09 January 2012 - customer service

I have realised this week how much we can all learn about customer service from our own dealings with the organisations we buy from.

During the Christmas break I had telephone conversations with my bank and with the charity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).Both taught me simple practical lessons about customer service, which we can all apply here at Viridian every day.

First of all the conversation with my bank:

I wanted to make a payment over the phone and called to ask them to make the payment.They told me that I hadn't previously made that payment but that my wife had. It was a payment from our Joint Family account, and that they could not allow me to pay using the sort code and account details that my wife had previously given them.

I suggested to them that this was a procedure that they might like to review in order to improve their customer service, particularly given that this particular bank prides itself on being “the Helpful Bank”. I am afraid that I was then lectured about how no bank did this and that it was unreasonable for me to ask that.

I then asked to speak to the manager who was more sympathetic but asked whether I wanted to make a formal complaint and be put through to the Complaints Department. I told her that I didn't; I just wanted to make a suggestion.

Next up were Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF):

They called me because they had lost the details of my charitable contribution to them.Although they had called me, after only about 30 seconds they were asking for my sort code and account number.

I said that I wasn’t certain that the caller was who he said he was, and that I would prefer it if he could send me a form to complete. He said that that would cost them much more and for about a minute tried to argue me into agreeing to give the payment instructions there and then.

After that minute of wrangling, I said that actually I had changed my mind and I was not going to make any charitable contributions at all because of the way this conversation had been handled.The conversation ended soon after that!

Imagine my surprise when about three hours later I received another call from a Customer Service Manager at MSF.She said that she had listened to the earlier conversation, quite understood my position and was calling to apologise.As a result of her call, I of course immediately decided to renew my contribution to MSF.

The lesson from this is that we should have a standing arrangement where all unsatisfactory conversations are listened to after the event by an impartial colleague, checking whether we have handled the issue properly….and, if there is the slightest flavour that we haven’t, call to apologise. An apology is very powerful.

But the main message is that an incredibly effective way to learn about customer service is to think about those moments when you are upset about receiving poor service. Don’t think that could never happen here! It could, but, if we learn the right lessons, it won’t in the future!

So what are the lessons for Viridian?

§We all need to welcome suggestions from customers as to how the service can be improved rather than giving the impression that we know better; and

§We need to avoid forcing people to make complaints when all they want to do is make a suggestion, so we need a separate and very speedy mechanism of recording suggestions separate from complaints; and

§Customers hate being forced into a procedure when they just want to be treated as an individual so…we need to “make the procedure invisible” to the customer.

We’re already starting to make some of these changes with dedicated Customer Solutions Officers. Listening to our residents, we have simplified the complaints process with an aim to resolve complaints faster and with one point of contact.

If you have got any personal customer service stories to tell, do let me know, so that I can publicise them through the blog in the coming weeks.