I'll tell you what really grinds my gears... Good customer service, that's what! Yeah, that's right, you heard me. No I haven't lost the plot, well maybe I have. OK I'll explain.
Good customer service... Every one's doing right? Those companies that offered poor customer service have gone out of business, only the good ones are left. Agree? I'll wager you don't!
Let’s face it, my utilities company sucks. Not just a little bit, no, I mean they suck big time. They do everything right of course, or so they would have us believe, their customer service is award winning apparently.
Take my phone company for example; I was having a sandwich and coffee in my local deli recently reading the local paper when I came across an article about the phone company that they were going to offer small businesses advice on developing good customer service. They in fact where going to team up with a well respected and high profile businessman come TV star. Well, I nearly fell of my chair laughing... Ohhhh the irony, if only the journalist knew what adventures I had had with the phone company, they may never have bothered to run the story.
I'm sure if I told you my story of phone company adventure, it would be familiar to many of you (are there many of you actually reading this?) No doubt you would simply click the 'Next Blog’ button and move on. Big corporations you see, whilst having huge resource to develop key performance metrics and run Kaizen events to improve customer service, what they lack is humanity. It's not just the big companies though.
My partner Anj (a photographer) recently went to the local market to pick up some material for a backdrop. The stall holder gave exemplary customer service, they gave good advice, they were polite, they had very competitive prices, yet Anj swears she won't use them again, Why? Once again they lacked humanity. Really, if the stall holder cracked a smile, I'm convinced their face would have disintegrated.
So what the heck has this got to do with design? Well recently there has been lots of talk about 'Design Thinking'. Some schmuck decided that designers have something of value to add after all and companies are desperate to jump on the 'Design Thinking' band wagon.
I don't think there is any need for me to waffle on about design thinking, there are plenty of blogs and tweets to read out there, but what I will say is that as usual businesses want a chart to measure it with... well good luck to you I say... you'll need it. How do you measure empathy, compassion, understanding, love... how do you measure love?
What's really going to be the competitive differentiator is love for your customers! No I'm not suggesting you should start dating them. The sort of love I mean is simply caring. You can't fake it, you can't develop a standard operating procedure for it and you certainly can't measure it, but it is very real, and makes a REAL difference to the customer experience.
Take my partner Anj for example. As a portrait photographer she needs to give exemplary customer service, yet the other day she went on a shoot and forgot her soft box. Her competitive advantage over her high street competitors comes from offering a personal service, no pressure sales pitch and affordable prices. However, you can copy her actions, but you can't copy her motives. You see Anj really believes... no really FEELS that her clients deserve good photography, affordable prices. To her those capture precious moments are importantly, because as a mother herself, she really understands the humanity in her work.
In my own business, I have made close friend with my clients, some have even helped me move house (thanks James, thanks John). I think I've achieved that not through good customer service, hey, I rarely answer the phone after three rings and I'm normally surrounded by some level of chaos, but I do believe in my clients with passion, and I care about THEM, the people, not the money or if their product is going to win me an award... I love them!
Good customer service... Every one's doing right? Those companies that offered poor customer service have gone out of business, only the good ones are left. Agree? I'll wager you don't!
Let’s face it, my utilities company sucks. Not just a little bit, no, I mean they suck big time. They do everything right of course, or so they would have us believe, their customer service is award winning apparently.
Take my phone company for example; I was having a sandwich and coffee in my local deli recently reading the local paper when I came across an article about the phone company that they were going to offer small businesses advice on developing good customer service. They in fact where going to team up with a well respected and high profile businessman come TV star. Well, I nearly fell of my chair laughing... Ohhhh the irony, if only the journalist knew what adventures I had had with the phone company, they may never have bothered to run the story.
I'm sure if I told you my story of phone company adventure, it would be familiar to many of you (are there many of you actually reading this?) No doubt you would simply click the 'Next Blog’ button and move on. Big corporations you see, whilst having huge resource to develop key performance metrics and run Kaizen events to improve customer service, what they lack is humanity. It's not just the big companies though.
My partner Anj (a photographer) recently went to the local market to pick up some material for a backdrop. The stall holder gave exemplary customer service, they gave good advice, they were polite, they had very competitive prices, yet Anj swears she won't use them again, Why? Once again they lacked humanity. Really, if the stall holder cracked a smile, I'm convinced their face would have disintegrated.
So what the heck has this got to do with design? Well recently there has been lots of talk about 'Design Thinking'. Some schmuck decided that designers have something of value to add after all and companies are desperate to jump on the 'Design Thinking' band wagon.
I don't think there is any need for me to waffle on about design thinking, there are plenty of blogs and tweets to read out there, but what I will say is that as usual businesses want a chart to measure it with... well good luck to you I say... you'll need it. How do you measure empathy, compassion, understanding, love... how do you measure love?
What's really going to be the competitive differentiator is love for your customers! No I'm not suggesting you should start dating them. The sort of love I mean is simply caring. You can't fake it, you can't develop a standard operating procedure for it and you certainly can't measure it, but it is very real, and makes a REAL difference to the customer experience.
Take my partner Anj for example. As a portrait photographer she needs to give exemplary customer service, yet the other day she went on a shoot and forgot her soft box. Her competitive advantage over her high street competitors comes from offering a personal service, no pressure sales pitch and affordable prices. However, you can copy her actions, but you can't copy her motives. You see Anj really believes... no really FEELS that her clients deserve good photography, affordable prices. To her those capture precious moments are importantly, because as a mother herself, she really understands the humanity in her work.
In my own business, I have made close friend with my clients, some have even helped me move house (thanks James, thanks John). I think I've achieved that not through good customer service, hey, I rarely answer the phone after three rings and I'm normally surrounded by some level of chaos, but I do believe in my clients with passion, and I care about THEM, the people, not the money or if their product is going to win me an award... I love them!
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