First, the story of a customer who thought it would be okay to vomit racial slurs at a Dunkin Donuts employee because she believed she had been wronged by Dunkin.  She films the encounter because she believes she is completely in the right but after posting the video to Youtube it went viral and not for the reason she intended.

Dunkin Donuts has a policy that if they forget to give a customer a receipt for their purchase it is free.  The woman claims that the service was bad and she never received a receipt proceeding to berate and demand a lot more than the previous purchase.  She is rude, impatient, verbally abusive, and just downright dumb.  The entire eight minute tirade is filmed and painful to watch.

I felt this had to be written about because the employee handles the situation very well, politely responding to the woman’s almost insane ranting and requests.  He and the other employee on duty handled the situation so well that Dunkin Donuts is now inviting them to an event in Florida to recognize them for great service in the face of a very difficult situation.

This truly is an example of how to handle an unreasonable customer. I am linking an article on Huffington Post about it.  A quick disclaimer: It does contain the video, which has some very adult language.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/dunkin-donuts-employee-to-be-honored-_n_3428439.html?ir=Business

The second story is about Microsoft.  This week at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) Microsoft premiered full details about the new Xbox one, their new videogame console. This was not good for their consumers or fans.  The main pain point was an “always on” feature the Xbox one requires.  Meaning that it must connect to the internet at least once every 24 hours or you cannot play.  The system will also not easily allow for the use of pre-owned games, which is another pain point for consumers.

In an interview about this feature with Xbox’s boss, Don Mattrick, he essentially tells the consumers that if you don’t like the feature or it isn’t possible for you, stick with the older Xbox 360.  This “deal with it” attitude already has loyal Microsoft consumers jumping ship to Sony’s PS4 and isolates that part of the world that does not have good internet connections.

I understand that trying to make a new and exciting product is important.  But keep telling your customers to essentially “suck it up” is not good business.  I imagine we will see the fallout from Microsoft’s decisions when these two consoles go head to head around Christmas time.

Follow the link below to read more about Don Mattrick’s response to the “always on” question.

http://bgr.com/2013/06/12/xbox-one-always-online-criticism-response/

Thanks for reading! And please tell us what you think of this article or our many others in the comment section or on Facebook.

Max D.

The post Donuts, Videogames, and Customer Service appeared first on The Daniel Group.

1. In the bathroom: Some of us around the office are guilty of this and I understand the desire to multitask in the workplace especially when it comes to answering a survey. But seriously people, either don’t tell us you are using the facilities or wait to flush and/or wash your hands until we are done with the interview.

2. Out to eat:  Honestly, this one is just rude because I hate when people pick up the phone when I am out with them but talking with your mouth full also makes you hard to understand.

3. While intoxicated:  I enjoy the occasional adult beverage but answering a survey after having one too many is probably not a good thing.  Though slightly entertaining for our interviewers, and most of our “drinkers” were very happy and gave all “10’s,” it is, once again, hard to understand with all the slurring going on.

4.While in remote areas:  This is difficult and we understand, some people work in difficult areas but if you scream “Alligator!” and hang up the phone our interviewers tend to worry. It also means the survey was uncompleted.

5.While having/giving a medical procedure:  This one is rare but not unheard of.  Please, people, we can wait! If you are in need of, having, or giving medical attention please do not try and answer the survey for the sake of yourself or whomever you are working on.

I know there are circumstances for every situation and it can be difficult to fit us into a busy work day but please people, for your health and our sanity, try not to do any of these things.  I know this is entertaining but trying to refrain from doing any of the aforementioned things would really help out our interviewers and I know they would truly appreciate it.  Thanks again!

Max D.

The post Top 5 things We Wish You Wouldn’t Do When Answering a TDG Customer Service Call appeared first on The Daniel Group.

In talking with one of the managers there he mentioned some noticeable changes.  In two critical areas, the company’s market share had improved.  They had also landed a significant new project because of the recommendation of another customer.  His focus, rightly I might add, was ideas to move the quality of their customer service even higher.  But there is another message and it has to do with how consistent your company’s service is.

To illustrate, I will share an experience from a consulting engagement many years ago at a trucking company (let’s call it Grand Transport).  There was, and is, intense competition in the L-T-L (less than truckload) freight market.  Of course price is important but also important is the delivery time from point A to point B.  As part of this project, there were several cities the company served but its market share was much less than expected. After all, the company was offering the fastest service available in these cities.  It should get a higher share.  Interviews with several key customers helped us understand why the company was not getting its share.  As one customer told me, Grand Transport does have the fastest service between Atlanta and New York.  He did not use the company because sometimes the freight gets there within the promised three days and sometimes not.   In words I will never forget, “I sleep better when I use the carrier who promises four days and gets it there within four days nearly all of the time.”

Customers want many things from a supplier but most importantly they want to know that the service product they receive is consistent from one time to the next.  While it is important to have a great service product it is just as important to have a consistent product from one time to the next.  You make the decision of where to go for service easier.  A side benefit is your customers may sleep better!

Lynn Daniel

If you like our blog don’t forget to follow us on Facebook for TDG news and other articles of interest.  Thanks for reading!

The post Consistency and Customer Service appeared first on The Daniel Group.

Several years ago we replaced our not-yet-ready-to-be-replaced phone system with another one.  The only reason for making the switch was the lack of service from the local dealer.  We selected a new one with some new technology and great service—at least until this week.

We noticed that some of our interviewers were not able to access the VOIP network.  After contacting the data services company and discovering no problems, we contacted the phone equipment provider.  We found out that we had overrun the capacity of our existing system and needed to buy an additional component for the phone system.  We quickly signed off on the purchase but found out it would take two weeks to get the equipment here and installed.  In the meantime, we have new people coming on board who will not be able to work because of this capacity problem.

As I explained to the phone equipment provider, they would have helped us tremendously and provided much better service had they warned us about an approaching capacity constraint. While the issue will get solved it will cause us some problems in the short run.

This is an example of what happens all too often with equipment vendors.  In our case, we did not buy a phone system simply to have a phone system; we bought it to make calls.  Anticipating needs is one of the simplest things you can do to provide memorable and useful customer service. Though this equipment may not have seemed important to some, it is essential to our business.  By simply selling the systems without trying to maintain and anticipate you will very easily miss an easy opportunity to turn a merely contented customer into a loyal customer.

Tell us about your experiences or what you think of ours in the comment section.

Lynn Daniel

The post Are You an Equipment Vendor or a True Customer Service Provider? appeared first on The Daniel Group.

In this post I want to discuss what some of the potential implications of this innate behavior are to improve, among other things, customer service.  Let’s think about some of those implications if your organization is a “helping behavior organization,” as described in the McKinsey article.

-Problem solving is more effective.  After all, if you have a question and you know it is okay to ask someone for help, you do it.  You can bounce ideas off other people.  Most importantly, you can try things out and test the probability of success before the cost of failure increases even more.

-Training is easier and tends to stick.  I have been involved with companies that I would describe as having generally helping behaviors.  One in particular comes to mind.  They were implementing a new and complex CRM system.  While there was plenty of training provided you can never completely learn the ins and outs of a new software system.  I watched a team of CSRs share their ideas on how to use the software.  As a result, they became very proficient in using the system and stayed that way!

-I have no facts to back this up but I suspect the helping behavior at work environments encourage employees to stay.  We have specific experience with one environment, Caterpillar dealerships, where at the technician level, there is in most a strong helping behavior ethic.  Caterpillar technicians are technically skilled people.  They thrive on learning better ways to solve tricky technical problems.  There is a lot of informal and formal sharing of these ideas.  It helps to make this group of people very effective at service delivery.  It also is one of the reasons why the job longevity is significant among these technicians.

There are many other potential impacts that a helping behavior environment could have on a service environment.  The three we have identified are improved decision-making, better training, and increased employee longevity.  From our experience, all of these matter a great deal if you wish to deliver great customer service.

Click to read last weeks blog.

I would love to hear your opinion so tell us what you think in the comment section.

Lynn Daniel

The post Can Human Instinct Improve Customer Service?—More Considerations appeared first on The Daniel Group.

The book I mentioned is entitled, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution.  I have not finished it yet as it is a challenging read.  The authors review many studies on human evolution and conclude that while we have traditionally thought that the survival of the fittest has underpinned human evolution, they come to a contrary conclusion.  Humans, by their nature, tend to be wired for reciprocity (you extend a favor to me and I will do the same for you).  I am looking forward to finishing this book.

A more focused and easier to read article is from the McKinsey Quarterly.  It is entitled, “Givers Take All: The Hidden Dimension of Corporate Culture.”  The article presents several very convincing summaries of research studies.  Perhaps the most interesting is one done after 9/11.  The researchers looked at what made various intelligence teams in the military more effective.  They started with a list of factors that they thought would be important (e.g., having a clear vision, well-defined roles, appropriate rewards and recognitions, etc.) to predicting team effectiveness.  However, what these researchers discovered was their list was not complete.  The one factor they had not considered was the amount of help analysts on the team gave each other.  The article goes on to talk about similar findings in banks, consulting and engineering firms.  It also talks about the positive impact this helping-behavior has on revenues, profits, customer service and a variety of other business outcomes.

In the next post I plan to discuss in more detail the implications this has for a business organization. In the meantime, consider:

-Does your organization encourage helping-behavior or does it tend to let people “fight it out on their own?”

-How might helping-behavior cause customer service to improve?  I can think of many ways here.

Lynn

I welcome your thoughts and feedback on this.  This is an interesting bit of research that has implications for the business world.

The post Can Human Instinct Improve Customer Service? appeared first on The Daniel Group.

The story begins with “The Verge” writer, Paul Miller, coming to a point in his life where he believed he needed a break from modern life.  He believed the internet was hurting his productivity and wanted to see what it was like to live without it.  Mr. Miller decides to cut himself off completely for a year and document the process while he works on his novel.  As a millennial this is almost unthinkable.  This means no smartphone, no email, no online meetings, no video conferencing, and finally (possibly most important) no online cat videos.

I know many of our readers are thinking, “Well you whippersnappers with your smartphones and your internet have it easy. Back in my day I walked uphill 4 miles in the snow to use a rotary phone and we liked it!” But, honestly, think about how much you rely on the internet and smart devices.  Would you be able to go back to being without this technology easily? Would it affect your business or personal life negatively?

At first glance, I agree with Mr. Miller’s thesis that the internet can make you unproductive.  There are so many distractions it is very easy to bounce around from one task to another because everything is at your fingertips.  But you end up completing next to nothing.  At the same time you can accomplish a lot more than you used to in mere seconds.  The world moves faster now than ever before and with that speed technology is required to keep up.

What I think Mr. Miller took away from his year without the internet is that focus is still the most important thing regardless of all the distractions the internet and other online services provide.  He didn’t accomplish much of anything that he set out to but he learned a lot about how the world is now.  It isn’t about the internet making you unproductive but you making yourself unproductive.  I am not saying Mr. Miller wasn’t productive, it seems like he did a lot, just not what he meant to.  Regardless of the internet, distractions abound and keeping focus will always be a difficult task.

Many thanks to “The Verge” and Paul Miller.  Follow the link to read or watch the video:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/1/4279674/im-still-here-back-online-after-a-year-without-the-internet

So does the internet make you unproductive? What do you think?

Max D.

Business Development Manager

The post Productivity Test: The Man Without the Internet appeared first on The Daniel Group.

Pizza is one of my favorite things and being a recent college graduate it is a tough habit to kick.  But recently I had an incident where a delivery guy asked me to give him all “5s” on a customer service survey and this worries me.

I placed the order online and a short while later the delivery person arrived.  I answer the door and normal polite small talk commenced while I filled out the receipt.  As he handed me back my nifty yellow copy he said that if I had a good experience I should go online and fill out their survey.  Standard enough, I thought, I’ve done that before and they did do a good job, so I wouldn’t mind filling out their survey. But then he said, right before he turned and walked back to his car, “You have to give us all fives.”  I remember not thinking much about the statement until I was back on the couch enjoying my piping hot, marinara drenched slice of meaty, cheesy deliciousness when it finally struck me as odd. Not just odd but slightly unethical.

I decided to look into it a bit and found an interesting trend.  A lot of these companies do give their employees awards or incentives for good customer service scores but only if they achieve scores of “5” or “strongly agree” in most cases.  In order to achieve these scores to get the incentives employees or managers are bribing or begging customers for the highest scores possible.

Examples from consumerist.com:

http://consumerist.com/2013/04/23/pizza-hut-tapes-note-to-box-begging-for-perfect-survey-scores/

http://consumerist.com/2013/04/23/ex-borders-manager-heres-why-only-perfect-scores-matter-on-customer-service-surveys/

Seems okay, right? Wrong!

We recommend that our clients not do what these companies are doing.  It skews the results and you don’t get an accurate picture of your customer service weaknesses.  Perfection is a wonderful idea and I’m sure you have heard the saying, “nobody’s perfect.”  The same is true in business, you cannot be perfect.   The concept of these surveys is to locate your weaknesses and strengths and improve in areas that need it.  Embracing or acknowledging flaws and making strives to change with your customers’ input is what will help improve your business.

Getting a high customer service rating is great but doing it in a questionable manner doesn’t really help.  When a real customer service issue arises you will be left wondering how, with such amazing customer service, did this happen?

Comment and tell me what you think about this recent trend in customer service.

Max D.

Business Development Manager

The post Pizza and the Illusion of Perfection in Customer Service appeared first on The Daniel Group.

My wife and I stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn in New York City.  The hotel was clean and well appointed.  Our room, though small (it is NYC, after all) was well maintained and clean.  The breakfast was quite good.  These superlatives are largely the result of having really good processes in place to make sure the hotel was clean and the food was tasty.  What really made this great experience positively memorable were the employees.  To a person, they were friendly, welcoming and very helpful.   We felt they seemed to genuinely care that (1) we chose their hotel and (2) that our stay be comfortable and pleasant.

Too often managers fall into the trap of seeking another, and better, process as a way to improve customer service.  Remember, processes, including technology, are supports that help someone deliver positively memorable service.  An innovative process or new technology is only as good as the person implementing it.  Delivering great customer service is still a very human undertaking.  Don’t overlook the human as you work to improve your service.

Lynn Daniel

President

The post Great Customer Service: What Makes It and What Inhibits It appeared first on The Daniel Group.

What can we learn from EA’s mistakes? Tons! But I will just mention a couple of things.

Own Your Mistakes

Mistakes are great learning experiences.  Use them appropriately and your customers will become extremely loyal.  You will get nowhere by being defensive and deflecting away from your problems. It will only infuriate your customers further. This is exactly what EA did!  They sent out a release that was defensive and so unapologetic it felt more like a slap in the face. Telling your customers simply that “you will do better” is not good enough.  Take a step back, identify your mistakes, and inform your customers of the issues you have found and ask for their input. Keep communication open and begin rectifying the problems.  It may not be very popular initially but it will pan out into making your customers feel more loyal to a company that works with them and is listening.

Don’t Rush

One of EA’s biggest problems is that they just keep cranking out game after game.  Now, as a guy who likes to play the occasional videogame I have no issue with this, except when the quality of the product drops because of it.  EA can crank out games at this high rate because they own the rights too many of the industry’s top titles, especially sports games like Madden NFL or FIFA soccer which reoccur on a yearly basis.  They can do this because they already have an established customer base. These customers will buy every new title, every year.  This base is the most vocal because they invest a lot of time and money into EA’s videogames.  When these games don’t do what they say they are supposed to, like SimCity 5, or are hurried and not thought through, like Mass Effect 3, these customers are going to let EA know and not in a positive way.

I could go on but the one thing that everyone needs to take away from EA’s second “Golden Poo” award is that communication is the biggest thing you can do to improve customer relations.  By being open, honest, and genuine you can turn almost any bad situation around.

Many thanks to Consumerist.com for the great competition and amazing write up.  Please follow the link below to read the original article and tell us what you think.

http://consumerist.com/2013/04/09/ea-makes-worst-company-in-america-history-wins-title-for-second-year-in-a-row/

Max D.

 Business Development Manager

The post Customer Service Lessons from Electronic Arts appeared first on The Daniel Group.