I just got back from a few days in the Mecca of start-ups. They do things differently over there. Well they used to, till globalisation made us all the same.
SCRIPTING FOR PRAISE
Last week, while making a cardholder-not-present transaction with an American business, my card was declined. Twice. I told the customer service person at the other end that I would call her back right after having a word with my credit card issuer.
Meanwhile I received a text and an email from my issuer, alerting me to possible fraud and asking me to call them back.
After identification, my call was put through straight to the fraud team of my issuer in America. The lady confirmed the transaction with me, then said the card was now being unblocked and I could go ahead and complete the transaction.
At this point, I said I was glad that their big data system actually worked and flagged things in real time; and that as a customer, I appreciated it so much that I have stayed with them across countries, for a very, very long time!
The lady was speechless.
I could hear her struggling with words that were appropriate to say to a customer, who actually just praised you.
In the end, she managed to say, “Well, we appreciate your loyalty.” and hung up.
This isn’t the first time I have found a company representative stumped by unexpected words of kindness or praise.
I once rang British Gas in the UK to say how good and patient a young engineer had been while at my house sorting a tough problem that required him to remove and wear frequently his protective socks, because, well no matter what, you aren’t bringing those shoes on to my pale carpet!
The CSA sheepishly told me she didn’t know where to direct my call. I finally ended up recording my message on their complaint system and then I got a letter back from them thanking me etc.
Both experiences have made me wonder about how we design organisations and how businesses see their customers. And indeed about how customers interact with businesses.
Pretty much every CSA has a script to deal with a customer, who calls in raging and angry about some inadequacy or another. Not just the CSA, I have written letters to the CxOs of businesses and got long letters thanking me, explaining the challenges, and offering me a solution. One of them still sends me updates based on a complaint I made in 2005!
So why is there no script for dealing with praise or gratitude?
Is the customer only expected to call in raging and never to call in with praise?
Is the business designed only for liability avoidance and damage protection, and not the possibility of building or strengthening a customer relationship?
Is there no scope for iterative redesign or tweaking in CSA scripts, or any degrees of freedom whatsoever for them to deal with a happy customer?
Is this the world we are designing and living in? One where we expect interaction only when something goes wrong, and nary a word of praise expected if we are doing things right?
Where is Pygmalion in all this?
CALL ME AL
For my sins, with far better choices available, I agreed to meet someone at Starbucks (although how 750 Castro is next door to 650 Castro in Mountain View, I am yet to figure out, but I digress).
“I’d like an iced Americano, please,” I said.
“What’s your name?,” she asked.
Loathe to have my name mangled into Shelley, Chefaly or the worst, Shirley, I said, “Just call me Al.”
The man behind me in the queue, probably my vintage, smiled broadly.
The barista called out, “Iced Americano for Al!”.
The joke died a painful death.
Paul Simon, I apologise. There must be fifty ways to avoid having coffee at a place that insists on being on first-name basis with me before I can get my caffeine dose.