Archive for June, 2008
Double carma
Posted by kathybad in customer experience on June 23, 2008
I mean karma.
Yesterday I posted a way-too long tale about my car, its woes, and some not-so-great customer experiences. Hours after I posted, following a nice workout and while enroute to lunch, my car’s engine warning light went on. Yellow warning light. On my dashboard. Which has never happened, expect for the occasional, “you’re almost out of gas” nudge.
They couldn’t service it on a Saturday so it was my choice to drive it (the light could mean many things) or to leave it. I left it. In its place I got a white Scion xB. Low to the ground and so not me. My dog barks at it every time I pull into the driveway. Oh well, Murphy’s Law I suppose.
It’s gonna be a very crazy week with or without car troubles. Let’s hope it’s just a minor thing.
Two stories: Is either a good customer experience?
Posted by kathybad in customer experience on June 20, 2008
Now that I’m more involved with Customer Support at Blurb, I’m now looking at personal experiences with customer support through a different lens. I started this post a while ago, never finished it, but upon today’s experience, here it is.
Today I travelled to Redwood City for a smallish, peer-attended event given by our CRM vendor. A little bit of this and that with an emphasis on UGC, social networking best practices, and the opportunity to meet like-minded peers in the area. Snapfish! Shutterfly! Friendster! OK, I thought, worth the time out of the office to see what others are doing in customer support. Only someone forgot to update the guest list and the agenda.
Less than 20 people were there, and half were made up of employees of the vendor, their business partners, and speakers. Disappointed? You bet. It was a glorified sales presentation to win over potential customers. Only I was already a customer. Not a great use of my time. Grade: D
The next story is a few weeks old, but one that anyone can relate to.
My 12-year old car, truck, okay, SUV needed an oil change before a kamikazi-weekend roadtrip from Oakland to Utah and back again. I asked my car dealer service department if they could check out a burning oil smell. Cut to the chase. Burning oil smell = problem, but they don’t have the part. They’d have to order it. Come back after driving 500 to 1,000 miles. I told them I would be back in four days.
I returned after driving 1,300 miles, dropped off car, only to get a phone call a few hours later. Oh, hi, we need to order the part. Can you leave the car overnight? We’ll clean it for you. Uh, sure, but why didn’t you order the part last week? Next day, I scrambled to catch a Transbay bus to pick up truck SUV before they closed. Paid. Waited for truck to come down. Waited. Someone finally drove it down from the roof. First thing I noticed – it hadn’t been washed. I went to jump into my seat and wtf! All over the seat … crumbs and smeared chocolate. Not happy at all. Someone used my truck as a picnic bench. I called the driver over who put his hands in the air and walked away shaking his head. Got the last remaining person in charge who stared at the mess in disbelief and couldn’t believe they had done that. He said that his manager would call me in the morning.
Needless to say, angry is not the word to describe how I felt. And needless to say, no phone call from the dealership the next day. So, I hauled my not-very happy ass back down to the dealership (third time in less than a week) and asked for the manager who said, yeah, he had heard about it. Looked at it apologized and offered to clean it. Handed me over to my initial associate and walked off. I picked up my car at the end of the day and all was well, I guess. Truck was clean. Oil was changed. Leak was taken care of. I was inconvenienced many times over, but got what I wanted after three separate trips to the dealership.
But wait. The dealership wants to make sure I am happy. They call me once, twice, almost pleading for me to give them a good review if I happen to get a survey from Toyota. I mean here’s what is stamped on their receipt:
Thanks for doing business at Downtown Auto Center! We are committed to providing the best service possible. Help us provide top quality service by sharing your comments or suggestions with us. If you receive a survey we want you to be able to respond 100% satisfied. Regards – The management.
Um, okay. I got the survey. Filled it out. Honestly. Sent it in. Got a follow-up letter (you know, an envelope with a stamp and everything), asking me to fill out the survey and mention my great customer experience. Grade: B-/C+ (I hated when teacher did that to me, so call this revenge.)
What did I learn here? Many things, including a good customer experience means knowing when to trust your customers. And to leave them alone.
The resort complex
It’s been a few weeks since we left the confines of Club Med in Cancun. Was it worth it? Would we do it again? Yes, and probably not.
We usually travel as inexpensively and pragmatically as possible. Condos in Hawaii, apartments in New York and Europe, and the occasional B&B in England. We like to cook in, dispense with the formality and cost of eating in touristy places, and not have to worry when housekeeping is coming to clean up. Basically, we like to go local.
We knew when booking our Cancun trip that this would be a different kind of trip. More of a vacation – less adventure, plenty of r&r. Travelling with friends played a big role in the planning of this trip as did my desire to be able to eat the food and not get sick. Being vegetarian affords little chance of being able to trust that fruits and veggies are tourista-free. (Alas, that part of the plan failed me on the last day of the trip, but that’s another story.)
So, it’s confession time. Yes, the Club Med experience was a first for us and maybe the last? Here’s the deal:
1. You pay for your trip in advance. A good thing.
2. Everything is included: food, alcohol, assorted activities. An okay thing. We are not used to being waited on without being able to tip accordingly. Maybe this is an American thing, but for us, it made us uncomfortable.
3. But wait, not all things were included – internet fees were not included. Not a good thing. I understand that you are at a resort to relax, but please make it my choice whether or not to go on the web. Do not force this protocol on your guests. The fees were ridiculous — $10/hour. At the Cancun airport, I was able to get a full-day pass for $10. We didn’t bring a phone for emergency contact and instead relied on email. Forty dollars later …
4. All you can eat food, buffet- and even faux-restaurant style. A good thing for many, but tiresome for us. This is a personal choice. The buffet and selection of food was a novelty for the first few days, but it wore off. Quickly.
5. All you can drink. For us moderate drinkers, this was kinda fun. Weird to have someone on the beach take your order, but pretty decadent when they returned a while later with a decent margarita. For the folks who hung out in a posse in the water all day and had their drinks brought to them, I’m sure they’ll never be the same. We called them the beer bucket brigade.
5. A resort does not mean excellent service. A lot of the folks at the front desk were standoffish, and not about to bend over backward. The business center people were not exceptionally friendly, but that could be because of our initial attitudes. Plates were often dirty and one too many times I saw staff drop food on the buffet counters, only to pick it up with their hands and place it back on the serving dish. No thanks.
6. Housekeeping service. Pretty great. Some of the best, most unobtrusive room cleanup I’ve ever experienced. Maybe I liked it because we were able to leave a tip. We asked for extra things either when we saw our room attendant or via a call to the front desk and were treated quickly and efficiently.
And finally, the final confession. This was an Olivia trip, an all-women excursion. A first for me. And because of that, I am still recovering. Another blog post awaits.
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