Customer Service - From Promise to Performance

E-commerce businesses have some different customer service challenges from brick-and-mortar businesses.  This past week, a painful experience reminded me of this.

TAKING ONLINE COURSES

I have a real estate salesperson's license and it was set to expire on New Year's Eve.  In order to be eligible to renew, I had to take 24 hours of classes.  I checked the state's licensing website and confirmed that I could take online classes and submit the renewal online.  

Last Friday, I signed up for and took a 24 hour package of classes from the C. David McVay School.  The class was hosted on a site from a company called proUnet.  The package included six classes and as I completed each one, the system grade sheet showed that I had passed.  In the early afternoon, I had a small technical problem and spoke to a service rep on the phone who said she was looking at my record.

BIG GLITCH

Imagine my surprise when, after completing the entire package, I received an email from an administrator at the school informing me that I had violated a rule which limited attendance to 9 hours of class per day.   When I returned to the system grade sheet it had been changed and four of the classes no longer showed that I'd passed.  Instead they had a notation that my attendance exceeded 9 hours.

SAME AS BRICK-AND-MORTAR

The first customer service errors that these companies made were the same as any brick-and-mortar business can make.

First, there was no apology.  Long ago, I learned that when a customer is upset an apology can diffuse the situation.  The apology need not admit wrong-doing.  It could say "We're sorry you didn't see the notice" or "We're sorry you're upset."  

Second, was a refusal to answer the questions I asked.  Being inclined to fix every problem I see, I tried to understand how the problem occurred.  I asked tech support how it happened technically.  I got multiple email responses, but none answering my questions.  I asked the school why the  notice wasn't posted on the school website when I enrolled or the proUnet system while I took the courses.  It's possible there's a good reason, but I'm not going to know.

Third, was a blame-the-customer approach.  The school mentioned that I had learned the rule when I'd received my license four years earlier. (To her credit, the administrator acknowledged I might not remember from that long ago.) Both the school and the software provider pointed out that there was a mention of this rule in the email the system had sent when I registered.  Nowhere did I get another of my customer soothing mantras, "We'll look into it."  There is no harm, and lots of benefit, from telling the customer you heard and understand their point of you and that you'll consider it.

DIFFERENT FROM BRICK-AND-MORTAR

The email notice the school and software company mentioned appeared in lines 20-22 of a 31 line email titled "Order Confirmation and Instructions."  It did not appear on the screen that displayed when the email opened; it could be reached by scrolling down.  But, what did appear on the screen was payment receipt information.  This is a mistake unique to an e-commerce business.  With the vast numbers of emails, people have become accustomed to scanning the first screen of an email to assess whether it needs to be read.  For this reason, it is important to give the customer a visual cue if there is something critical and different beyond what appears in the first screen. 

The email was the first of thirty-seven sent by the school and the system while I took the courses.  This is another uniquely e-commerce problem. The web allows us to deliver a much greater volume of information.  In this case, again, it's imperative to give a visual clue to what's going to have high importance to the customer.

The greatest e-commerce customer service error was in the fundamental design of the system.  It was possible to take the courses without ever reading the email.  Properly designed, the system should have had a large bold warning on the system screen when I enrolled and again when I completed 9 hours or when I opened the first course after the 9 hours had been completed. 

In the end, all of these problems were created by a simple and common failure.  The developer or business manager is so familiar with their own material that he can no longer judge what a consumer can or will absorb.  Customer service begins before the customer arrives.  In this case, it is extremely important for e-commerce vendors to remember that they are delivering more content than the consumer will "see."  

It's that time of year, right before Christmas, when most of us in the US struggle with the question of who to tip and how much? It's become an increasingly difficult question, as the people who provide service in our lives multiply and their expectations grow.

When I was young, people gave cookies and fruitcakes to newspaper boys, milkmen, hairdressers, etc. Today, professionals can have a small army of people who provide service -- manicurists, personal trainers, gym attendants, FedEx/DSL/UPS deliverymen, car service drivers, to name a few. And those people have employers who've made no secret of their efforts to shift the Christmas bonus obligation to you. Now, these people look at you expectantly as the holiday draws near. Many give you holiday cards which are thinly veiled reminders that they're counting on you to make their holiday dreams come true.

My recommendations for tipping:

1) Don't give more than you can afford. You can't possibly give as much as their richest customers. (Did you see the New York Times article about the doctor who gave cosmetic surgery to his favorite service providers?)

2) Don't give tips to induce better performance. Sometimes we're tempted to give someone a better tip than we think they deserve in the hopes that it will motivate them to provide improved service in the future. Unfortunately, more often, it convinces them that they've been giving good service.

3) Don't give tips to punish poor performance. The holidays are not the time to punish people for what you think they've done wrong. No lumps of coal; no dead roses; no one-cent tips!

4) Reward good performance. This is supposed to be about customer service. If someone has done a fine job, this is your opportunity to let them know. Go ahead and give tips of differing amounts -- the best to the best! Don't worry about hurting someone else's feelings. In any business, someone else will prefer a different style and reward a different employee with the highest tip.

My hair has been going gray for quite some time and people have often suggested I color it. So, this week, I let a friend take me to her colorist of 15 years. We walked in and she made the introductions. The colorist stopped what she was doing, walked over to me, looked closely at my hair, and then said with finality, "Don't do it."

I was awestruck. Here I was, in a salon so famous for its hair coloring that there's a bestselling book about it and she turned me away. She was very nice, very polite, and succinctly explained exactly why hair coloring would not go well for me. Since I'd read up on hair coloring the night before, I understood exactly the chemical problem she was describing and it made sense.

Since it's the week after Thanksgiving, when all the great Christmas movies are on tv, it reminded me of the great scenes in Miracle on 34th Street when the stores start sending people to their competitors when it will give the customers what they want. Here, too, the colorist and salon passed on a large sale and a big tip in order to do the right thing. That's great customer service!

My response to ZipCar's survey after today's failed rental:

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I arrived at 7:30am to pick up a ZipCar I had paid to reserve from 6am to 9pm. Although I'd called one hour ahead, the garage attendant didn't inform me that the car had not been returned nor had he informed ZipCar. In a case such as this one -- where the garage requires one hour notification -- I would recommend that they be required to call ZipCar if the car hasn't been returned. Had this happened, ZipCar could have determined that the car was many hours overdue, called the violating renter, and notified me before I showered, dressed, and went out to the garage.

After arriving at the garage and finding the car missing, I called the customer service rep, who was very nice but didn't know New York. She offered to replace my rental in a heavily residential neighborhood with one in a warehouse district that would be desolate on both a Sunday morning and night. And though she offered a taxi to the car, she had no suggestions for how I would get back from this deserted neighborhood on a cold and rainy night (tonight's forecast).

Only when I suggested it, did the operator offer to call the violating renter. I was on hold for about five minutes and she came back with a very sad story from the renter about a cousin having a heart attack. While I'm sympathetic, it wouldn't have changed the domino of sad stories, if I'd been on the way to a family wedding or funeral or a job interview. As it was, I missed an opportunity to see parents in their 80's. In a location with as many cars as Manhattan, I'd recommend that you put one extra car in a central location for such emergencies.

During the course of the call, I also learned that the total penalty for a return as late as this one (overnight and into the morning) is $150. In a location like Manhattan, where parking in a handicapped space results in a $180 ticket and the most expensive dessert restaurant charges $1,000 for a sundae, I'd suggest that the ZipCar penalty be raised significantly. I apologize for my cynicism, but I have no way to know if the prior renter's story is true in a city where false excuses have been raised to an art form. If there really was a medical emergency, any fee could be waived.

Yesterday, I wanted to have a meeting with my accountant and was in a different city. So, I decided to sign up for WebEx's pay-per-use plan so that we could both look at my QuickBooks (it's got a variety of security features so I wasn't worried about someone hacking in).

The pay-per-use page says "Sign up today and begin using WebEx Pay-Per-Use for just 33¢ per minute!" This is an exact quote; I just cut and pasted the text here. Imagine my surprise when the receipt arrived by email and saw an overcharge -- twice the price I expected. When I called WebEx customer service, they weren't surprised at all...they get this call a lot. They directed me to something in the FAQ page that explains that the charge is 33 cents per user.

So, I went back and looked at the website and, no, there's not a little asterisk next to the big blue "33¢ per minute" headline. And, no, there's not small type anywhere on the page explaining the per user angle. And, no, it's not in the terms of service page. And, no, there's no reference to this on the page where you schedule the meeting.

WebEx is now owned by Cisco, a big company, with big firm lawyers. So, I'm assuming that this is either a terrible oversight or that California (location of WebEx's corporate headquarters) has some very funny consumer protection laws. In most places in the US, the price has to be stated in a way that has no hidden charges. Since there's no such thing as a meeting with only one person, the real minimum price is 66¢ per minute (for a meeting of two).

My recommendation: Change that Web page immediately.

Follow-up: Here's the link for the pay-per-use page. You can check and see if they've changed it.

I met a friend at the Apple Store at midnight last night. That's because Apple knows it's demographic. New York is the city that never sleeps, so its Apple Store never sleeps.

At midnight, there wasn't the throng of teenagers in a safe, interesting place that I expected. On the other hand, based upon couture, my friend appeared to be the only person coming from an evening at the ballet (or theater or opera). The crowd appeared split 70/30 between serious shoppers and people looking for free web access.

I'd read that the store was designed more as a showcase and to provide advice than to sell products, so I was curious to see how things worked. The space has the sleek, uncluttered feel of an iPod or a Google screen. It's monochromatically white with just a few large, attactive, back-lit photos high on the walls to identify where products are in the room. Functioning products are laid on large, tall tables with plenty of room for people to work. With plenty of appropriately tall stools around the room, there's no sense that anyone's being rushed. (There are also places to sit for people who aren't doing particularly anything. ) Major points for Apple on this front -- it was easy to find and focus on products of interest.

I did find a few challenges next. Since the store is busy and there's no time limit or incentive to move, getting in front of a Mac involves a wait. Once there, we found there were no printed manuals and no special help screens. While I appreciate that the Mac is meant to be intuitive, Iit was challenging for a long-time Windows user. And, we faced the conundrum of having to give up a hard won table spot to find an employee to answer questions, knowing that we wouldn't have a machine to reference. After the fact, I discovered that it's possible to make a reservation for service online, before coming to the store. When we found one, the employee was knowledgeable and friendly. He lost a few points, though, for making some stereotypical assumptions about the technical competency of a pair of pre-GenX women.

Purchasing turned out to be incredibly simple. Our helper pulled up a screen that required my friend to type in her name, select the pc, and about two other choices. The line to pay and pick up looked long but moved very fast: about 5 minutes. By the time she'd completed the charge transaction, the box was ready to go. And, since the elevator was being serviced, our helper carried up the stairs and into a taxi. More customer service points for Apple.

I deduct one point for its "all the cool kids already know" approach to selling, but otherwise the Apple Store is a paragon of customer service.

I'm changing the focus of this customer service blog. In earlier blogs, I focused on highlighting the sort of things that have gone wrong, trying to show corporations how their policies are perceived from by the customers. Since my fundamental nature is to fix problems not just identify them, from now on each blog will contain at least one suggestion for how the company could achieve higher customer satisfaction in the situation.

Today, I'm looking at telephone service, an industry of tremendous competition. One article I read estimated that, in 2003, 30-40% of cell phone customers were changing cariers in a single year. And, the Census reported that 40 million Americans move each year; most of them will be getting new phone service, too. So, phone companies should know that, even as you're leaving them now, they could be competing for your business again soon. With that in mind, why aren't they nicer to departing customers?

Here are some examples of the sorts of things that make their customers unhappy:

Time-Warner:

PROBLEM: When I cancelled my business' land service, they sent a bill showing a credit balance. I had paid more than I owed but after several months T-W had made no move to send a refund. When I called and pointed out that they owed me money, I was advised that I would have to go through a series of hurdles lasting 30 days or more (call another number, wait for a form to arrive, fill out the form, mail it back, wait for it to be processed) in order to get the money that the bill indicated was clearly mine. Adding insult to injury, I next got a bill indicating that an "adjustment" had been made resulting in a zero balance; T-W had simply removed the credit from the balance (i.e., taken my money).

SOLUTION: T-W should create a feed to its billing system from its service system; the billing system should know when service has been cancelled. The billing system should be modified to note when 90 days have passed since cancellation (allowing time for proper credits or debits) and then issue a refund. Under no circumstances, should an "adjustment" be made which takes the client's credit and assigns it to T-W.

SPRINT:

PROBLEM: When I switched long-distance services away from SPRINT on my home phone, I had about a $100 credit balance. And, again, although I was no longer a customer, they continued to send monthly bills showing they knew they had my money. At least when I called them, they promised to send a refund and the check arrived within a week or ten days.

SOLUTION: This is certainly the "least worst" situation. SPRINT didn't act on its own to return my money and I think they should have. Their billing system, too, should be programmed to wait after cancellation (just to ensure that the account wasn't the victim of "slamming") and then send a refund.

VERIZON:

PROBLEM #1: My husband and I had gotten cell phones together and the account had randomly been placed in his name. This turned out to be a huge problem, because when I called to ask a question (like how many minutes had been used during the month or when the contract ends) I was informed I needed his permission to receive an answer. Even after he told them multiple times to stop doing that, they still insisted there were questions they couldn't answer without his permission ("oh, that's an exception"). Verizon doesn't acknowledge that the service is provided in a state with community property laws (where the legal default is that married couples jointly hold assets and jointly owe debts).

SOLUTION #1: Verizon should align with the law and make community property the default for married couples with "family plan" phones (one for each) in community propety states. In order to account for married couples who are legally maintaining separate finances (which requires some careful action and is rarely successfully done), Verizon could ask at the time of establishing service if only one spouse will be responsible.

PROBLEM #2: Since I'm the heavier user of cell phone service, we finally switched the account to my name. This involved multiple phone calls, nearly two hours in a Verizon store, and additional charges of more than $500. Interestingly, after paying all of the money, I've now received a credit of nearly $250 on the last bill with my husband's name. Now, we have to try to either get a refund check or get the credit applied to the bill (for the same two numbers) that's now in my name.

SOLUTION #2: In situations in which a bill is overpaid and there is no possibility for additional billing (as here, where future service bills are the responability of another party), the billing system should automatically issue a refund check.

PROBLEM #3: This one is incredible. One of my colleagues informed Verizon in writing that he was moving and wanted his service cancelled. After he moved, he continued to receive bills, pay them, and send responding letters (each month for the six following months) reminding them that he had moved and requested termination of service. On the seventh month, he refused to pay and got a termination notice. He (a lawyer) wrote to their legal department explaining the entire history and got a letter back indicating that they didn't accept letters and that he would have to phone Verizon to effectuate cancellation. He sent a certified letter again asserting that he had paid more than was fair and wanted the service terminated. In response he got a letter indicating that they would send his account to collection. He then spent several hours on the phone and spoke to multiple operators before finding one (who gave him the understanding that she is a contractor and not a regular employee) who retroactively cancelled his account back to the proper move-out date. After this was completed, he recieved a letter from a Verizon customer service representative asserting that the representative had "been trying to reach" him; this was a complete mystery since Verizon had been provided both his new phone number and address.

SOLUTION #3: Apply common sense. If Verizon can send bills, notices of termination, letters threatening collection, and letters from customer service, it stands to reason that it recognizes the effectiveness as well as the legal and evidentiary value of written correspondence. It should immediately cease and desist from telling any customer that it does not accept letters. And, of course, it should cease the actual practice of ignoring customer correspondence.

It's hard to believe that businesses have taken the position that they will simply hold your money unless, until, and sometimes even after you ask for it back. However, this is not the only industry in which I've seen the practice. Doctors' offices and hospitals seem to do this routinely, for example. I haven't had the opportunity to research the case law on the subject, but I have a hard time imagining the legal theory under which you're entitled to keep (and invest and earn returns on) money you haven't earned. While any one customer's credit may not be that large, the aggregate across thousands or millions of customers is tremendous. If the practice doesn't change soon, I expect to see some big class actions in the near future.