The hidden dark side of good service

I recently traveled overseas and had to get a loaner phone from Verizon since my iPhone 4 wouldn't work in the UK or Ireland. If Verizon had sent me a net promoter-style customer satisfaction survey about their Global Traveler Program (they didn't), I'd probably give it a 7. You can get an overview of Net Promoter scoring on the Net Promoter System website, but a 7 is a relatively neutral score.

It may be tempting to classify my service experience as good, but not great. However, my slightly positive overall perception of Verizon's Global Traveler Program is really a rough average of elements that were truly fantastic as well as some frustrating service failures that greatly diminished my enthusiasm. In other words, Verizon was one step away from either turning me into an enthusiastic promoter or an angry detractor.

What is Good Service?

Customer service is a function of each individual customer's expectations and experience. Outstanding service happens when experience exceeds expectations while poor service is the result of experience falling short of expectations.

What happens most often? Good service. This is when the experience meets expectations. There's nothing wrong with good service per se, but it isn't memorable. We only tend to notice, and remember, service that's outside the norm.

A Collection of Experiences

My perception of Verizon's Global Traveler Program was really a collection of experiences. There were at least seven distinct moments of truth that shaped my overall impression. 

My overall impression of Verizon's Global Traveler Program wasn't just impacted by the average of each moment of truth, but by their sequence.

Starting Perception. This signifies where a customer's perceptions are at the start of the experience. Good, or neutral, impressions are relatively easy to sway but strong perceptions are not. That's because a phenomenon called confirmation bias causes customers to selectively filter out information that doesn't match their existing beliefs. If they're a raving fan, they'll look for evidence that Verizon is awesome. If they hate Verizon, they'll look for any little nitpick to justify their feelings.

Primacy. My first two experiences with the Global Traveler Program were outstanding. Since my starting position was neutral, I was easily moved into a 9 or 10 positon on a 10-point scale. It's also important to note that first impressions are much more memorable than what happens next.

Mid-point. The two frustrating experiences were sandwiched between neutral or positive experiences. This, combined with an outstanding first impression, likely prevented my perception from being in the 4 or 5 range.

Recency. My last moment of truth was good since it was relatively easy to return the phone. Customers tend to remember their first impression and their last impression, so a good beginning and end can help overcome a few negative experiences in between.

What can we learn?

I see a few take-aways here:

1. Good service can hide distinct opportunities to be either great or terrible.
2. Companies should fall all over themselves to make a great first and last impression.
3. It's a good idea to collect data to help you spot the strong and weak points in your service delivery system.

What other lessons can companies learn from this experience?

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Jeff Toister is the author of Service Failure: The Real Reasons Employees Struggle with Customer Service and What You Can Do About It. The book is scheduled to be released on November 1. You can learn more about the book at www.servicefailurebook.com or pre-order a copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell's Books.

Your service is only as good as the weakest link in the chain

A recent post on Micah Solomon’s excellent College of the Customer blog discussed how companies who only pretend to care are doing their customers a disservice. He described a service failure where a hotel sent him a pre-arrival email inviting him to contact the general manager with any special requests, but then failed to deliver when Solomon took them up on their offer. (Read the post here.)

This type of experience is frustrating, and Solomon makes the point that the offer comes across as disingenuous when it’s not fulfilled. That may be true, but I’d be willing to bet the problem is just as likely the result of a broken service process. According to John Goodman, vice chairman of the noted customer loyalty agency TARP Worldwide, these types of failures are responsible for as much as 60 percent of customer complaints. (See more in Goodman's book, Strategic Customer Service.) 

Here are a few examples:

A hotel promises its airport shuttle will arrive every 20 minutes, but it takes an average of 25 minutes to drive the route. The result is the shuttle is usually late. Fail!

A new credit card arrives in the mail. The accompanying letter instructs the cardholder to go to a website for instant activation, but the web address doesn't direct the customer to an activation page. This causes the customer to spend extra time searching the company's website for activation instructions. Fail!

A consultant sends his client a link to an archived webinar, but the client can’t open the link. The result is the client has to send another email to ask the consultant for a working link. Fail! (Okay, this one was me. Soooooooo embarrassing.)

How to eliminate broken processes

There are at least three great ways to prevent service failures that are the result of broken processes.

1. Test
Test things out before sharing them with your customers. Timing the route between the hotel and the airport before writing the shuttle schedule would allow the hotel to determine how long it actually takes. If the hotel realized ahead of time that driving the route took 25 minutes on average, the hotel could revise its schedule or add more shuttles to avoid disappointing guests.

2. Map the touch points
Identify how and where your customer will interact with your company (a.k.a. touch points) and make sure they are all aligned. The credit card company could have mapped their new credit card activation process to ensure the enclosed instructions clearly sent customers to the correct website or optional toll-free number. (See my previous post, Why ALL touch points count.)

3. Act quickly on feedback
There will still be occasions when a customer discovers a process is broken before you do. When that happens, act quickly to fix it. In my case, I had tested out the webinar link ahead of time and it worked fine. When my client reported the problem, I had to do some research to find out why it didn't work for her. As soon as I found the cause, I emailed the corrected the webinar link, apologized for the inconvenience, and thanked my client for bringing it to my attention. I also revisited my webinar software and learned how I had inadvertently caused the problem so I won’t do it again.

What are we really talking about when it comes to service?

P.T. Barnum famously bet on his customers getting confused by fancy words when he wanted to pump up profits at his museum. Barnum posted signs marked “This Way to the Great Egress” that led people towards what they assumed was the museum’s latest attraction. Gullible patrons were surprised to learn that "egress" is really just another word for exit when they followed the signs straight out of the building.

That sort of trick wouldn’t pass muster with today’s customers (imagine the Yelp reviews!) but there’s still plenty of confusing language used in customer service. Clearing up this confusion may be one of the keys to preventing service failures in your organization.

Here are a few examples:

Customer Satisfaction. What is it? Is it good? Or, is aiming for customer satisfaction setting our sights too low when we really should be achieving customer delight? And, if customer delight is the goal, should I scrap my C-Sat survey in favor of a C-Del metric?

Employee Engagement. It seems to be a matter of fact that positive employee engagement is strongly correlated with high levels of customer satisfaction. Or is it correlated with high levels of customer engagement? What exactly is employee engagement anyway? Even the top employee engagement consulting firms don't agree (see my post).

Outstanding service. This is good, right? Just ask five people and they’ll all agree. Then ask them what outstanding service looks like and they’ll all give different answers. None of them will be necessarily wrong, just different. (See my simple explanation.)

These are really rhetorical questions in an effort to highlight the need for a common frame of reference, though I wouldn't mind you sharing your answers in the comments section below.

Practical Application
Here are a few simple examples of how you can establish a common frame of reference when talking about customer service.

Training. Before conducting customer service training, I work with my clients to create a clear definition of outstanding service using a Customer Service Vision tool.

Surveys. Before writing your survey questions, take a moment to think about what you really want to learn about your customers and what you will do to act upon that data. (See "C-Sat: So what?")

Strategy. Frame customer service or employee engagement initiatives around SMART goals rather than writing fuzzy objectives like “improve customer service.” 

A deeper dive into an email service failure

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post detailing a service failure I experienced via email. I had contacted the office that runs the indoor soccer league I play in to get my team’s schedule for the upcoming season. My blog post summarized the exchange and offered an analysis of what went wrong along with some tips for improving responses to customer service email.

What happened next was an unexpected surprise. A colleague emailed to point out what I could have done as a customer to receive better service. Over the next few weeks, I showed it to participants in several of my customer service classes and they had similar observations. (You can read the original post here and see if you can spot what I could have done better.)

A small misunderstanding
Many email service failures start with a small misunderstanding. The customer doesn’t provide enough detail in their email or perhaps explains the problem poorly and then the customer service rep misinterprets what the customer is looking for.

Of course, you can’t put the onus on your customers to improve their communication. What you can do is take the time to read each email and ensure you fully understand what’s being asked before responding.

Unseen pressures that lead to poor emailing
The big question then is why don’t people take more time to read and understand emails before responding? We know that these small misunderstandings can lead to unnecessary back and forth, wasted time, and ultimately customer aggravation. So why don’t companies do more to fix it?

With the help of several participants in my training classes, I was able to put together a list of possible reasons why people don’t take enough time to properly respond to customer service emails.

• Yabba Dabba Do. It’s late in the day and their brain has already clocked out.
• Time crunch. They are rushing to get through a mountain of email.
• Text happy. They learned all their emailing skills from text messaging.
• Distractions. They are too distracted to give the email their full attention.
• Reading skills. Their reading comprehension is less than what it needs to be.

I’m sure this is only a partial list of reasons why customer service reps don’t often take the time to see past small misunderstands and figure out what their customers really want. What other reasons would you add to the list?

Anatomy of an Email Service Failure

Many of us rely on email for simple customer service transactions. All too often, we experience email exchanges like the one below that leave us even more frustrated than we were before.

The Situation
I play on an indoor soccer team and wanted to know our schedule for the upcoming season. Schedules for each season are typically announced the Sunday before a new season starts, so I emailed the company that runs the league to get the latest schedule. 

Me (Sunday @ 4:33 pm)
Hello,

Is it possible to get a copy of the schedule for Buena Onda via email? We play in the men’s over 30 league on Thursdays.

Thank you,
Jeff

Them (Sunday @ 4:50 pm):
(No message. The response simply contained last season’s schedule pasted into the body of the email.)

Me (4:51 pm):
Thanks for the quick response, though I meant the upcoming season.

Thank you,
Jeff

Them (4:53 pm):
The upcoming season hasn’t started yet…

Me (4:55 pm):
Are you saying that the schedule for the upcoming season hasn’t yet been created? All that’s posted on your website is that our team has a bye this coming week, but I’m trying to learn when our other games will take place.

Them (5:03 pm):
The last games for the current season are being played this coming Thursday.  After they are played we can align the league & schedule the next group of games.

Analysis
Well, on the bright side, the do get points for responsiveness. In a recent survey on email response times, I discovered that most people expect businesses to respond to emails within one day (see the survey results here). Now, a few negatives:

No personalization. Emails should include a salutation and the name of the person sending the message. It’s even worse when multiple people use the same general email address since you don’t know who is helping you. The person responded to my email could have added their name.

Failure to understand. The person reading the email didn’t take a moment to pause and think about which schedule I was referring to. If they had, they may have realized that I was likely wondering about future games rather than games I had already played.

Not answering the next question. CSRs responding to email should try to anticipate the next question and answer that one too. The anonymous person responding to the email could have combined emails two and three and saved us one round of back and forth. (Read more about this tip.)

Bottom Line:
While this email exchange hasn’t cost the company any business (yet), there are a few costs that all businesses should be wary of:

• Frustrating. Having to send three emails to get one question answered is frustrating.
• Wasteful. These excessive email exchanges can add up to a lot of wasted time.
• Referrals. Service failures like this make it much less likely for customers to refer a business.