Today I threw away my fifth Talbot’s catalog in a row without opening it. I am mad at Talbot’s. They have betrayed my trust and made me feel cheated. So I do not shop there anymore.

My checkbook shows $6548.35 was spent at Talbots between January and October 2008. But that is the end.  

So even though it has been more than a month since the events that led up to our relationship’s demise, as a sales and service professional and business owner I can’t stop thinking… Why doesn’t Talbots care about losing my business?

So far, I have come to two conclusions. Two reasons I can think of that Talbot’s does not care that Ronna Caras will not buy from them anymore:

1. When they changed their return policies and left me stuck with $200 of outlet merchandise they refused to take back (because it was 35 days old and not 30 days), they created no mechanism for their employees to report or escalate the incidents of really pissed off customers. Cashier and Manager both told me the new software did not allow for exceptions and there was nothing they could do. They pointed to the pale gray writing on the back of my sales slip explaining the change of return policy and agreed a store sign, a warning from a cashier, or a letter would have prevented my surprise. But neither of them had the training or tools to take my name and number and alert someone that something had hit the fan.
   
2. When I called Customer Service, searched the internet, and inquired in two stores, I was unable to learn the name of the Director or Vice President of Customer Relations. This person is well hidden. Maybe the job does not exist. Either way, Talbot’s has failed to create a channel to communicate with customers during a time of extraordinary change in their long-held policies.

So, kind readers, I think Talbot’s doesn’t care about losing my business, because Talbot’s doesn’t realize… yet. But they will. Because I cannot possibly be the only customer who was treated badly as a result of their covert policy change, and refuses to stand for it.

I am willing to bet there are thousands of customers like me, maybe tens of thousands of us, whose $650 a month clothing budget is about to be spent at Lord & Taylor or another store who still understands how to treat busy women who have more money than time.

It’s too late to warn Talbot’s that they need to communicate with loyal customers to avoid losing us. And it’s too late for them to train employees to handle situations effectively.

But it’s not too late for other companies to take a lesson. Policies change for good business reasons and consumers understand that. We want our favorite stores to stay in business and that means the stores need to be profitable.

So, take the time to be thorough when making changes that impact the way customers do business with you. Write, email, post big signs. Empower staff to make exceptions for a little while so your customers know you have not become our enemy.

I’ve been blogging a lot on customer service lately because we are actively involved with 2 firms aiming to change their cultures to improve the customer experience. So customer service standards and strategies and training are on my mind. Everything I read, see and hear stimulates an idea.

I also have a prospective “culture change” client whose legal department just finished reviewing my company’s contract. Their reaction was to make almost no changes. I was told they appreciated the “fairness and flexibility” they found in our service agreements. We don’t charge for time they don’t use, even when the change occurs at the last minute. We don’t ask reimbursement for every bottle of water and bagel we eat in airport….  I get the impression this was a bit of a surprise.

And it got me thinking… is it possible to have a culture of customer service when standards do not seem “fair and flexible” to customers? How do companies around the world even pretend to be customer-centric when they have terms like these 10 examples:

1. A posted policy says “returns must include a receipt and be within 15 days of purchase.” If the merchandise is made of strawberries, then I can understand it, but silk blouses don’t grow mold….
2. 0% financing is voided when 1 payment is even 1 day late. And bank has the right to select any interest rate it chooses to take effect immediately.
3. Personnel will travel through airport security lines to make sure passengers are not carrying too much stuff on board. (check out this Wall Street Journal article on the subject)
4. Sign on an office wall says, “Your failure to plan does not create an automatic emergency for me.”
5. Personal training appointments cancelled on the day of service will be charged full rate. But if the personal trainer cancels on the day of service no compensation exists for the customer.
6. We only serve burgers well done. (A policy I learned about in a restaurant that also serves sushi.)
7. New customers pay $1 for the same phone that current customers pay $100 for.
8. We only accept MC and VISA.
9. Training materials instruct staff to never say “I’m sorry,” unless it has been determined that the company is actually at fault.
10. Managers devote no time at all to observing and developing direct reports yet when it comes time for performance reviews, they list skills that are lacking and mistakes that were made.

This is a pretty short list of common practices that make it hard for customers - both external and internal - to believe the “powers that be” have their best interests at heart.

And if you show customers that you’re all about protecting your own interests, no matter how it impacts your customers, can you ever call yourself a “great customer service organization”?

There’s no doubt that creating a culture of service must include reviewing every written policy and contract. The unwritten ones need review too. They impact the way employees behave toward each other and business or consumer clientele. Small changes can go along way toward setting a fresh tone for the future.

Now, believe me when I say I am not trying to discourage the development and implementation of training - obviously. But let’s be sure the training focuses on supporting systems that let customers know they matter.

Technorati Tags: Ronna Caras, Customer Service Culture, Customer Service Policies, Training

To say the public is frustrated by customer service is an understatement. But the idea that service is dead and that corporate execs are just paying lip service to the public and not trying to improve the customer experience - well that’s just not true. So I respectfully disagree with Fred Yeomans whose blog “fredspace” tells a compelling story about bad policies and bad treatment from a telescope manufacturer. Customer service is on its way up, not down.

I just returned from Socap (Society for Consumer Affairs Professionals) Annual Symposium. Not much of a “return” actually because it was held at the new Westin Boston Waterfront all of 15 miles from my house. By the way, excellent customer service at this property. And I owe someone there an apology - I forgot to leave a tip for the housekeeper who kept the crisp white room and poofy bed linens from looking like a dumpsite during my whirlwind stay. If anyone knows what I can do about my bad manners in this situation, please write and tell me how I can fix this.

But back to the point of this post. Here’s what I observed, learned and concluded about Customer Service in America today:

OBSERVATION
More than 100 of the largest consumer product companies in the US and abroad spent about $1.5 million to bring their service leaders together to collaborate on ways to make customers happier without raising the prices of their products. Learning from the trials, errors and solutions of the companies in our network is much less expensive for a manufacturer or retailer than putting programs in place that may or may not succeed. This was leadership development at its best. Without forward-thinking leaders who actively try to improve themselves and their businesses, things will only get worse. In that respect, I agree with Fred. If companies don’t invest in professional development at the top they will not improve their policies or the behavior and effectiveness of their customer-facing folks.

LEARNING
Companies are improving the customer experience by improving the employee experience first. BJ McDonald, who leads a team of 2000 customer care agents at Continental Airlines, spoke about what it took for his company to go from “Worst to First” in service. They addressed the fundamental needs of the company - people need to show up to work every day so bags have the right amount of handlers and maintenance takes no longer than planned - with the fundamental needs of the employees - it’s hard to go a year without calling out sick when sick days are part of a basic comp plan.

If you’re thinking Continental took sick days out of the comp plan then I really hope you are not a Customer Care or HR Manager.

What did Continental do? They started a lottery for 100% attendance employees that gives away 8 fully loaded Ford Explorers twice a year. We saw the pictures of the cars with their big bows waiting for their new owners. It was ingenious. I had never thought about employee attendance as being one of the major problems that caused customer dissatisfaction, but, as Fred points out in his blog post, we’ve all waited around in airports thinking the delay made no sense…

CONCLUSIONS
Above and beyond employee satisfaction, there was a lot of talk about customer satisfaction surveys. Most companies are actively asking customers what they experienced. A large percentage of them are even making changes based on the information they received.

In our session on Blogging, Susan Getgood shared the model Dell Computer uses for tracking customer satisfaction and how the 50 different companies in the audience can use the internet to make sure the quality of their customer care is improved by the efforts they are making. Based on the mob of executives waiting to talk with her further, I conclude many more Socap member companies will be participating in the conversations and taking action to make customers happier on the first try.

So, if you have begun to think that clipping coupons in the Sunday paper should be abandoned because those companies don’t care about you, think again. They are listening as long as we are talking. Don’t quit yet. The conversation is just getting interesting.

Technorati Tags: customer service, continental airlines, dell computer, susan getgood, bj mcdonald, ronnna caras, socap

14 years ago, I was a Customer Service Manager in a small, privately owned company.  Of course it was not small to us. My team of 10 supported $12 million each year in sales, but in 1993 we still had no voicemail.

You may remember those days (or perhaps you are too young). Receptionists answered the phone. You gave a clear, detailed message so the person you needed to reach had the facts and could call you back with a solution. The receptionist filed her nails while you spoke writing only your name and number when you finally gave it. Not exactly the “world class customer service” I had hoped to offer our clients.

Because the receptionist did not work for me I had no authority over her abrupt manner. She was a local hire. Probably someone’s friend’s niece like many of the folks we employed.  I wasn’t allowed to teach her how important her contact with our customers could be to the company’s bottom line.

So instead, my creative approach was to ask her to transfer all client calls directly to Customer Service. She was thrilled to have fewer names and numbers to write on those little pink message pads.

And the training of my staff began. Please understand that they were locals too.  If asked, half my team would tell you they chose their job because the bus stopped right out front.  Now they would be handling every inbound client call.

We drilled on empathy, caring tones, thorough note-taking, and commitment to making sure the clients felt heard and helped. My team rose to the challenge. The sales staff started to get complete messages detailing the client’s issues.  They got fewer messages in general because my staff was able to handle many of the client’s immediate needs without involving the sales rep at all. And they got more sales. A quick increase in repeat business.

All because customer service took over reception duties.

I was brought back to old times today. I called a business and reached “customer service” according to the woman who answered the phone. I asked for the President who was at lunch.  But in this company no one asked if they could help me.

“Do you want his voice mail?” was all she offered. And I was stunned. Although I wasn’t an angry customer calling with demands, isn’t it customary to at least ask about the nature of calls to the President?  Shouldn’t someone that answers the phone with the words, “Customer Service” care even a little about the customer or the service?

So I ask you today, to share your thoughts about voice mail. Is voice mail making it harder for companies to provide real service to callers?

Technorati Tags: customer service, voicemail, reception, training, quality

Companies are obligated to make their front lines successful. Not the other way around.

A major wireless company has changed the sales goals and compensation for their retail kiosk staff. I know this because someone I love is a rookie salesrep. He’s been at it seven months and he loved it - the company, the products, the customers. Even the retail hours that had him coming home long after his baby was in bed. He was sold on his sales job. And he was sold on the corporate ladder he saw open for climbing.

And now the game’s changed - they’ve added a requirement to sell a certain mix of products and customers. The bar has been raised. But that’s not really the problem.

The problem is that his Manager told him the new goals are impossible.

“I need to get better at calling current customers and getting them to come in for new phones. What can you suggest?” the kid asked. “You’re already doing it just fine,” was the reply.

“How am I going to hit these new goals?” the kid asked. “I have no idea,” was the reply.

Too lazy, too greedy, too shortsighted?

It’s hard to say why this company introduced a new program without getting their front line Managers on board first. Maybe someone tried but was not given the training budget. Maybe the word leaked before the tools were designed to help the supervisors help the salespeople.

Either way it was a terrible way to treat people you have screened, hired, and trained. A certain amount of baby-whining is expected from salespeople when quotas are raised - even a first year Director can see that coming.

This company’s leadership should have prepared for it in advance. It was an expensive, lazy mistake that would be discussed in B schools and laughed about in the years to come if it weren’t so common. “X” is not the only company making this error.

Your front line staff deserves to be led by people who are worthy of being followed.

There’s a lesson here for every company. Every company makes changes in their sales targets, expectations and compensation. This means every company needs to know the steps for getting it done right. It’s simple. Teach managers how to present and coach to the new standards before the new standards get launched. If the job requires a new daily action plan, then the front line Managers had better be able to show their teams how to do the work.

When a salesrep goes to his manager and asks, “How are we going to do this?” he deserves to be reassured that the person he trusts can and will teach him to succeed.

What is your company doing to address changes in sales targets this year? Is the management team getting the tools they need to make the changes work? Or, are changes in sales programs being used to cause attrition in a slow economy?  Please share your thoughts and experiences with our community.

Technorati Tags: wireless, sales, sales training, causing attrition, slowing retail sales economy, sales managment, coaching tools, goal setting, impossible goals, retail management, retail kiosks, ronna caras, sales leadership mistakes

What would you think if I told you that American Idol’s Simon Cowell has a lot to teach most businesses about effective coaching? “My opinion”, I must add quoting the master of mean. And an educated opinion as is Simon’s.

Although I haven’t signed my $100 million deal with Sony Entertainment, yet, I have studiously observed thousands of hours of coaching and customer or prospect interactions. And I know for a fact that most business coaches are not causing performance improvement well enough. I can’t help but wonder if Sony’s customer care or sales organizations are as effective at developing top performers as their favorite talent scout, Simon.

To be clear, I am not referring to the nasty comments about age, appearance and intoxication levels. Those are made for TV, we all know this. In business, anyone hurting the feelings of others for a laugh should be fired.

Instead, I refer to the 4 clear and concrete standards Simon Cowell imposes on every auditioner every time.  That’s what a good coach does - sets high standards and evaluates performance against the standards over and over again.

It’s always the same 4 components:

1. CONTENT - in AI, the content is the song choice. He expects singers to credibly tell a story that will help audiences to know and like them. In business, content includes positive word choices, messages of reassurance, and explanations of solutions or products. Shouldn’t we all coach to content?
2. DELIVERY - in AI, this is about stage presence. Does the performer know how to connect with the audience and sell the message? We ask telesales people and service pros to do this all the time using the phone as their mic. In retail, we coach to eye contact and body language. Good content with lazy delivery will make no one a success. Delivery is a key standard for all business behavior.
3. PERSONALITY - in AI, this is the “star factor”. The ability to reveal unique bits of who they are so viewers feel they can know and trust them. That’s the reason for the video clips and backstage peeks. Boring, stupid, or forgettable people don’t make it. Personality doesn’t compensate for consistently bad content and poor delivery, but break out stars can be made on personality in music and in business. Just ask Madonna or the top salesperson in your company.

4. ACCURACY - in AI, accuracy is about vocal skill. This is the only category Randy and Paula know how to comment on and neither does it well. Randy’s “pitchy”  was never concrete enough. Pitch too high? Too low? Wrong key? What on earth does be mean? Paula commits the worst sin of all in this one category. “You were ahead of the music, but so what”. Imagine telling an employee they were inaccurate but it doesn’t matter because they were adorable? Simon’s feedback has real value. He focuses on the melody, the composer, and making the song sound better than the memorable original.  In business, accuracy may be less glamorous - applying company policies and entering data - but people do not keep their jobs if their accuracy is poor and they don’t become a pop star if they can’t hit the notes.

So how can business take a page from Simon’s coaching playbook? It’s simple. Set high standards in these same four concrete and important categories. Consistently coach to one or more of these areas every time, every employee, every week. Find the coaches who use hip, throw away comments to preserve employees egos but aren’t correcting what needs to change - and teach them a new methodology. Everyone worthy of working for your company should have stellar performance as the goal. And your coaches must be there to help them achieve it.

Technorati Tags: simon cowell, american idol, randy jackson, sony, caras training, coaching

Recently, Starbucks announced their new “interactive community” called My Starbucks Idea. In 2 days they had tens of thousands of hits at their site. Some obvious recommendations, such as the introduction of a loyalty program, have 50+ comments and variations per entry. There is no doubt that the Starbucks community of consumers wants to be heard. In fact, I had to laugh at all the people taking their valuable time to write and complain about how much of their valuable time it takes to wait for coffee with 11 ingredients… (AdAge has a few opinions about customer posts as well.)

For those of you with service or sales experience, the posts at Starbucks will hold no surprises. After reading 200 comments from the 13 categories, I can state with total confidence that there is no new information here. Use your imagination and every CSat survey or customer complaint you have heard in any job, anywhere, and you already know what people are writing about.

So, if the customer demands are not new, this means the solutions are not new either. But they do have heightened urgency. Now that Starbucks, like many retailers, is inviting consumers to ask for stuff, these retailers are obligated to give at least some of what was asked for. Even though it involves the same “best practices” we’ve been talking about for years, it will feel like a win to the consumer.

So how do the consumer demands translate to real action at the retail level? Three simple things:

1. Get the on-site manager out from the back office and focused on coaching people to a higher level of quality. Including:

• Stopping the gabbing between employees and getting them to give full attention to customers.
• Demonstrating how to engage customers with a smile and eye contact.
• Routinely watching and tasting to be sure barristas make each coffee as taught so customers receive the product they want.
• Creating contests that will polish staff’s speed and accuracy skills so they can do more in less time.
• Opening up another line when more than 3 people are waiting. (Okay, so they’ll need more registers for this - but I had to include the thing that bothers me the most. Get rid of some merchandise and make counter space for checkout… USA Today has an interesting article that talks about “cutting the clutter”.)

2. It’s not just the local management that needs to put more skin in the game. Get the corporate trainers into the stores to observe and correct. If things don’t look, sound or taste their best, then trainers need to design in-store activities to improve the performance level. Shutting down for 3 hours for training is an expensive and exciting event - as widely reported by every US news outlet. Take a look and listen to the video interview from Elliott Masie called “Venti Learning with Foam” to hear what other corporate trainers thought about Starbucks’ 2/26/08 program.

Here’s the bottom line: events are rarely enough to develop skills unless they are reinforced at least once a week for a few months. Well-designed in-store activities run by top barristas or skilled managers will get genuine learning transfer at a much lower cost.

The customer-friendly dialog we are seeing and hearing about is all wonderful. Empowering consumers and making them feel heard is helping marketing departments worldwide to write better copy and design superior campaigns. What it is not doing, yet, is improving the real world customer experience. But it can.

3. When leadership steps out from behind the writers’ desks and onto the front line they will be showing genuine support for the faces of their business. The faces who make or break their business.

It takes hard work to get more results, not hard copy.

Let leaders in Operations, Marketing, Distribution and Finance go into stores and observe, demonstrate, and re-train to get the product they expect - hard skills and soft skills alike. Let them “walk the talk”.

Bond top line to front line.

Satisfying consumers requires the same investment now as it has always required. Though only the few truly great companies in the world are doing it.

Invest in the thousands of employees who have entrusted their rent money, car payments or family meals to you. Three small but essential acts. Then quality, consistency and profits will soar.

Technorati Tags: starbucks, retail training, customer service, leadership, coaching, quality assurance,