CUSTOMER SERVICE MISHAPS – DO YOU HAVE A PROCESS FOR QUICK RECOVERY?

Service recovery is a big issue for many businesses. Service mishaps happen all the time, but how often do they happen in your business? Are you keeping track? When it does happen, you can’t mess around. Your employees need to be empowered to recover as quickly as possible, show the customer you care and make it right. When you recover quickly with concern, it will most definitely get the attention of your customers. They will understand you care and appreciate that you can deliver on what you promise and enhance their loyalty to your brand.

Here are five simple tips to implement that will enable your employees to recover from a service mishap quickly:

 

Branded Service Moments of Truth

By Carol Chapman, Principal & Co-founder, The Brand Ascension Group

Most people have heard the term Moments of Truth. These are those defining moments when customers evaluate whether or not you Walk your Talk as a brand and declare “This is great—I’ll be back” or “Nada – don’t’ think I’ll return”.

I’ve recently come to believe (based on my experience) that there are very few brands that hire and train their employees for behaviors that reflect their brand. I think that most businesses just take it for granted that their employees know how to interact positively with their customers.

When an organization’s marketing messages promise something to their customers but the actual experience is short of living up to that promise, that’s when organizations need to be aware that this impacts how your brand is perceived –big time! Why are less and less organizations concerned about how their employees are showing up and behaving during service interactions? Consider the following scenarios that I experienced recently with a couple of online retailers:

 

DON’T PUT YOUR BRAND AT RISK LIKE ‘AIG’ BY NOT LIVING YOUR CORE VALUES!

Just this morning, I was interviewed by David Wolf for his SmallBiz Brain Series to be aired on SBTV.com’s website (www.sbtv.com) in a few weeks. Our topic related to 8 key questions business owners should ask themselves about their unique Brand DNA and how imperative it is to answer them so as to not only survive but thrive in this troubled economy.

One of the questions we discussed was “What are the core values of your brand that guide your behaviors and business practices?” We talked about what values are—those ‘guiding principles’ that form the basis of what is important to you and give meaning to the intentions behind your brand and your business practices. We also talked about why living your core values is so important in today’s business environment.

Just before the interview, I thought about the issues that AIG is experiencing right now while under the scrutiny of the public and the government for paying out a $165 Million in bonus payments after a few months earlier receiving $182 Billion in bailout money. I was just curious to find out if they had a set of core values for the business. So, I got on their website and searched. I found a button on the menu of items for Vision and Values. As I clicked on it—I found the page showed it was temporarily down. No other page around this page on the website was down. I thought, “How odd.” I also said to myself that this couldn’t just be a coincidence.

I then proceeded to get on Google. I typed into the search section ‘AIG Values’ and found the link to the same webpage. When I clicked on it I got the same message about the webpage being down. So, I went back to Google’s link and lo and behold I found they had “cached” the page. When I clicked on it, there the page was with AIG’s values. The cached page was a snapshot of what the page looked like when it was last active and live—that date was March 13, 2009.

I checked the list of values on this webpage for AIG and found six of them, two of which I zeroed in on, ‘Performance’ and ‘Integrity’. They defined performance, “Be accountable. Manage risks. Deliver AIG’s strength.” They define integrity as, “Work honestly, Enhance AIG’s reputation.” It made me seriously question whether the company was truly accountable and enhancing AIG’s reputation.

Given the current situation, I think most people would say AIG has severely tarnished its image and most certainly negatively impacted their reputation with the payout of those bonuses given the current economic situation and the bailout money handed to them. In fact, not living their values goes far beyond just this one incident, but goes to the core of who they are as brand. As I dug deeper into their values statements, I found the terms to describe these two values as “superior performance, building and persevering the company’s financial strength…disciplined practices…to manage risk”. I found words like ‘integrity in action…integrity is the bedrock of AIG’s reputation..being honest, transparent, with acceptable business practices.” I was just floored when I read this.

The learning point here is that why haven’t they and other companies like them learned that if you don’t live your values, eventually it comes out and it can have devastating effects on your reputation as a brand. Consider the effects of Enron and Arthur Andersen a few years back. One of Enron’s values was integrity. They are no longer in business. That’s pretty devastating.

So, I ask you to ask yourself what are your brand’s core values? Are you living up to those values and consider your actions going-forward? All of us can learn from AIG’s situation. The price of misrepresenting your brand and what you stand for is just not worth it. It erodes your reputation and creates mistrust!

 

DOES YOUR COMPANY HAVE A BRAND PROMISE?

Do you have a promise that articulates your company’s value proposition and exemplifies the behavioral experience you to commit to deliver at every interaction? Have you thought about your brand promise? What do you commit to deliver to your customers…to your employees?

Being crystal clear and delivering relentlessly on your brand promise can set you apart from the competition. It can make the difference between you being perceived a commodity and excelling above that commodity. It can set the stage for your employees to continuously work to deliver on a commitment that no one else can deliver on as well or as fanatically as your brand.

Delivering on your brand promise is crucial to your success. According to the experts, the single most important aspect of successful branding is CONSISTENCY…showing up the same way every time, walking your talk and being true to what you stand for. 

So what are you waiting for? Make sure you have a Brand Promise and deliver on it consistently.

 

TO STAND OUT OR NOT STAND OUT? The Million Dollar Question!

What can really make your brand stand out from the crowd consistently?—is it the “hard stuff” (your products and services, price points, advertising and promotional campaigns) or perhaps the “soft-stuff” (your values, company culture, customer relationship practices, etc.)?  Remember the one major auto manufacturer that came out with an “employee discount” promotion for the entire world.  Well, within a few weeks or less just about every other competitor duplicated and promoted the same campaign. That was easy to copy and no longer made the originating auto-manufacturer of that oh so clever promotion stand out from the crowd. Not to mention, it probably didn’t help their balance sheet either!

 

So, maybe the answer to the million dollar question is the soft-stuff: your values, your distinct personality and culture as a brand and how you show up; who you hire, how you hire and how your employees behave, treat your customers and treat one another; your internal processes and the strategies you employ—all the internal stuff that drives the engine of your business! Some people say the soft stuff is too touchy, feely and can’t differentiate a business. That’s hog-wash!

 

Let’s just focus on values for a moment. Many brands tout company values and guiding principles. Some are great at walking their talk; others are just mediocre at best in practicing their values. In a study conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Aspen Institue of corporations in 30 countires and five regions, it was reported  that top performing companies consciously connect values and operations. They found something interesting: how a how a brand delivers on its values influences two strategic business areas of relationships and reputation. Furthermore, companies that reported superior financial results emphasized their values. They were also more successful in linking values to the way they run their companies. A significantly greater number reported that their management practices were effective in fostering values that influence the cultures they created and how they delivered on their brands, customer relationships, business growth and financial performance.

Hmm? Maybe it’s time to stand out from the crowd by working on the soft stuff!