November 2003

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=3 height=120 BGCOLOR="#CC3333" TEXT="#080000" background="099b85a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Visiontheme</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Visiontheme"><B>home</B></A></div> <div> <B>November 2003</B>   |   <A HREF="growth_is_the_key_to_survival.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="December 2003">December 2003</A>   |   <A HREF="january_2004.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="January 2004">January 2004</A>   |   <A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="February 2004">February 2004</A>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="March 2004">March 2004</A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="April 2004">April 2004</A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="May 2004">May 2004</A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="June 2004">June 2004</A>   |   <A HREF="id39.htm" 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article was first published in the Eastern Daily Press' 'The Business' on 4 November 2003</I></div> <bR> <div> <B>'Customer Care' - the myth and the reality</B></div> <bR> <div> My laptop computer died about five weeks ago.  It wasn't very old, and it had led a pretty cushy life.  I did my best to treat it well and was quite good, if I say so myself, at doing regularly most of those techie things one is meant to do like disk defragmentation and data backups (the latter very fortuitously, as it turned out…..).</div> <bR> <div> I had also invested quite heavily in an extended warranty service cover (called `Super Support') because the computer was critical to my business and I needed to have the comfort that `priority' treatment would give me.   Well….. let me tell you of my experience of `Customer Care'.</div> <bR> <div> On Day 1, I started my journey of frustration by dialling my `priority' number and waiting 20 minutes to speak to another human being.  They quickly took my details and asked that I pack the machine ready for collection.  So far, so good.  Two days later the box was collected and I waited for two weeks, when, after about half a dozen calls (mine, of course) the repaired laptop was returned to my hands.  Five minutes into the lengthy process of reloading all of the applications I use in running my business, it died again….. in the same sudden, spectacular way it had over a fortnight before.</div> <bR> <div> I wasn't especially happy about this result so, once again, I got onto my priority line and, this time, waited 25 minutes before I got through to the `Customer Care Team'.  I won't bore you with all of the subsequent sordid details, but over the course of several days, interminable phone conversations with countless Call Centre staff that had not the slightest idea of how to provide `Customer Care', I was at boiling point.  Along the way, I had effectively been accused of doing something sinister to undo all of the good their engineers had performed and then had to proceed through a number of mind-numbing stages of waiting for new disks to be sent and then running them through my mortally wounded machine, only to discover that the disks were faulty and needed to be replaced (this time, the priority service took ten days).  </div> <bR> <div> OK - so I've had a bad experience.  So what?  The reason I am relating my sad tale in this column is that it is all too symptomatic of what passes for Customer Care in this country today.  I've swapped numerous stories with colleagues and acquaintances over the past few weeks that merely serve to confirm what I feel is the single most important aspect of business performance (or underperformance) today.  Customers are NOT being well served by the businesses they use, and there is little evidence that businesses that serve people (and name me one that doesn't……) either care about or are prepared to do something about poor customer service.  Giving truly good service is the single, most important way ANY business can increase its sales and its profits. Yet few businesses seem to have twigged this simple fact, and their customers are paying the price.  What business people need to remember is that, eventually, their business will also pay the price when their customers desert them.</div> <bR> <div> Yesterday, as I entered week six of this jolly experience, I finally got through to a Call Centre Manager.  After many minutes of taking him through chapter and verse, he managed to utter, at one point, the magic words “I'm sorry”……  He was the first person I had spoken to who had done so.</div> <bR> <div> I won't mention in this article the name of the company that's been giving me this treatment.  Not because I'm not prepared to let others know who they are - believe me, I'm telling LOTS of people - but because they just might read this article and….. I don't have my laptop back yet!</div> </td> <td valign="top" width=180 BGCOLOR="#CC3333" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>