Appletree Answering Service

I am the President for the National Amtelco Equipment Owners Association and in that capacity I write a monthly column for our newsletter.  The overall topic of this month was Customer Service.  I really had to stop and think about the state of Customer Service today and how it fits into an overall business strategy.  It is sad but true that delivering an above average level of Customer Service has become a competitive advantage!  Deliver extraordinary service and books will be written about you…

Why has it gotten to this point?  I get the sense that a variety of factors have led us to this point.  At or near the top of the list is the pace at which we move today.  We are in a 24/7/365 world.  I know because my company helps power that world.  We get the strangest and most routine calls at 3am, at times you would think it was midday on a Tuesday.  Customers have come to expect instant access, not just to information but to people.  That means you need to be on your Customer Service game around the clock.  30 years ago this was pretty much unheard of, but today it is the standard.

Another factor in the demise of service is the number of customer touchpoints that must be managed.  It used to be phone call, letter (snail mail) and face to face.  Now there are a wide variety of channels customers use to make contact, and many of them are difficult to manage in real time because they require someone to “notice” them.  Web chat, email, voicemail, etc. are at times more passive and require tightly defined systems to deliver a high level of service.  Training costs and challenges increase exponentially as well.  The skill sets required to serve in this new world are more diverse.  Written and Oral communication skills are now a must, and much harder to find in the employee pool.

The upside to all this, for the companies that crack the Customer Service Code, is a huge competitive advantage!

Have a great week!

There are lessons everywhere about the differences among people, customer service, sales and innovation. In my role I have to travel a great deal, often three or more weeks per month on the road. Therefore I have been identified by my principle airline as one of their most “frequent” customers. While we could debate the merits of whether or not to stratify your customers for hours we will set that argument aside since the airlines spend millions to stratify their customers. It works too, because with the perks I receive I am VERY loyal to my particular airline. But I can tell you it is a false loyalty. Given any opportunity to get a better experience elsewhere I will take it in a heartbeat. But as of now they have me in golden handcuffs with frequent ugrades, free trips and special extras.

Where they fail me though is in service. They spend all this money to trap you as a customer and then they fail at the most critical part. For the most part things are uneventful when I fly them. They lose my bags (they say “delay”) about 30% of the time when I check bags, but I have grown accustomed to that and rarely check bags. More often than not things go well. But let me tell you when it goes south it goes so far south that I am often found shaking my head and cursing their existence. Here it is, they know I am in their top tier of customers, they spent millions to identify that and create loyalty. Then, when they get the chance to serve me during a bad experience they completely fail. They use words like “policy” and “nothing else I can do”. I am often left so disgusted that I use their competitors for a few months and forgo all my extra perks, only to return. I guess the golden handcuffs are working, but I can tell you I am not happy.

Many times what they would need to do to make me happy would be so ridiculously simple a 3 year old could figure it out, but then policy rears it’s ugly head and the answer is NO to my simple request. Next time you travel take the chance to learn some lessons about business and service and reflect back on your own company. Are you creating these experiences and don’t even know it? I ask myself this question all the time. We fight like hell to avoid it but I am sure it is happening. If you have any experience with Appletree that sounds like the above I would like to hear about it personally. My email is jratliff@appletreeanswers.com.

Have a great week.

Appletree is joining the blog world! As an innovator in the marketing arena for our industry I am embarrassed that we are so late to the blog party. In our research we have found there are a multitude of reasons to actively participate in the blogosphere, not the least of which is communication with stakeholders. Customers, employees and key vendors are all engaged in research and interaction with related companies.

Appletree Answering Service launches company blog to promote employee and customer education and communication.