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Ideas In Action

An SM2 newsletter providing tools, techniques and knowledge to help you create a better customer experience!

 

 

 

 

 

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The Travails of Travel: June 6, 2008

 

Those of us who travel as part of our work know how challenging it can be as a customer to have a good experience. If you feel as though the airlines just don't know what they're doing when it comes to customer service, you're correct and definitely not alone. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) recently announced that airlines are scoring at their lowest levels since 2001. The index, published quarterly by the University of Michigan (Go Blue!), uses a standardized survey to measure how happy customers are across numerous industries.

 

With the exception of Southwest (a favorite of mine for their exceptional customer service), which scored 79 out of a possible 100 points, most of the airlines scored very poorly (average 62) , with United (whom I fly a lot) earning a dismal 56. To put this in perspective, the IRS scored 65. Ouch! My own recent experience echoes this survey: Speaking via telephone with customer service reps at both organizations on the same day last week, the IRS person was surprisingly helpful and friendly, while the United agent was clearly irritated and just wanted to get to the next call. What's the Secret?

 

If you compare airlines to hotels, which generally score much better (average of 75), the emphasis that the hotel industry places on customer service training and major investments in making accommodations and waiting areas much better and hipper places to hang out becomes strikingly apparent. Just spend a few minutes in the lobby of any W Hotel and you'll know what I mean. Interestingly, the budget-priced hotels scored among the poorest, leading U of M Professor (and ACSI founder) Claes Fornell to remark that "lower prices do not have a strong effect on customer satisfaction." This is an important point to those of you who are wrestling with your pricing structure in a struggling economy.

 

In our current economic climate, many companies look for ways to cut costs and the typical destination, regretably, is employee training and other "line items" that are actually essential to a great customer experience. Is this good for business? Intuitively we know the answer is no. And there is great empirical evidence showing clearly that investing in customer service is good for the bottom line. Customer service expert John DiJulius makes the case right up front in his just released What's the Secret? To Providing a World-Class Customer Experience. Referencing work by ACSI's Fornell et. al., the charts and graphs clearly show that companies that scored highest in customer satisfaction significantly outperform the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq averages. These companies tend to view spending on customer service as an investment rather than a cost.

 

I highly recommend John's book as a guide to help improve the level of customer service in your organization. I've worked with John over the past few years and his two decades of operational experience running top hair salons is now being taught to clients that range from Lexus to Ritz Carlton. One of John's famous sayings from his first book, Secret Service, is that "the role of great service is to make price irrelevant." That is, make the customer's experience so wonderful that they wouldn't consider going anywhere else to get it cheaper. His new work has the Ten Commandments of World-Class Customer Service, which will guide you to assess and alter how you take care of your customers. After you've read this article, Click What's the Secret? to order the book from Amazon.

 

Enhancing the parking experience: Expresso C-Sat
If you think your business is too ordinary to be focused on the customer as a means of differentiation, think again. Even the airport parking lot where I take my car has finally caught on. Expresso Parking by the Oakland Airport strives for customers to say that their "Expresso Experience was Fabulous!" They offer additional services, such as a private car to get you to the terminal faster (for a fee, of course) and surprise customers with special touches like a bottle of water in your car when you return. They even let customers reward good service and penalize bad service by voting at their website myexpressoexperience.com ; customers vote and it affects the employee bonus pool. Wow! Now, just imagine if the airlines did that. Flying might be fun again!

 

Ideas in Action is an e-letter focused on enhancing the customer experience. Written by author and consultant Shareef Mahdavi, it is typically published each quarter and is read by doctors, engineers, marketers, salespeople, small-business owners, and his mother-in-law, among others.

 

Shareef Mahdavi runs SM2 Strategic, based in Pleasanton, California, a firm that works with medical device manufacturers and physicians to create demand for new technologies and procedures.

 

SM2 is delighted when readers forward this e-letter to friends and colleagues and comments are always welcome.

 

Shareef Mahdavi President, SM2 Consulting