19. Customer Experience: The Dark Side
Customer Experience: The Dark Side
In the new economy, there is little margin for error. Companies that do not pay enough attention to customer service are prey to agile competitors who see an easy opportunity to strike and take advantage of a vulnerable customer base. It’s not just poor customer service that causes customer defection: The growing use of social media can quickly accelerate a company’s demise.
Once upon a time (pre-Internet), customers who had a bad experience would tell nine or ten people about it. Now when a customer has a bad experience, they tell thousands—even tens of thousands of people about it around the globe.
People don’t just tell others about their bad customer experience, they may post a video on YouTube or a blog that shows people just how badly they were treated. Ouch. And it won’t be long before customers are streaming live audio and video of the mishap for the entire world to see. Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, the first Internet browser that was sold to AOL for $4.2 billion, is involved in a new company called Qik. This technology has the ability to turn every mobile device with a camera into a source of streaming video and audio. Just imagine the effect of this. Qik’s technology could record a firestorm of customer service disasters.
Why Consumers Are Skeptical
Clearly consumers are more skeptical today than they have ever been before. Who can blame them? Enron was essentially fictitious; executives at Tyco, Qwest, and a host of other firms lied and cheated all the way to the bank. Once solid financial firms crumbled like a house of cards. Even our former president, George W. Bush, lied about “weapons of mass destruction.” And then there’s Bernie Madoff, who has forever changed the look a consumer has in her eye when talking to her financial advisor. There’s plenty of reason for even the most optimistic of folks to be skeptical.
But what has led to consumer skepticism is not caused so much by the big issues just mentioned. It’s the small ways companies, even entire industries, take advantage of their customers. Airlines are probably the worst. You will never know what the best fare is when booking a flight. You could have easily paid hundreds of dollars more for your ticket than the guy sitting in the seat next to you. Making last-minute travel plans? Most companies would love to give you a discount for potentially unused inventory, but airlines find this a good excuse to charge you even more. If you are traveling last minute to attend a funeral, you may get a generous $100 off the price of the inflated ticket, but the customer service agent will press you to produce verification from a physician or funeral home that your loved one is indeed dead. Just what a grieving customer needs.
Most major airlines charge their customers $100–$150 to make a ticket change, and $50 to check a bag. As fuel costs soared, consumers were nickel and dimed for a cup of coffee or a soda on a flight they paid more for than they did a year ago. Airline execs blamed Wall Street traders for higher costs due to soaring fuel costs, but when the price of oil dropped to half of what it was, airlines continued to charge customers the same price for a ticket and charge for the basics such as having your luggage accompany you on a trip. In a recent Jay Leno monologue, Leno quipped that it won’t be long before airlines start to charge consumers for basics, like arriving at their destination safely. Want a smooth landing? That will be another $50.00.
Live By the Golden Rule
Southwest Airlines is one of the few airlines that remains profitable and has a stellar reputation for employee and customer satisfaction. They simply follow the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Ask any Southwest Airline employee or executive, and they will tell you they practice the Golden Rule in everything they do. But there is no need to ask because you will experience it.
Other industries are also guilty of poor customer experience. Car rental companies charge consumers two or three times above normal gas rates if they bring back a car without a full tank of gas. Imagine a car rental firm that filled up the tank for you when you returned it, charging you the market rate? Wouldn’t people flock to do business with the company? But it may not necessarily be for the great experience as much it would be for the thrill of just being treated fairly. This is one industry that has opportunity written all over it.
Another industry that comes to mind when thinking about customer service is the communications industry. Mobile phone carriers won’t hesitate to send a customer a $1,000 phone bill because her teenage son downloaded ringtones and music from the Internet without a data plan. But how would a teenager know the phone company charges ridiculous data transfer rates for a slow download of a song? If only mom had known she could have signed up for a $25 a month plan for unlimited Internet access and saved $975!
Customer Service Gone Bad
Perhaps the darkest side of customer experience is the way in which some companies take advantage of their most loyal customers. If you are a loyal cable subscriber, you are probably paying more for your service than a new customer who just got a deal for switching carriers. If you are a magazine subscriber, you are probably being asked to renew your subscription at a much higher price than if you just let the subscription lapse and subscribed as a new customer. Why are some companies penalizing their best customers?
Do companies really think they are making more money with this bait and switch tactic? All the switching, paperwork, and hassle of dealing with companies like this is frustrating for customers, as well as for employees. Do companies think consumers are too stupid to notice? Or that employees don’t know they are duping customers? If bad behavior like this is just company policy, why on earth would an employee ever trust the company they work for?
Treating people fairly is a pretty simple concept. So is the idea of giving good customer service. As we get back to basics in this new economy, maybe more companies on the dark side of customer service will see the light.