Resolutions
We live in the communications age, but are British companies using technology to improve customer communications, or are they guilty of using it as an excuse to keep their customers at arm's length?
Back in the 1980s, someone somewhere stated that when a customer dialled a company, if the phone was allowed to ring more than three times before it was answered, this created an impression that the company didn't really want the call and it created anxiety in the mind of the customer. The longer the phone is allowed to ring, the worse the impression becomes. Whether or not this was based on real research or was an unqualified observation was unclear but even today this three ring rule is often quoted as if it is axiomatic. Certainly the principle is good, and it is not uncommon to find organisations have customer focus guidelines which say
1) Answer phones calls within three rings
2) Make each customer feel that their call is important to you
But too many businesses take that guideline and look for technical solutions to a human problem. So nowadays, when I phone my bank, the gas supplier, the insurance company or pretty well any "service" company, the phone is answered within three rings by a computerised call management system which then requires me to press a succession of buttons to indicate who I need to speak to (even though I might not be sure myself who I need to speak to), and at the end of button pressing I am given some canned music periodically interrupted by a voice saying "Your call IS important to us,... please hold". I'm sure you've all experienced being told you are important for twenty minutes or more, and I've yet to meet anyone on the consumer side of the line who enjoys this experience. But the company can now tick the boxes which say "Answer phone calls within three rings" and "Tell customer their call is important" and congratulate themselves on meeting their service targets without actually having to do anything. In doing so, they've totally missed the point of the customer focus guidelines.
Is British industry any better when it comes to email communications? Incredibly, it seems to me it is even worse. Over the past year I can think of numerous examples where I have experienced bad communications first hand. This includes far too many online shops which are quite happy to take orders over the web, but no good at letting you know the item you have ordered is out of stock or when you can expect delivery; it includes major organisations and public bodies who auto-reply to emails assigning a case number for future correspondence but never get around to answering your question or letting you know if your enquiry has been acted on; and it includes the businesses which ignore your question entirely and instead sign you up for a newsletter you never asked for. I'm sure you have all experienced plenty of examples of poor customer communications yourself.
The economists are telling us that 2012 could be a lean year for all of us, and in this economic climate, we should value customers and nurture them. If you want to make a low-cost resolution for the new year, why not resolve to rethink the way you respond to customers, and use technology not to build barriers between yourself and your customer, but as a way of breaking the barrier down?
19th December 2011
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.