I recently had my own customer experience that I would be interested to get your viewpoint on. Without sharing too many details, I had a request for my credit card provider (who it is worth pointing out, is different to who I have my current account with). Somewhat frustratingly due to the lack of current account they were unable to provide me with a solution to my problem. Having not had the situation resolved to my satisfaction, I felt it necessary to write my feedback to the company involved.
As is becoming the bedrock of an effective Voice of Customer program, my feedback was dealt with effectively, and I received a call back the very next day. One of the first things I was asked was “which free gift would you like to accept on behalf of our apologies for your inconvenience?” (I had a choice of three; Chocolates, Flowers or Wine). Bemused, I sought to resolve my issue before offering a response to the question; I wanted the company to know that their process was ineffective and what problems it had caused me.
Yet after explaining this to the agent, it was established that the process was not going to change and that this was just how things were. Together we concluded that there was little point in me sticking with the credit card company at all.
To end the call I was again asked which free gift I wanted, which I accepted (obviously the chocolates!), despite both myself and the agent aware that there was little to save me as a customer.
The issue I struggled with in this instance is the failing in being able to understand and change the customer experience from the customer’s perspective. And let’s be clear, I’m not blaming the agent here, the credit card provider has simply created a situation where customers are negatively affected due to a rigid and poor process. This is not a unique problem and indeed highlights one of the key failings in many VoC programs today, turning the insights gained into effective business improvements. In the case above, instead of reviewing the process and improving it for not just myself, but other customers in a similar situation, they have simply tried to buy my loyalty with a free gift; this is not conducive to creating a superior (or even acceptable) customer experience. To give an example of a NICE Fizzback customer, by operationalizing the feedback within their customer experience process, they were able to improve over 200 processes driving customer dissatisfaction, in less than 9 months. This ranged across everything from a complete overhaul of the disputes process to a change in call waiting music.
Even though the chocolates that I was given were delicious, (and reason to go to an extra gym session or two!) sadly I will be changing provider, the clearest indicator a business can get of the effect of delivering a poor customer experience.
Natasha Holroyde
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