Live Experiment: A breakthrough with Whirlpool?

I think I finally have a resolution after contacting Whirlpool 16 times to update an expired credit card. And, I've also confirmed my suspicions that there was a broken link in the chain. As I've written before, your service is only as good as the weakest link in the chain.

Background
My wife and I had a subscription where Whirlpool automatically sends out a new water filter for our refrigerator every six months and bills the credit card they have on file. Our credit card recently expired, but so far we've been unable to give Whirlpool the updated information. (You can follow previous posts here.)

Breakthrough
Yesterday, I exchanged direct messages on Twitter with Chris, a Whirlpool employee who monitors their customer service Twitter feed @WhirlpoolCare. This led to a phone call where I explained that between my wife and I, we had now contacted Whirlpool 16 times in an effort to update an expired credit card. Chris listened, apologized, but like everyone else we had interacted with, he told me he was unable to help me. However, unlike everyone else so far, Chris offered an alternative solution and explained why he was unable to fix my expired credit card (more on the credit card in a moment).

The alternative we agreed upon was that Chris would send us a complimentary water filter as a gesture of goodwill. It would then be up to me to re-establish a new online account with my updated credit card as a workaround to the problem. (I could also find an alternative source for the water filter.)

This is huge because, as I explained to Chris, I have a house full of Whirlpool appliances. Before this incident, I wouldn't consider another brand. Now, I wouldn't consider Whirlpool unless this was resolved. If the filter arrives as promised I'll consider Whirlpool back on my list of preferred appliance brands (their appliances are really, really good).

The Broken Link
Chris also revealed the broken link in their chain. The water filters are fulfilled by a third party, so Whirlpool customer service employees have no access to that company's fulfillment system. The only tool they are given is the instructions on using the website that they can relay to customers. This explains why each customer service representative we've encountered has been unable to help. Apparently, the system's designers never imagined the system could break so there were no contingency plans for handling this sort of situation.

Unanswered Questions
I didn't want to press my luck by asking Chris too many question since I was his last customer of the day and he had stayed a little late to talk to me. My top priority was getting a resolution and I had that now. However, there are a few unanswered questions that could be instructive.

What is the escalation procedure? If a system is broken, someone should be able to escalate. Why couldn't (or wouldn't) Whirlpool's customer service employees escalate this issue to someone who was empowered to fix it?

Where is the process broken? The specific problem was technical, but was it on Whirlpool's end, the fulfillment company's end, or both? When two parties encounter a problem, the instinct is often to point the finger at the other party, which means nothing gets resolved.

What's the full impact? I have to imagine my wife and I aren't the only ones to experience this problem. Is this problem really an iceberg? In other words, how much business is Whirlpool losing due to situations like ours?

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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 available in paperbook, e-book, and audio book formats.

You can learn more about the book at www.servicefailurebook.com or purchase a copy online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell's Books.

Why the customer isn't always the top priority

Here’s the scene… You are placing your order at a fast food counter when someone suddenly interrupts you to declare a ketchup emergency.

“Can I get some ketchup?” the other customer asks frantically. They physically crowd the counter space, by-passing the line and wedging themselves into the scene to ensure their emergency takes top priority. In almost every case, the cashier stops taking your order and turns to help the other person.

Why does this happen?

There are two reasons. First, the ketchup person is rude. Not rude in a deliberate, “Step aside for the great ketchup king” kind of way, but rude in a “I have a ketchup emergency and I’ll die if I don’t get some ketchup right now” kind of way. They get tunnel vision and they just don’t consider you in their moment of panic.

The second reason has to do with how people pay attention. Without the proper training and awareness, most cashiers will unthinkingly respond to the ketchup emergency before completing your order.

How do we pay attention?

Our brains can focus our attention through two primary ways. One is called top-down and the other is known as bottom-up. Top-down attention involves consciously focusing our mind on a task, conversation, or thought. Bottom-up attention comes from external stimuli such as a loud noise, something visually catching your eye, or something touching you.

In the short run, bottom-up attention will override our concentration if the stimulus is strong enough. This is a human instinct that helps us recognize danger.

Let’s go back to the cashier in our ketchup emergency scene. The customer looking for ketchup captured their attention through bottom-up stimuli by talking in a loud, frantic tone and making themselves seen by physically crowding the space near the cash register. It's human instinct for the cashier to momentarily stop paying attention to you and notice the ketchup person.

It’s the next step that’s the cashier’s choice.

What the cashier does depends on whether or not they have a clear sense of priority. If the current customer is the top priority, then the cashier will utilize top-down attention to politely ask the ketchup person to wait and refocus on taking your order.

If no priority has been established then the cashier will most likely help the ketchup person. Why? Because we tend to follow wherever our bottom-up attention takes us unless we have a deliberate intent to focus on something else. The ketchup person will cause the cashier to instinctively pay attention for an instant, but without a conscious intent to refocus on your order, the cashier’s attention will remain with the ketchup person until the task is complete.

What can we do about it?

The best way to help your employees avoid situations like this is to establish clear customer service priorities.

I recently did a training exercise with a group call center agents where I asked training participants to list their priorities. Universally, they said the person on the phone was the top priority over instant messages, questions from co-workers, or emails. Once they learned about top-down versus bottom-up attention, they decided to limit distractions while they were on a call.

The results of their experiment were overwhelmingly positive. Just by taking the small step of concentrating on the caller as a top priority, they started paying more attention to their customers' needs. This, in turn, helped them identify more opportunities to serve their customers at a higher level.

If you’d like to read more, I’ve written a few other blog posts about how our brain pays attention. Chapter 7 in my book, Service Failure, is also devoted to this topic.

• Why multitasking hurts customer service
• Listening to customers is harder than you think
• Why customer service isn't always obvious

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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 available in paperbook, e-book, and audio book formats.

You can learn more about the book at www.servicefailurebook.com or a copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell's Books.

Live Experiment: Still no resolution from Whirlpool

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged about my efforts to resolve a customer service issue with Whirlpool, so I thought I'd provide a short update.

Background
We have a subscription where Whirlpool automatically sends out a new water filter for our refrigerator every six months and bills the credit card they have on file. Our credit card recently expired, but so far we've been unable to give Whirlpool the updated information. (You can follow previous posts here.)

Update
A customer service representative called me and left a voice message offering to help. We played phone tag for a few days until he stopped calling. One thing I noticed is he said he returned calls in the order they were received and could take up to one business day to respond. The last voice message I left him contained dates and times when I would be available since I wasn't going to be around the following day. This probably threw off his system of returning calls at his convenience, which I imagine is why he didn't call again.

My wife and I have now contacted Whirlpool a total of 13 times in an affort to update our credit card information. It's beyond ridiculous that they can't fix this, but I can guess at the real culprit. If you were to pry open the Whirlpool's customer service and parts fulfillment operation you'd find a hodge-podge of broken systems. Silos between teams, computer systems that don't talk to each other, and pointless policies. It's just a guess, but it's hard to believe my experience is all that unique.

I wish I were David Allen
David Allen is the author of one of my favorite books on personal productivity, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

He also has a bit more social media clout than I do. Check out this Tweet from earlier this week: 

Just let 1.2mil people know that I'm not happy w/Adobe customer service. Curious to see what difference that makes. Social media.

— David Allen (@gtdguy) November 29, 2012

Less than 24 hours later he sent out this Tweet: 

Good on Adobe. They followed up w/me nicely

— David Allen (@gtdguy) November 29, 2012

If you are on Twitter, check out the full conversation that includes replies from some of David Allen's followers. Some of them are spot on. You can also see a few Tweets from Adobe in the mix.

Why you need to view service through your customers' eyes

This sign greeted me as I entered a parking lot on a recent Tuesday morning:

I chuckled as I imagined what someone might think if they didn’t realize that Tuesday Morning was the name of a store. Yes, that scenario seems a bit far-fetched, but it’s a good reminder that customers can often view a situation in different or even unexpected ways.

This is a topic I’ve blogged about before. Two years ago, I shared a post about a sign taped to an ice cream cooler that either advertised a nice selection or the worst flavor imaginable (Seeing things from the customer’s perspective). This time around, I’ll relay a story from a friend of mine plus share a few strategies I use for gaining customer insight.

"You're no longer welcome"
A friend of mine recently posted an update on her Facebook page complaining that she had been refused an appointment at her hair salon. Apparently, she had been a no-show for an average of 1 in 9 appointments, so the hair salon finally decided to turn away her business. From the salon’s point of view, no-shows cost them money since that appointment slot would otherwise have been filled, so it made sense to cut loose an unreliable customer.

However, I doubt the hair salon considered my friend’s perspective when they made their decision or when they delivered the message. Predictably, she was quite angry to be abruptly told she was no longer welcome. It also made her remember the poor service she had received on her last visit, where she had previously forgotten about it because overall she really liked the place. Her post on Facebook drew many supportive comments and offers to refer her to another hair dresser.

How to see through the customers’ eyes
The challenge is our customers’ perspective is often only obvious in hindsight. It takes consistent, deliberate effort to really get inside your customers’ heads before a service failure occurs. Here are a few techniques you can use:

Teach empathy. The ability to empathize with another person comes from having a relatable experience, but customer service employees often have difficulty relating to their customers. Through proper training, employees can learn techniques to see things from their customers’ point of view (see 5 Ways to help employees empathize more).

Dig deep into survey data. The problem with a lot of customer survey data is it’s presented in aggregate, but those averages don’t tell the full story. For example, a client mined their survey data and discovered that one particular problem accounted for the overwhelming majority of customer dissatisfaction.

Look for icebergs. It’s easy to dismiss strange feedback as an isolated incident involving a confused and disoriented customer. However, in some cases this feedback may be just the tip of the iceberg. A favorite technique of mine involves digging deeper to see if there’s a systematic problem (see What the FAA can teach us about icebergs).

How to get better customer service this holiday season

Shopping during the holidays can be a fun and festive time, but we’ve all experienced our share of service failures too. Huge crowds and exhausted employees can conspire to make shopping miserable if we're not prepared.

That’s why I reached out to some of my favorite customer service experts to ask them, “What can customers do to get better service during the holidays?”

Here are their terrific tips:

Celebrate!
While we're busy with the hustle and bustle of the holidays, we forget that those individuals we're needing service from are at work...and it's stressful, even more during the busy holiday time. Take time to celebrate with them, wish them a happy holiday. Remembering that they're a human being too with their own holiday plans helps bring humanity and personality back into the employee/customer relationship.

- Flavio Martins. Flavio is on a mission to end bad service and writes about it on his blog, The Customer Service Manager.

Don’t Be a Jerk
The customer has almost as much to do with the success of the interaction as the worker does. Manners, energy, gratitude, patience, mutual respect, and common courtesy are all critical. Just be a good person. Please don't undermine your own service experience by being a jerk.

- Patrick Maguire. Patrick’s outstanding I’m Your Server, Not Your Servant blog discusses customer service issues from the perspective of service industry workers.

Dress Up
People still judge a book by its cover. Just because you can wear jeans down around your butt, a muffin top and crocs doesn't mean they'll respect you in the morning – or in the store. Those who spend a bit of time to dress for the occasion receive elevated service.

- Bob Phibbs. Bob writes an excellent blog on retail sales, Bob Phibbs Retail Sales Blog, and is the author of several books including The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business.

Empathize
Retailers hire a significant number of part-time seasonal staff to meet the demands of the holiday shopping season. Many of these employees are working multiple jobs and/or going to school on top of having to prepare for the holidays. To receive better service during the bustling holiday season, heed the advice of the Greek philosopher, Plato: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

- Steve Curtin. Steve’s customer service blog has a great collection of customer service stories that all illustrate important lessons.

Touch the Heart
If you don't get a great rep, do what I teach the best to do -- touch the heart. A simple question, "how are you surviving the crunch today?" breaks through their self-focused attitude to the heart of customer service.

- Kate Nasser. Kate’s Smart SenseAbilities(TM) blog addresses the explicit and subtle moves that make customer service consistently great. She is also featured in the DVD, Customer Service USA - The Regional Differences That Make a Difference.

Use Names
Most service providers feel more connected to you if you refer to them by name. If a provider's name isn’t volunteered, consider asking for it. Make this into a friendly exchange: ask in a sociable way, and also offer your name.

- Micah Solomon. Micah Solomon is a professional business keynote speaker and the bestselling author of two bestselling business books. His website is http://www.micahsolomon.com and his blog is College of the Customer, http://www.micahsolomon.com/blog.

Compliment Outstanding Service
Let them know that you believe that outstanding customer service is rare these days and that you really appreciated their efforts. And with leaving that associate on Cloud Nine, you have certainly guaranteed that the next customer will most certainly receive the same exceptional service.

- Bill Quiseng. Bill is the Resort Manager for Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club and writes about customer service on his blog, Deliver the World’s Best Customer Experience. 

Give Companies the Opportunity to Solve Problems
During the holiday season, companies are understaffed and employees are highly stressed. Mistakes will be made, and your holiday season will be that much easier if you allow companies a chance to make good when they drop the ball. Give companies a chance to fix problems before taking away your business or sending that angry tweet.

- Adam Toporek. Check out Adam’s Customers That Stick blog where you can also receive a free e-book called 7 Secret Customer Service Techniques Every Expert Knows!

Treat People the Way You and They Want to Be Treated
If you want better service practice two rules:

The Golden Rule – You grew up learning this one. Treat people the way you would want to be treated, which is with respect, dignity and patience.

The Platinum Rule – My friend Dr. Tony Alessandra came up with this one, and it is twist on the Golden Rule, which is to treat people the way they want to be treated. Show empathy.

- Shep Hyken. Shep is the best-selling author of the Amazement Revolution, and also writes a very insightful customer service blog.

Be Patient
Crowds, loud working conditions, too much food, too over committed, too many tasks pulling you in too many directions.  Then you have to go to work and smile, be patient and provide excellent service!  When you are a customer, be kind and empathize with your service provider - you know how they feel.  Be part of making someones day better, not worse.

Wendi Brick. Wendi's company, Customer Service Advantage, Inc., specializes in helping government agencies improve service. She is also the author of The Science of Service: Six Essential Elements for Creating a Culture of Service in the Public Sector. 

Do your homework. Be informed.
Educated customers make better customers. There are so many tools and resources at our fingertips to do price comparisons, find the best deals, read product reviews, locate products and get updates on availability, read about shipping policies and deadlines, and learn about return and exchange policies.

- Annette Gleneicki. Annette writes the CX Journey blog  and leads Southern California networking events for the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA). 

Send Checks
One approach that guarantees a headache-free customer service holiday season is to avoid customer service representatives altogether. Checks are never returned or exchanged. No customer service issues involved … unless it bounces. If you're prone to bouncing checks, try money orders.

- Write The Company. The Write the Company blog features witty customer service correspondence with real companies. Read between the lines and you’ll be reminded not to take yourself too seriously.