BW Customer Service Champs

Business Week has recently released its annual list of customer service champions.

Some of my notes & observations -

• The list is dominated by car manufacturers & hotels.
• When anyone mentions car rentals - Hertz is the first name that comes to most people's minds. But Enterprise seems to be ahead in quite a few lists - including this one.
• Some adopted tips & tricks - 24 hour service chat on the web; freebies - especially car servicing; happy employees leading to superior service; focus on customer's overall experience; involvement of the top execs; etc.

Why the topic customer centricity?

Over the last 10 years, my profession has taken me across the continents pretty regularly. Though most business travels are forgettable experinces, one part of the journey always resulted in a pleasant experince. Time after time, flight after flight, person after person - it was a consistent delivery of good service. I am referring to my travel with Jet Airways.

Jet Airways, I believe, revolutionized air travel in India. Not only did they end the hegemony of the state carriers (Air India & Indian Airlines), they also introduced quality service (usually associated with 5-star hotels) into air travel. Their service always stood above the rest - a distinct differentiator & contributed significantly to its stickiness to its customers.

(Photo credit to http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml)

A differentiator not only for the airline, but also for the Indian service economy. With the increasing size of this economy, it is very important for the industry to inculcate principles of experince based differentiation to build itself a strong foundation based on customer relationships & establish itself as a world beater.

I would be very happy if this blog contributes even a bit in this endeavour!

Even Goliath embraces customer centricity

In this CNET article, Tom Krazit explains how Intel is turning a new page (a page out of its competitors strategy book) & becoming more customer centric. Even the behemoth recognizes the need to be customer centric.

You would think Intel with its market share & clout can push its way through. Pushing did work for a while, but then things changed - competitively & in their customers' markets. Intel is now going out of its way to understand how it can help its customers win by differentiating themselves.

It becomes interesting when you realize that the PC manufacturers are all trying to differentiate themselves using the same chip maker - Intel. What a position to be in - partneirng with all players in the PC market & helping them all compete against one another - whichever PC maker wins, Intel always wins.

Is being customer centric altruistic?

Often qualities of altruism, sacrifice and benevolance are associated with customer centricity. The common perception is that being customer centric is tantamount to accepting a win-loose (the customer centric organization loosing to the customer) strategy. Best left to the realms of business idealism?

Being customer centric means that the supplier organization is sensitized to the world of its customers. What are their business challenges? What does it take to succeed in that world? What is my customer's strategy? What adds value to my customer or their customers? Basically - the abiliy to get into our customers shoes.

Isn't this something we see in a ot of successful people around us.

When customer feedback goes awry

Over the last couple of years I have got my Mahindra Scorpio serviced at the same service station (Vijay Auto). The fact that this service station actively sought customer feedback (the mere act ...let alone how they responded) was actually a source of satisfaction for me all along.

Until, a couple of incidents changed my opinion -

• Quite a few of the cars that come for servicing are driver (chauffeur) driven. Accordingly, the cars are dropped & picked from the service station by the drivers. On a recent visit, I found that the service agents were treating the drivers extra nicely. The reasoning behind this nice gesture became apparent when I saw the service agents cajoling the drivers to fill in the feedback forms. No efforts were spared to gain maximum mileage of the drivers providing feedback on behalf of the owners.


• It was then my turn to provide feedback. This time it was their call center. Thanks for your business ...hope it was nice ...would like a couple of minutes of your precious time ..rate 5 different aspects of the service on scale of 1 (worst) - 10 (best). All fine so far. The issue started when I responded with a rating of 7 to the first question. I was quickly reminded that the company average was 8 & they were trying to increase the rating. I was given a chance to change my rating. No thanks ..lets proceed to the next question. My next response was a rating of 8. I was reminded all over again about the company average ..and an improvement needed a rating of more than 8!!

A very good example of good intent ... being put to action too ..but teething problems in proper implementation would mean that the true benefits to the organization start accuring very late. Hope someone from Vijay Auto or M&M read this soon.

How could this have been avoided?

• In all probability, the initiative has meant that maximizing customer feedback has made its entry into employee's KPIs. Sadly the focus has been on feedback ratings only & not the true intent of the feedback mechanism.
• It would be a great idea for sponsors of such initiatives to actually experince the feedback mechanism every once in a while.
• I was pretty surprised by the number of hits when I Googled Vijay Auto. Obviously a lot of people are providing feedback here. Vijay Auto need to periodically monitor this space.