a problem. Filemaker’s people were exemplary. They replied to posts on the forum, they took the problem and owned it, they called me (I still can’t believe that) and they laughed and treated me as a human whilst solving the problem. The support lady who called me said she would report the problems to the dev team. I believe her.

What an organization – represented by extraordinary people.

Apple, Brand, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Mac, Marketing, Product, Service, User Experience, WOM

It’s hard to believe….

It’s hard to believe that I am still having issues with KQED, but I am!

They started billing my (dormant, which brings plenty of additional issues with it) credit card again!

I fought my way through a horrible voicemail system (‘If these menu options haven’t helped, please call back later’, huh?) to a real person eventually. Though she was helpful and polite, I ended the call still feeling as though it was my fault (Oh yes, I see you cancelled, but your record wasn’t marked to stop charges). Time will tell whether I really am off the KQED hook!

This has been one of the saddest sagas of the blog for me. I love the content and programming – for the most part – of public radio and KQED, but they really have become a corporate entity that is divorced, totally and utterly, from the membership. The corporate beast seems to have become self-serving rather than serving the members. And as such, I need to stick to my principle of ‘vote with your checkbook’, though it really pains me to do so.

It pains me all the more because every attempt to point out why I am unhappy has simply been ignored – in most cases not even an acknowledgement. The only person who engaged in any way was the new media guy who saw one of my earlier blog posts and contacted my via a blog comment. He is the person who got my membership cancelled – but not the payments stopped – after several months of letters to people who are paid to care about such problems, the general manager and the head of membership.

Sad, sad, sad.

Brand, Customer Experience, Marketing, Product, User Experience

Business Week catches up?

Stephen Wildstrom, whose column in Business Week I read every week, got to talking about the non-technical aspects of tech in a recent article. I’m delighted that the mainstream press – and especially someone as well informed and as widely read as Wildstrom – is picking up on design issues. I hope he gets to the whole of the user experience (rather than just the – important – aspect of design), as tech is the area that needs it more than most. Design needs to be applied to the WHOLE user experience – from start to finish – in the same manner as the product and the packaging. That has been my theme here since day one. It will remain so! I comment in Wildstrom’s blog with a link back to this article that I wrote in August 2006. Let’s see if it makes it through the moderation process as I included a link to my original article. It often feels like a slog to get organizations to confront the customer’s truth, but hey maybe it is starting to happen! Onward and upward!

{Product Management, Apple, Brand, Marketing, Product}

Apple, Brand, Marketing, Product, Product Management, User Experience

eFax Postscript

It turns out that eFax can actually cancel an account AND I discovered a credit on my credit card account – I assume for the two months it had left to run. Good job! But not enough to tempt me back….

{Product, Customer Service, WOM}

Brand, Customer Service, Product, User Experience, WOM

American – turning a problem customer into an advocate

I had one of my rare ‘bad experiences’ with American Airlines last week. We are planning to visit our friends who retired from Microsoft last week and are off to live in Rome for a year.

I haven’t travelled much this year, so my Platinum Executive status will evaporate at the end of this year. I want to use my VIP upgrades and (being a Yorkshireman) apply them to a mileage ticket. I can see that may not be an everyday thing so I call, I ask the question and am assured that it is OK. I’m pleasantly surprised how easy it is. We go through how I need to do that. Book our tickets on the web, then call back and apply the upgrades.

I do.

When I call back, I’m told that I CANNOT apply VIP upgrades to the tickets I have booked. That was obviously a disappointment, but what got to me was the brusque – not quite rude, but not the usual helpful, ‘let’s find some alternatives’ approach that I’m used to. I asked how I could complain, and got a short treatise on filling in a web form. Under pressure she did agree to cancel the tickets with no penalties and refund my taxes. I took the offer and retreated.

After fuming for a while, I called back and got a third person. This is the person AA should be lauding, she turned a pissed off customer back into an avid advocate. Robin ended up getting Barb and me seats in business, across the aisle from each other (she also told me that it was only acceptable if we had been married for at least 10 years!) with upgrades confirmed there and then on the flights we originally booked. We ended up booking one revenue and one mileage ticket, with which I’m more than happy

I asked how and why she put so much effort into making it work (there were lots of holds and the whole call was well over 40 minutes). She replied ‘I always know I have to pull out all the stops when a customer calls and says “I need your help. I’ve had the worst afternoon of American customer service ever.”’

And she did! It emphasizes once again how easy it is to turn a problem into an opportunity to delight your customer. In so many instances companies (and the individual representing them) take a ‘That’s the way it is’ approach and I walk away – either to relate the experience to others or – if possible – to another supplier.

It’s the people who deliver on policy and company ethos.

{Brand, Customer Service, Product, WOM}

Technorati Tags: Brand, Customer Service, Product, User Experience, WOM