Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Laureate and
the father of behaviour economic theory, described a principle he
named The Customer Satisfaction Treadmill. The faster we get it,
the faster we want it. The more convenient it becomes, the more we
realise just how convenient it could be. The more our unreasonable
demands are met, the more unreasonable they become.
Every time you go out of your way to
please a customer you are adding weight to creating unreasonable
demand. But it doesn't have to be this way: there has never been a
need for IKEA to include a carpenter in its flat packs. Because we
have been trained in regards to what we expect from IKEA.
An important force that shapes brand
strategy today is the threat of substitute products or services,
according to Professor Michael E. Porter from Harvard University.
This factor leads business managers to believe that loyalty should
be bought and included in automated programmes. With the entrance
of the social net where the individual voice suddenly becomes
visible, real-time support has become the latest trend. But how
smart is it to "be there, everywhere" for the customer? And what is
the purpose?
Are you really ready to fulfil that
demand? Are you going to be there for the customer, mountain high
and valley wide? If not, you'd better not please every whim that we
the customers express via these new social channels. Because most
likely my barking has no specific aim. It is more often than not,
an attempt to get attention from my surroundings, not you (the
product) specifically. I am saying you suck because I want
recognition from my friends. It is a modern game of "forget me
not". You just happen to be the content.
Many brands are now using Facebook as a
customer service platform. Ask yourself what the purpose and
consequence might be. Airline companies that deliver personal
flight services on Facebook are in fact creating a feeling of a
personal assistance that is massively missing when they get to
airport and on the actual flight.
As a secondary effect is that their
Facebook wall ends up as spam since everything is about 1:1
experience. They have lost a good tool for communication to many
people in their attempt to satisfy their customers' imagined needs.
Brands that take this route are repeatedly solving the same
problems over and over because the answer in not available as a
simple query for the customer. Most questions are repetitive and
basic. Things consumers should be able to find in a good database.
A good structured database. So the same message doesn't have to be
sent hundred times to different people on the same wall.
Considering the general public's level of
knowledge the process of logo creation I am certain that one should
be cautious about making such decisions based on ephemeral popular
demand.
Here is what a good business leader
should do. Monitor and track conversations on the web with a
suitable social analytics tool. Acknowledge the frustration on the
subject publicly. Find out if the 99,99% of customers who did not
join the mob like your logo or not. Ask your employees. If the logo
is liked by the silent majority, then fight for them. That will
earn respect from the mob over time. And give you something to talk
to fans about: The actual reasons why you run the business the way
you do. By having an open and honest strategy most critique will
most likely become an asset.
This is what happened when JetBlue (not
an airline, but a happy jetting company) left many passengers in a
horrible situation during a blizzard some years ago. The angry mob
went ballistic on Twitter, media picked it up, and the company's
CEO put on the mad hat and made a YouTube video. He gave a public
apology but most importantly he made a promise on how JetBlue would
deal with similar problems in the future.
The next thing JetBlue did was make sure
that all staff members tried really hard to make every passenger
feel special. Not by replying on customer service matters on
Facebook.They actually state pretty clearly that they don't respond
to specific customer service issues posted on this platform.
Instead they perform random acts of kindness; like staff members
performing as an a cappella band at their JFK Terminal, or
instantly making their Caribbean flights freely available for
rescue workers from the US when the terrible earthquake hit the
islands in 2010.
Real human attention gives your employees
the power to become autonomic. This is how you make true champions
of positive customer satisfaction. Loyalty programmes, and similar
schemes, don't work as well as the human touch because they create
expectancy. When customers start to expect gifts or bonuses they
don't value them as highly anymore. It is bought loyalty. We are
running on the customer satisfaction treadmill.
All
employees are expected to drive a wow-effect through service. To
make a lasting impression you must do something above and beyond
what's expected. Make someone smile. But Zappos staff do this over
the phone. Not via 140 characters or less. Seeing a problem online
does not mean it must be solved online.
The more I
research customer service, the more important the human factor
becomes. This is about humanising the brand or company. Our power
as customers via the social net will affect the business strategy
of the core business. This needs to be understood by the C-suite,
the CEO and his friends up there. If they don't see any danger in
automating satisfaction in measurable programmes or being present
without understanding why, for us the customers, treadmilling will
continue. That was key to the success of Zappos.com. Delivering
happiness came from the CEO. It was a core element of the
strategy.
It is possible to love data and show some
love to the customer simultaneously. But only when a clear business
motivated strategy is in place, and not without a clear
understanding of what tools to use. Being service minded and making
sure that you help your customer is very important. But know when,
where and how. Why and with what isn't such a bad idea either. So
if you want to please me now, I don't mind. But I didn't expect you
to, before you just did so. And now my expectations just went up a
notch. Good luck.
Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Laureate and the
father
of behaviour economic theory, described a
principle he
named The Customer Satisfaction Treadmill.
The faster
we get it, the faster we want it. The more
convenient
it becomes, the more we realise just how
convenient
it could be. The more our unreasonable
demands are
met, the more unreasonable they
become.
Every time you go out of your way to
please
a customer you are adding weight to
creating
unreasonable demand. But it doesn't have to
be this
way: there has never been a need for IKEA
to include
a carpenter in its flat packs. Because we
have been
trained in regards to what we expect from
IKEA .
An important force that shapes brand
strategy today
is the threat of substitute products or
services,
according to Professor Michael E. Porter
from Harvard
University. This factor leads business
managers to
believe that loyalty should be bought and
included
in automated programmes. With the entrance
of the
social net where the individual voice
suddenly becomes
visible, real-time support has become the
latest trend.
But how smart is it to "be there,
everywhere" for the
customer? And what is the
purpose?
Unstructured da
ta
When someone shouts out into thin air via
Twitter,
that something is wrong with your service
or
product, and you reply without thinking
through all
the consequences and possible snowball
effects, you
are about to embark on a dangerous
trail.
Are you really ready to fulfil that demand?
Are you
going to be there for the customer,
mountain high
and valley wide? If not, you'd better not
please every
whim that we the customers express via
these new
social channels. Because most likely my
barking has
no specific aim. It is more often than not,
an attempt
to get attention from my surroundings, not
you (the
product) specifically. I am saying you suck
because
I want recognition from my friends. It is a
modern
game of "forget me not". You just happen to
be
the content.
Many brands are now using Facebook as a
customer
service platform. Ask yourself what the
purpose
and consequence might be. Airline companies
that
deliver personal flight services on
Facebook are in
fact creating a feeling of a personal
assistance that is
massively missing when they get to airport
and on the
actual flight.
As a secondary effect is that their
Facebook wall ends
up as spam since everything is about 1:1
experience.
They have lost a good tool for
communication to many
people in their attempt to satisfy their
customers'
imagined needs. Brands that take this route
are
repeatedly solving the same problems over
and over
because the answer in not available as a
simple query
for the customer. Most questions are
repetitive and
basic. Things consumers should be able to
find in a
good database. A good structured database.
So the
same message doesn't have to be sent
hundred times
to different people on the same
wall.
Get
satisfaction?
Even worse. You train your customers that
they
can shout in the woods and be heard. There
are
online platforms that actually help
customers
without creating increased demands on the
brand.
Getsatisfaction.com, a community-based
support
platform, gives fans of companies and their
staff a
place to share their knowledge of certain
products
or services so the pressure on customer
support
decreases. Swedish music service Spotify
has done
this with great success. Spotify's customer
community
routinely receives more than 100.000
visitors per
week. This traffic provides support to
Spotify's 10
million registered users, and helps the
Spotify team
remain lean despite an exploding customer
base.
Random acts of
kindness
Treadmilling isn't only about support. It
is first and
foremost about creating situations where
expectations
are adjusted without a specific purpose or
strategy.
Business owners tend to spend more time
looking
for threats than opportunities. Jumping if
the angry
Twitter mob says their new logo is ugly.
Considering
the general public's level of knowledge the
process of
logo creation I am certain that one should
be cautious
about making such decisions based on
ephemeral
popular demand.
Here is what a good business leader should
do.
Monitor and track conversations on the web
with
a suitable social analytics tool.
Acknowledge the
frustration on the subject publicly. Find
out if the
99,99% of customers who did not join the
mob like
your logo or not. Ask your employees. If
the logo
is liked by the silent majority, then fight
for them.
That will earn respect from the mob over
time. And
give you something to talk to fans about:
The actual
reasons why you run the business the way
you do. By
having an open and honest strategy most
critique will
most likely become an asset.
This is what happened when JetBlue (not an
airline,
but a happy jetting company) left many
passengers in
a horrible situation during a blizzard some
years ago.
The angry mob went ballistic on Twitter,
media picked
it up, and the company's CEO put on the mad
hat and
made a YouTube video. He gave a public
apology but
most importantly he made a promise on how
JetBlue
would deal with similar problems in the
future.
The next thing JetBlue did was make sure
that all staff
members tried really hard to make every
passenger
feel special. Not by replying on customer
service matters
on Facebook. They actually state pretty
clearly that
they don't respond to specific customer
service issues
posted on this platform. Instead they
perform random
acts of kindness; like staff members
performing as an
a cappella band at their JFK Terminal, or
instantly making
their Caribbean flights freely available
for rescue
workers from the US when the terrible
earthquake hit
the islands in 2010.
Real human attention gives your employees
the
power to become autonomic. This is how you
make
true champions of positive customer
satisfaction.
Loyalty programmes, and similar schemes,
don't
work as well as the human touch because
they create
expectancy. When customers start to expect
gifts or
bonuses they don't value them as highly
anymore. It
is bought loyalty. We are running on the
customer
satisfaction treadmill.
Tak e it to the C
level
Customer service can be immensely powerful
for
a brand if used correctly. Just ask Tony
Hsieh of
Zappos.com, the CEO who built the world's
largest
online shoe store by delivering happiness.
To really
understand the value of customer service as
an asset,
all Zappos.com's employees are obliged to
attend
customer service training in two of their
first four
weeks of work, regardless of department and
position.
All employees are expected to drive a
wow-effect
through service. To make a lasting
impression
you must do something above and beyond
what's
expected. Make someone smile. But Zappos
staff do
this over the phone. Not via 140 characters
or less.
Seeing a problem online does not mean it
must be
solved online.
The more I research customer service, the
more
important the human factor becomes. This is
about
humanising the brand or company. Our power
as
customers via the social net will affect
the business
strategy of the core business. This needs
to be understood
by the C-suite, the CEO and his friends up
there.
If they don't see any danger in automating
satisfaction
in measurable programmes or being present
without
understanding why, for us the customers,
treadmilling
will continue. That was key to the success
of Zappos.
com. Delivering happiness came from the CEO
. It was
a core element of the strategy.
It is possible to love data and show some
love to the
customer simultaneously. But only when a
clear business
motivated strategy is in place, and not
without a
clear understanding of what tools to use.
Being service
minded and making sure that you help your
customer
is very important. But know when, where and
how.
Why and with what isn't such a bad idea
either.
So if you want to please me now, I don't
mind. But I
didn't expect you to, before you just did
so. And now
my
expectations just went up a notch. Good luck.
Bio: Aimar Niedzwiedzki
Aimar Niedzwiedzki, Marketing
Entrepreneur,
MediaCom Beyond Advertising.
Author of
marketing blog tasteasreal.com.