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.

It seems like everyone is complaining about the airlines these days, but recently a colleague reported receiving some great customer service from Delta.  I would like to share it with you. Here is the letter that he received:

For a company to be ahead of a potential complaint is revolutionary.   Being proactive will save a company from being skewered in the social media circles and can provide a big win. Good for Delta to go the “extra mile” to recognize customer loyalty.   

Technorati Tags: airlines, customer loyalty, customer service, Delta

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

Coupons and rebate programs bring customers into stores and onto websites. Marketing knows the give-away is typically spent on a much larger purchase. Management signs off because they see how well their generosity yields customer loyalty and larger orders at the same time.

But sometimes, the message is not filtered down to the front line. A recent post at consumerist.com caught my attention because it applauded Staples (our wonderful client and friend whom we love) and criticized another large office supplies chain. The topic? The $3 rebates for turning in empty or unwanted printer ink cartridges.

The story is simple: A computer repair business owner was accused of stealing the ink cartridges he is turning in because his volume is so high. He was threatened by a front line employee and told his activity “has to stop”. The employee went so far as to threaten to circulate his picture around so he could no longer acquire hundreds of dollars in merchandise credit coupons through the cartridge recycling program.

This is not the first time I have heard front line staff acting as though the use of a coupon or discount should not be allowed. In environments where dimes are watched closely and raises are practically non-existent, employees can mistakenly associate customer incentive programs with their own inadequate paychecks.

Companies can fix this problem by doing 3 things:

1. Encourage generosity. Toward customers and toward each other. Teach staff to err on the side of kindness and to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Organizations create more customer loyalty and a better image when they empower the front line to accept an expired coupon or to give a customer a slightly larger credit than the customer expects.
2. Coach employees to mention coupon programs or special promotions to their customers. Marketing spent a lot of valuable time creating the offer so everyone should be promoting it. When your customers start looking in the newspaper or on line for the coupon your team member mentioned, you get a repeat visit and that is always a win. Why shouldn’t an office supply store with an ink recycling program tell customers about it whenever the sale includes a printer or ink?
3. Don’t make customer #2 live without a discount they saw customer #1 receive. Sometimes coupon offers get lost in the mail or lost in the pile. We consumers know the stores that keep this week’s 20% off coupon behind each cashier stand and we shop them more frequently. Their employees get to act like heroes and save us from overpaying. It feels good to everyone and that atmosphere improves every aspect of the customer experience.

It may be too late for the offending store in the ink cartridge story to fix what they have done. They’ve already closed in my neighborhood. But there’s plenty of time for consumer relations and marketing and sales to bond together to make special offers a winning experience for everyone. And it’s easy.

Ronna Caras 

Technorati Tags: 10 tips for better sales and service, sales, customer service, coupons, consumerist, marketing, ronna caras