Have you ever felt ignored, unimportant, annoyed, upset, disenchanted or as if you were a bother as a customer, patient, parent or student? Where your are basically…invisible?
The state of service today is disgusting to say the least. The latest research shows that only 4% of people will take the time to provide organizations with feedback. Why you ask? Because we don’t think it will make a difference. Because we feel…invisible. The other 96% of us will tell as many people as we can about our experience with your organization. And just in case that isn’t enough 59% of us turn to Yelp! or other social media sites to vent. You can include me in that percentage.
If your organization serves anyone, anything, then let this poem serve as a wake-up call.
Remember Me?
Author Unknown
I’m the person who asks:
“How long is the wait?”
You tell me ten minutes…
but it gets very late
I’m the person who sees:
The whole staff loiters
While my waitress does everything
But take my order.
I’m the person who says:
“That’s not what I ordered…but it’s O.K.
I’ll eat it anyway.”
I’m the person who calls:
To see if my lost item was found
And all I get is a run-around.
I’m the person who leaves:
With a slight frown
Cause the hostess is no where to be found.
I’m the person who should:
Write a negative letter
But feel it wouldn’t make anything better.
Yes, you might say that I’m a good guy…
That I understand that you kind of try.
But, please read on and you will see…
That there’s another side of me.
I’m the person who
Never comes back
Because of something you tend to lack.
It amuses me to see you spending
Thousands of dollars on ads never ending
In an effort to get me back into your place
When you hardly even remember my face.
In order to keep me as a guest
I have but one simple little request…
When I am here all you have to do
Is give me the service I’m entitled to.
Each and every time a consumer comes in contact with your organization they have an experience. What that experience is and how it plays out is up to your organization and your employees. Realize that your organization has the power to drive your consumers in or drive them out based on their experience. Their experience will generate either positive or negative word of mouth. Their experience will increase their trust in your organization and employees or it will destroy it. Ask yourself, from the moment my consumers come in contact with our organization what’s their experience like? Would you do business with you?
Inexperience in serving your customers and failing to harness the power of your employees to influence the experience is expensive. Our goal is to highlight the invisible factors that many organizations aren’t aware of, choose to ignore or just don’t think are that important. It’s time to make the invisible, visible and create an extraordinary experience.
We would love to hear your experiences. Tell us about a time when you felt invisible. What organization’s need our help making the invisible, visible?
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I love that poem Kelly, thanks for sharing it. It so eloquently tells the story of why organisations should be focussing on customer service and why encouraging a dialogue with their customers is so important.
I have recently been helping my Grandmother (attempt to) get her broadband working again. Although all of the service experience was done over the phone I felt invisible, or more appropriately, that I didn’t have a voice:
I had to go through the same scripted routine time after time, because I had to hang up and try different things, wait a few days for new routers and cables to arrive etc before calling back and starting the whole process again. Whenever I tried to tell the operators that I had done these particular checks two, three or four times before they simply ignored me and asked me to go on with the checks. The problem still hasn’t been fixed and my Grandmother has told me if they don’t fix it the next time I speak to them to tell them to disconnected her! She is angry because of how difficult they made it for her to understand, so much so that she had to get me involved (they told her they would send someone round for £100, rather than explain the potential problems in non-tech speak over the phone). Not bad going in that they have made both of us feel invisible over one problem!
Great post as ever Kelly, keep up the great work!
Cheers,
Jed
Kelly,
Poem pretty much sums up the average customer. Most folks dont like conflict, will settle rather than “make a fuss” and go away unhappy.
To prove your point from your opening paragraph, I’ve been on somewhat of a crusade this year. As Ted Coine calls himself the customer service crash test dummy. I’ve subspecialized. I’m now the self-proclaimed customer satisfaction survey crash test dummy. I set out in January to prove a point. The point you started your post with – that companies, in general don’t listen. My experiement is to respond to every customer survey i receive, regardless of the channel: email, snail mail, voice mail, whatever.
To-date, I’ve received and responded to 42 (if I shopped more I guess I would have had more opportunities). But the point is that EVERYONE is surveying. And, to-date, I have received exactly one reply. I’ve made positive comments, negative comments, anything to try to coax a response. Nothing. But, yet the act of surveying, like I wrote last week about the act of collecting data, gives the false sense that something is being accomplished.
Best advice I’ve heard: : “if you can’t act, dont ask”
And, that customer wont be invisible for long…to the competition, he’ll be shining like the top of the Chrysler Building as my wife’s grandmother was fond of saying.
thanks
Barry
Hi Jed,
Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your story. I can’t believe or rather I guess I can, the pure torture the broadband company put you and your Grandmother through. It is so frustrating to complete the same steps over and over again only to end up in the same place you started. In fact, I think that’s the definition of insanity! You definitely didn’t have a voice and they certainly didn’t treat either of you as a valuable customer or with any respect. I am absolutely appalled that the company wanted to charge your Grandmother to come out and fix the problem they had created. Talk about absurd. It seems to me that this company has forgotten why they exist and would definitely benefit from some training and leadership.
The really unfortunate thing is that this problem doesn’t just exist across the pond. My mom had a very similar experience with Comcast Cable here in Chicago. As more and more broadband providers enter the scene these companies are going to have to step up their customer service or they will become invisible in the marketplace.
Give my best to your Grandmother and I wish you both luck as you find a new provider!
Kelly
Hi Barry,
I love your crusade as the crash test dummy for customer surveys! I am not surprised at the lack of follow through you are experiencing. In my opinion, surveying customers is one of those things that companies feel they must do because heck everybody is doing it! Yet they don’t take the time to follow-up, analyze, share, coach or actually do anything with the results their surveys are generating. What a complete waste of time and resources.
One reply out of 42 completed surveys is just disgusting. Talk about being invisible. When someone takes the time to provide a company with feedback whether it’s positive, negative or indifferent, companies ought to recognize the gesture. After all feedback is a gift. Like you pointed out this why so many customers won’t take the time to provide feedback and will instead run not walk over to the competition. More companies need to take note of your advice, “If you can’t act, don’t ask!”
We are also on a crusade to enhance the customer experience by making the invisible, visible to the leadership of organizations. I wonder how many leaders actually know what is and is not occurring within their organization when it comes to taking care of their number 1 asset, their customers. I am hopeful that all of our efforts will help to change or at least shift the state of the customer service industry.
Thanks for sharing and definitely keep us posted on your survey crusade!
Kelly
Hi Kelly,
I just read a post somewhere else that stated the customer is not always right. The example was an inebriated passenger being removed from and airplane. That is certainly a different situation than an invisible customer. However, one of the points made in that article would help make these customers visible.
Some companies list employees, customers and then shareholders in priority. The thinking is that, if you keep your employees happy, they in turn will share that happiness with customers. The customer will keep shareholders happy by doing business with the company.
Once upon a time in this country, retail sales person was a profession. One could go into a store and purchase something from a person who was compensated for the sale. They had a vested interest in making the customer happy to make an immediate commission AND have them come back due to the service. Eventually, most retail purchases are made at large corporate stores. There the sales people are lower salaried employees and the profits go to the company and shareholders. Customers and employees have become a commodity.
Employees of these larger stores have no incentive to provide customer service. I’ve had a Best Buy employee tell me once that I was ticking him off by asking why their prices were higher than the competition. In my opinion, the customer service died after employees were forgotten.
Marty
Hi Marty,
I actually happen to agree with the sentiment that the customer is not always right. However, they are still the customer and deserve to be treated that way. In my mind, customer service isn’t about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s about creating an experience, making a difference and delighting others.
You also bring up a critical point about the changing marketplace and the lost focus on the employees. Placing the employees first on the list of priorities then customers and finally shareholders creates a win-win-win situation. The research shows the more engaged the employee is in their work and the organization, the more they will engage the customer. With sky rocketing costs to attract new customers one would think that organizations would begin to get their priorities straight and take care of those that are taking care of their customers. We have got to create that bond that between organizations, employees and customers as you pointed out.
The service, or lack there of, that you experienced at Best Buy got me thinking. Last year we were shopping for a new lap top for my niece that just graduated high school. Of course Best Buy was on our list of places to check out. We were working with an extremely friendly, knowledgeable and patient young man. As we were chatting and making some decisions, he began taking care of another customer. When we were ready to check out another associate said he could help us. We wanted to wait for the guy that had been helping us to check us out. This guy said “We don’t work on commission, so it doesn’t matter who checks you out.” Commission or not I wanted to deal with someone who had customer service skills, wouldn’t ignore us and who genuinely appreciated our business. That didn’t seem to matter to that associate or for that matter Best Buy.
I for one am tired of being the invisible consumer. We are on a quest to find companies that understand the value of customer service and incorporate it into all they do. And companies that don’t. I have a sneaking suspicion that more companies will fall into the second category. Stay tuned!
Thanks for adding to the conversation!
Kelly
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