There was a time when customer service was a point of difference for businesses. Today, a majority of companies have ‘customer care executives’ that seemingly care about your experience with the company and are meant to ‘help’ you in case of any problems. But, how many of these executives actually care and how many are simply mindless robots? (P.S. This is a rhetorical question – if you have ever had to talk to one of these executives, you will know the answer).
Now, it is not their fault.
It is because this concept of service which has an inherent personal component attached to it has been bastardised across the globe – companies are trying to apply the McDonalds concept of 1 burger patty, 2 lettuce leaves and 10 drops of ketchup to customer service which results in no room for movement. Very few of these corporations take customer care seriously and many even charge you to talk to a person! And after pressing all those buttons for various options and talking to a fake lady for 5 minutes when you finally talk to a person, it’s of no use because the fake lady actually gave you more options than the robot does.
An example of such ‘high quality customer service’ was recently highlighted when a customer from Quantas was kept on hold for 15 hours while trying to confirm his flight – the same time it takes to fly from India to Australia.
So, for all us entrepreneurs and budding startups then, it seems what we should be concentrating on is customer delight and not customer service. Recently I came across two amazing experiences of customer delight (which will prove all those marketing authors right about the fact that if you truly delight your customer they will spread your message to multiple other customers).
One such example was Bagelwala at Bandra, Mumbai. This newly opened eatery provides gourmet bagels that can be customised and has a lovely dining atmosphere. Though its small, they provide charging points for freelancers, have a book exchange library and despite having few seats don’t ask you to leave promptly after you have finished your meal. What made them stand out for me was when I went to pay the bill and realised that they were not accept card payments just yet. I had no cash on me and rather than just telling me that I had to somehow beg, borrow or steal to pay the bill, the owner apologised and told me “Don’t worry about it. Just pay us the next time you come. We are sure that you will come back since our bagels are so nice”. This statement completely stunned me as it was my first time there and in my eyes they placed such trust and value in me as a customer. While I promptly ran to the nearest ATM to withdraw cash and pay them what has struck me is that even though I have not been there again, I have recommended the business to so many of my friends – Who would have thought that not having a working Visa/Card facility could have been such a business opportunity?
Another one is a fellow Rodinhooder startup, 21 Fools. I met the founders, Divyanshu and Surendra as part of an Open House in Mumbai and their concept really struck a chord with me. When I was looking for a card for my mother, I really wanted to go through them as I loved their designs but did not find one that quite matched what I was looking for. Rather than just telling me – Tough, deal with it (like Archies or Hallmark does these days since their nice cards are hardly ever in stock), they actually took the time to listen to what I wanted, designed a custom card for me in record time and then even took the trouble of posting it to NZ (which is not something they do currently). 21 Fools understood what I was looking for and again turned a potentially disappointing experience into an opportunity to delight their customer.
It seems then that as startups become businesses and then corporations the focus they place on servicing their customer reduces proportionately. What else would explain that smaller companies and startups are able to delight their customers more often than bigger corporations do? While trying to cater to the mass, it seems that big organisations forget the individual which has enabled them to expand in the first place.
As a customer and a consumer of many brands – both big and small, here is my humble request – treat us as a fellow human and not a bar-coded product and think of ways in which your negatives can be turned into customer delight moments.
Because, it is these moments that make you stand out from the rest.