If you aren’t a Steve Jobs… engage with your customers

Steve Jobs was known for his ability to create products the customers like even they hadn’t been involved in the creation process, however few people has this ability and have to relay on other ways of defining a product.

A product is, in my experience, often defined by the product managers with input from a few internal teams, like user experience team and in some cases with input gained at user and focus groups.

Social Media creates an fantastic opportunity for listening and engaging with customers as an on-going process and not just at a study session. The agile approach often used for much software development fits well with this approach, but the mind-set needs to be, the product creation is a collaboration between the customers and the organisation – when have you last been in a meeting where a product backlog was prioritised (assigned value) based on what had been learned from listen to social media and engaging with customers on Facebook pages and from twitter conversations? That would be a first step towards co-creating of products – customers and organiation collaborating on product creating.

What a customer is willing to pay for a product is based on the perceived valued by the customer and I believe co-creation leads to a product customers perceive has a higher value.

Why users must be in control of Facebook seemless sharing

Facebook seamless sharing has been discussed by several bloggers this week, some has criticised how it is designed from a user experience while other feel it is oversharing. My view is that the users always need to be in control of what is shared and not just via an option to opt-in/out of sharing everything done on a site (like playing a piece of music, reading an article etc.) – the user must decide for each item if it is shared or not. A more selective approach to sharing will reduce the number of items shared but it will at increase the quality of what is shared. Items that are shared (seamless) without a user actively deciding to share it, are in many cases, just clutter in the news feed – the automated sharing without a user adding a comment/context really goes against the personal interaction that is a key fundament for social media. Social Media isn’t just a new channel to push out message but a channel for interactions.

   
Other blog posts that discuss Facebook seamless sharing
Marshall Kirkpatrick – Why Facebook’s Seamless Sharing is Wrong
Richard MacManus – Facebook Hasn’t Ruined Sharing, It’s Just Re-Defined It

Douglas Idugboe – Is Facebook Heading Towards An Overdose of Sharing?

How to declutter your internal communnication

David Shing predicts defriending and unfollowing is going to be the next big thing as users realise that the increasing “noise” on social networks is counterproductive. David works for AOL so I don’t think he is referring to the use of social media in the work place and I would argue the use of social media would help to declutter the communication in many organisations.

Imagining you could choice which news feed you were interested in, instead of receiving the communication the internal comms team have decided you need – even the intranet is one-fits-all in many organisations.

Give me control, let me pull the updates I need and allow me to engage directly with the creator, not just the comms team. That is what a dynamic organisation need. What is what contribute to cross organisational collaboration and the “connectedness” that is so important for organisations.

Product managers need to say no sometimes

I have received an email from Capital One about a new feature: Their web site now allows you to view your PIN on-line, however who will use the feature:

• People who use their card will know the PIN – most transactions requires the PIN these days.
• People who doesn’t use their card is not like to have set-up on-line access and therefore can’t use the feature.

It seems to me as a pretty pointless feature where the product manager should have said no.

Note: The feature was presented as a new service for customer, but I actually believe it was created as a cost saving feature. It allows Capital One to ask people to set-up an online access and get their PIN that way if they call Customer Service for a PIN – this will save the cost of posting a PIN.

You can ask Capital One about the feature at @AskCapitalOne

How to get to the top of the UK complaints list ?

Barclays Bank has received 251,563 complains in just 6 months, this is enough for them to secure the top spot on the UK complaints list. I can, as one of these many people, say I think this is well deserved, they have worked hard on achiving this.

I decided 10 days ago that it was time to do something for the environments and save Barclays bank a fair amount of money by asking them to stop sending me junk mail. That shouldn’t be too difficult would most people think, but not when we are talking Barclay.

First step was to find a number I could call, it was well hidden in the the small print – Barclays obvious don’t want to talk to their potential customers.

Three attempt to get their offshore (non European) call center to remove me from their mail list, no luck, not even when I asked for a supervisor. (we had a few disconnect issues too!)

I decided public shame was the only way to get off the list, so posted a tweet and I got a response on twitter. Not so bad a start, but sadly it all went down hill for Barclays from here.

I emailed the address given in the response. The next I see is a tweet where Barclays say they are waiting for response to an email, that email did never make it to my inbox (not even in the spam folder), anyway I get in touch with Barclay and confirmed my postal address was as stated in the first email and that it was paper junk mail.

You would think this is the end of the saga but not when we are dealing with the company on the top of the complains list. Barclays call to check my address is correct as stated twice – obvious not enough with the confirmation by email. I made clear in uncertain terms that I don’t want any further contact from any part of Barclays in any form or shape.

This just leads to an email saying “I understand that you wanted no further contact” – great they got it, ohh no, they didn’t get it because it continues with – “we are required to confirm that the issue is being investigated, in line with our complaints policy. A Customer Relationship Manager will need to contact you once the investigation is complete” – Great policy over customer service, I am sure that will win many customers!

Latest step is a 2 page letter with 5 questions, that includes asking for my address (4th time!), if it is a paper mail (2nd time this is asked) and checking if I am a customer – somebody really deserve to be fired for this.

I am sure this isn’t the end of poor customer service…

This is how to get to the top of the UK complaints list – well done Barclays, you truly deserve it !

Is your mind-set right for the knowledge based economy ?

The Institute of Directors (IoD) has produced a paper containing suggestions it believes would help the economy grow. The paper asks, according to The Independent, “Why does the Government want to make it harder to remove staff who are no longer effective?”.

I find it hard to believe a professional organisation, as IoD, in 2011 makes suggestions that reflect a view of employees as something you replace when nott effective any longer – like you replace a PC. Organisations with this mind-set is not likely to perform well in the increasing knowledge based economy where people are the key asset – the best people wouldn’t be attracted to work for a company that just replace them when they aren’t seen as effective any longer.

IoD have you heard about staff development ?

That is customer service

One of the apps on my iPhone is “On Voicefeed” and I have been a satisfied user for some time but it all ended yesterday:  I couldn’t login to the app and my voice messages go to the app so I was obvious not happy. I suspected it was an app update that had caused the problem, so I decided to try it when home and just remove the app if it still failed and no new update had been made available to fix the problem – a nice app, but I don’t have time for apps that doesn’t work.

Before I got a chance to try it again a mail arrived explaining the problem and what would be done plus an indication of the timeline. “Life is better on” who is behind the app had even made a small free update of my service because of the problem caused by the update. That is what I call customer service; proactive, fast and not just words.

A happy user again.

Translation of Virgin Media speak

The Virginmedia.com page states: You can now fully customise your Virgin Media homepage. This doesn’t mean you can fully customise your Virgin Media homepage, it means you can remove some components from the page, but not elements like search, top searches, hot offers, adverts.

Wouldn’t it be nice if marketing teams could write without inflate the message so customers didn’t got disappointed when they work out what the sentence really means – maybe just being honest would sort out most problems and prepare marketing teams for social media.

PS: I like Virgin Media broadband and the speed it delivers but I don’t like marketing speak and that is an area Virgin Media sometimes fails in.

Don’t wish me a good day, make it a good day

1&1 has wished me a good days three times over the last 24 hours – very kind, but I am not after a scripted ‘have a good day’ when I call custom service, I am looking for actions that make the day good. 1&1 please:

• Stop telling me you can’t see why the service is locked but will send a request through again.

this doesn’t give me any reason to believe the problem will be resolved, it obvious didn’t work first time a request went through, why should it work 2nd time whey you don’t know what caused the problem? (I can tell you it didn’t work a second time either)

• Stop telling that it should work again in 3 hours.

this doesn’t give me confidence anybody will pay attention to the issue after the call has ended (I can tell you it didn’t work after 3 yours).

Please take ownership, find the root cause, resolve it, follow it to resolution and let me know about the progress – this will make it a good day even without a scripted wish about a good day.

Have a good day !

This is why I use twitter for customer service.

I have in several blog posts argued why organisations need to engage with customers on twitter, including as one of the channels for customers service. I very often find customer service via twitter is far better than via other channels and I realised the other day why: The interaction on twitter isn’t scripted as when you speak to a call centre where any issue that doesn’t fit the script is unlikely to result in an acceptable customer experience. It is completely different on twitter. You raise an issue on twitter and a human think about the right response not what a script says he should do. I am well aware the reason behind often is a bit of fear – organisation knows problems can be shown next to their careful worded marketing messages when people research an organisation so they are keen on showing they care and resolve problems
Not every organisation understand how to use twitter for customer support, I have on more than occasion been offered support from Acronis when raising problems on twitter, but  twitter is clearly just a publicity stunt for them, I have never heard from them again when submitting the required info. So not all organisations who offer to help on twitter actually does it, but I have in most cases found support via twitter by far better than support via other support channels.