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.

A little more (PG-rated) bathroom humor

Awhile back, I posted a small collection of signs found in or near restrooms. They were all good for a laugh, but also served as a reminder that we need to see things through our customers eyes. (See: "A little bathroom humor"). 

My friend Dawn emailed me a photo a few months ago for my "next blog post" on bathroom signs. I guess this means it's a series. Well, Dawn, I finally have enough photos to share. A few of the establishments were even in on the fun this time around.

This is the sign that Dawn sent. I'm sure it settled many arguments.

This was on the inside of the mens room door at a Salt Creek Steakhouse. 

Sounds like the coolest restroom ever!

This is sage advice at the Tilted Kilt. (I understand something similar is in the ladies room.)

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?

5 Ways Squarespace Gets Service Right

I spend a lot of time diagnosing service failures, but occasionally I like to profile an organization that’s doing something right. One of those organizations is Squarespace, a company that provides (in their words) “everything you need to create an exceptional website.” Their amazing customer service is a template that we can all learn from, but I also have an ulterior motive for writing this post. I want to publicly encourage them to keep up the good work.

Here are five things we can all learn from Squarespace:

1. Offer a great product that's simple to use
I’m currently building my fourth website using Squarespace, this one for my upcoming book Service Failure. I'm not very technical and don't want to hire an expensive web designer, so Squarespace is a perfect solution. You can use Squarespace to secure your domain name, design your website, and add content all without ever touching a bit of code. Best of all, it's easy to learn and use and their stuff just works.

I wish I could say the same thing about all the technology I work with, but too often I find it difficult to master, riddled with glitches, or both. Customers can be delighted with a great product, but they can also be delighted with the absence of aggravation.

2. Provide value
Squarespace is constantly enhancing the value they provide to their customers. For example, earlier this year they changed their pricing structure to simplify their plans. In my case, they actually offered me a credit when I switched plans because they were now offering more for less.

Compare that to other well-publicized price changes, such as Netflix's 60% price hike or Bank of America's infamous plan to charge debit card users $5 per month. Pricing is clearly a sensitive topic, but you'll win a lot of hearts and minds if you give customers more for less rather than less for more.

3. Respond quickly to customer inquiries
Squarespace clearly realizes that many of their customers are technically challenged like me, but that doesn't mean we're patient when we encounter a problem. Thankfully, whenever I've sent Squarespace an email to ask for assistance I've quickly heard back from an elite member of their support team who was able to help. Their responses are fast, thorough, and professional.

This stands out from companies who don't respond quickly, respond but don't actually resolve your problem, or don't respond at all. Customers hate to wait and we really don't like going back and forth either (see my survey on email response times). When we need help we want it fast and Squarespace gets that.

4. Be authentic and human
Customers crave authenticity, and nothing kills authenticity faster than overly scripted communication. Squarespace’s website, blog posts, customer emails are all straightforward, easy to understand, and are unencumbered by flowery marketing dreck. Better yet, their support professionals are allowed to use their own unique personalities when communicating with customers.

Authenticity is a breath of fresh air when we're used to dealing with so many customer service reps who are required to stay within a tightly controlled box (I really don't like scripts). 

5. Think like a customer
Squarespace recently announced a new version of their service, Squarespace 6, that promises to be a quantum leap forward from their existing platform. At the same time, they’ve wisely opted to indefinitely support users on the old system. Why is this important? Because it recognizes the extensive time and effort many of us have put into building our websites. Providing continued support means we aren’t forced to make the change. Of course, they’re also offering to let users make the switch for free, even allow people to running both versions at the same time, so users are tempted to try out version 6.

This is an example of seeing things from a customer's point of view. A company lacking in customer focus may have become so enamored with their new technology that they forced everyone to switch. This strategy gives Squarespace a way to attract new customers or delight existing ones without giving their most loyal fans a reason to be upset.