My CEO Life

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Anyone who has travelled domestically in the United States knows just how bad the US airlines are.  It doesnt seem to matter which one you fly one (Delta, United, America, and so on) the service is often delivered with a snarl, business class and first class seats make going to the theatre seem comfortable, the flights seem to be always delayed, the food is often inedible and you seem to pay extra for everything.

Therefore imagine my surprise when i ended up on a jetBlue flight today and it has got to be one of the best domestic flights i have taken anywhere in the world. 

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A month or so ago, in one of my other blogs My Travelling Life, i talked about how i thought the service of Qantas was slipping.  In particular i talked about a flight i recently had from San Francisco to Sydney in which a fellow passenger spilled water all over me and the Qantas guys really didn’t seem to care too much.  (Read entry)

However, imagine my surprise on the next international Qantas flight i had from Sydney to Los Angeles via Auckland that i ended up on one of the oldest 747-300 (yes 300 not 400) between Auckland and LA. Now you know its old when the seats in business class barely recline and the concept of inflight entertainment is 10 channels.

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One issue we came across the other day was about how to set customer expectations.

As a rapid growth company, you are constantly developing new products and you have customers constantly wanting things tailored to their own requirements.  If we were selling one off items - no problems.  How ever, we sell high volume low value online products that cant be tailored.

Therefore the challenge with a 100+ person sales force is ensuring that the sales guys don’t commit the business to doing things that the business doesn’t plan to do.  This really comes down to their ability to say “no” and still get the order without a fear of losing the customer.

At the end of the day communication about the product set (and its future) and education are the keys to this.  I guess we just need to work more on those two areas.

I received this email earlier on today and while i am not the CEO of Sears, it does raise an interesting question of failure in customer service and the value of getting in touch directly with the CEO.

I AM TRYING TO REACH THE CEO OF SEARS ROEBUCK DEPARTMENT STORES. I HAVE NEVER COMPLAINED TO ANYONE ABOUT ANYTHING I HAVE PURCHASED IN MY 62 YEARS BUT I AM TO MY WITS END.  I ORDERED A REFRIGERATOR ON SEPT 12TH AND HAVE HAD NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS SINCE THEY TOLD ME IT WOULD BE DELIVERED THE FOLLOWING WEEK END.

WHEN THEY CAME THE FIRST SATURDAY THEY SAID THEY COULDN’ T LEAVE IT BECAUSE THE ICE MAKER WATER LINE WAS NOT DISCONNECTED BUT SOMEHOW THE MAN WHO DELIVERED IT OPENED UP THE LINE ENOUGH TO CONNECT THE REFRIGERATOR THAT HE LEFT ME WITH WATER RUNNING ALL OVER MY DINING ROOM AND KITCHEN AND I HAD TO TRY TO CALL A PLUMMER WHICH NEVER COULD MAKE IT ON A SATURDAY AND MY SON IN LAW AND HIS FATHER HELPED ME GET IT COMPLETELY TURNED OFF.  THEN WE WERE SCHEDULED TO HAVE ANOTHER REFRIGERATOR DELIVERED THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY AND THEY CALLED AND THEY SAID THE ONE I HAD ORDERED WAS DAMAGED AND IT WOULD HAVE TO BE ANOTHER WEEK.  THEN I CALLED SEARS COMPLAINING AND THEY SAID THEY WOULD GET ME ONE HERE TODAY AND I GOT A CONFIRMATION CALL THAT IT WOULD BE DELIVERED BETWEEN 3:30 AND 5:30 ON SATURDAY.  WELL HERE IT IS SATURDAY AND GUESS WHAT, I JUST GOT A CALL THAT THAT REFRIGERATOR IS DAMAGED AND THEY CANNOT DELIVER IT TODAY SO I HAD TO RESCHEDULE FOR NEXT SATURDAY AGAIN WHICH WILL MAKE IT A MONTH WITHOUT A REFRIGERATOR WHILE SEARS COULD REALLY CARE ABOUT HOW THEY ARE TREATING THERE CUSTOMERS.  THIS IS UNBELIVEABLE TO ME THAT SOMETHING LIKE THIS COULD HAPPEN IN THIS DAY.  SEARS USED TO HAVE A FANTASTIC REPUTATION BUT THIS IS WHY YOUR COMPANY IS LOSING CUSTOMERS.

So as a CEO i often get an email or a phone call from a customer with a problem.  I actually like to get these emails as it ensures that i am connected directly with the customer and get a feel for what is going right, and more often, what is going wrong.

Now what i tend to do is to listen to the customer, trace back the issue and their interactions with the business, and then work with the management of the area that looks after the customer to ensure that we learn from what has gone wrong.  Sometime it is just a customer “trying it on” and looking for an out from their own financial problems, however more often than not, it is a customer with a legitimate gripe and usually because we have fumbled the ball.

What is interesting is that when you go back further and find out why the ball was fumbled, it is usually because a support person was new or an account manager was new.  It is a by-product of rapid growth and something that you need to be considered as you grow a business.

It looks like i might have to stay away from Sears … amazing how a bad story is spread by word or of mouth (or the internet)

Have you ever had one of those days where all your interactions with people are not as great as you hoped.

I thought i would relate to you a recent trip to San Francisco where in the course of a day i met two scary taxi drivers and one of the rudest waitresses you could find.

The first taxi driver was not happy at having a relatively small fare - $10.  He wanted one of those airport trips and we were not heading that way.  The taxi was filthy and when he drove, he drove as those he was either drunk or hadn’t slept for a while.  The second taxi driver i came across spent the whole trip complaining about how poor the pay was for taxi drivers and how he was constantly out of pocket.

On the same day i popped by a bar and grill to grab a burger and a drink.  The waitress was rude when i was giving her my order - impatient that i changed my mind.  While i was still eating my food and drinking my drink, she brought me the bill - unasked for.  I challenged her on this as i had planned to relax for another 30 min or so.  However i had the distinct impression that they wanted to move me on - even though i had not finished my meal.

The bottom line with each of these experiences is that i will never go back to that restaurant and i will be very wary of taxi’s in San Francisco (and i certainly will not tip them)

Service is everything.  A poor experience will be echoed between people.  It all comes down to how well you select your front line people and then how well you train them.  THere are no excuses - if you are in a service industry - make sure you focus on delivering great service.

I am not sure if you have heard, but there is an MP3 file doing the rounds of the internet of a customer trying to cancel his service with AOL.

It is an amazing call for two reasons

1. The sales person actually fights with the customer and makes it almost impossible for the customer to cancel
2. I dont even use AOL and have heard about it and will never use them - who wants to be treated like that.

Click here to check out the audio file http://www.jessejcollins.com/files/aolcancellationeditfinal.mp3

The bottom line is that we live in a world of amazing transparency.  The world of blogs, podcasts and social networking can fundamentally cause a business to boom (like www.youtube.com) or flop.  Public opinion is so transparent and everyone who has a public face to your business must realise that everything they say and do could end up in the public forum.  Nothing is sacred!

A week or so ago i wrote about the not so good service i received on a recent Emirates Airlines flight.  Well i thought i would go further than just bleating about it on this site.  I decided to write an email to the customer service people.

Now normally you write these things and nothing happens.  However, imagine my surprise when i received an email back from a customer service manager in Dubai followed by a phone call.  We chatted, he listened (VERY GOOD), and then explained how they have had problems, apologized (EVEN BETTER) and then outlined their improvement approach.  This was fantastic.

However, he then went one step further and offered my a free upgrade to the next class level on my next flight.  He didn’t need to do this but it has certainly created a strong customer and of course, i will make sure my people fly Emirates too.

Amazing what great customer service can do.

I was recently on a flight with my favourite airline (Emirates). I fly them often and have reached one of their highest frequent flyer levels. However they continue to annoy me as they have me down for a special meal when i dont want one. I have tried to cancel the special diet entry on my profile to no avail.

On the flight they said that they would change the profile but given my previous experiences i was not that hopeful.

Imagine my surprise today when i received the following email from the cabin manager from the flight

“As per our discussion on board the other evening, I contacted Frequent Flyer direct to review your special meal request. They advised me that there is no special meal request in your profile (which you can also view on line direct). They suggested it may be a problem with a booking agency or internal company booking profile. I hope I have been of assistance, however, if you are still experiencing problems, please contact me.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. This is great service and i was certainly not expecting it.

It is amazing how used we are to poor service. How we take the promises of service providers with a grain of salt and how we dont really expect people follow through.

The point is that it is easy to exceed customer expectations, especially when all those around us in competing and complementary industries are doing a great job at setting the standards so low. Ensure that you create a culture of promise delivery in your business - just meeting expectations can go along way to creating engaged and happy customers.