Customers first and foremost

byMike Beardshall

A gentle reminder to look after your customers

In a shiny new city not so far from here, stood a tall shiny office block.

Towering over the city it looked so powerful and ever so strong.

At the very top of the tower in a plush posh office sat the Mr MD in his thick leather clad chair. Looking down at the street far below he could see his customers, so tiny they looked.

Life was good, big office, big company, plush leather chair and oodles of customers

One day a small, insignificant little letter arrived on Mr MDs big oak desk.

He opened it while looking out of the window at all the little customers so far below

“Dear Mr MD, I wish to complain….”

Mr MD was shocked and angry, he had never received anything from his little customers before.

He ordered an immediate meeting with his deputy MDs

The deputy MDs rushed to the top floor of the shiny building and sat quietly around the big oak desk staring at the letter in disbelief.

Stunned silence from all.

“What do we do with this blasted the Mr MD to his team”

Everybody turned to look at the operations director, a big man still wearing his golfing jumper.

“Sir” he said, “we have a 4 stage process for managing complaints”

•Stage 1 – We don’t reply and hope the customer forgets

•Stage 2 – Our complaints team send our standard apology letter if they persist and stage 1 does not work

•Stage 3 - Our legal department tell them we are not at fault if stage 2 fails

•Stage 4 – We send them a refund if we are in a corner and no other options

“Great”, replied Mr MD, happy that everything was under control.

The letter was dropped into the bin and everybody was happy.

Life was good again.

A few weeks later, another small, insignificant letter arrived on Mr MDs big oak desk.

He opened it while looking out of the window at all the little customers far below.

“Dear Mr MD, I still wish to complain….”

Mr MD was more angry than before that somebody would be so persistent.

Calling his complaints team he asked them where their office was. “In the basement sir” came the shaky reply.

Jumping in his express elevator he pushed the basement button forty floors below, the letter tightly clenched in his angry hand.

The basement was dark, letters were all around two printers were churning out the apology letters at an alarming pace.

“Somebody sort this out” he blasted. The head of the complaints team quietly took the letter and quickly picked up an apology letter with his signature already printed, stuck it in an envelope sent it off.

Stage 2 was complete. Everyone was happy and life was good.

A few weeks later, Mr MD was looking out of his window and noticed that there seemed to be fewer of his little customers far below, on his desk was a small pile of insignificant letters all addressed to him.

He read the first and was shocked that this little customer had not yet given up.

Picking up the pile of letters he headed for the legal department 20 floors below.

The legal department was a nice office, not as much paper as the complaints department and a printer was churning out threat letters to angry customers. Dropping his pile of letters on the desk of the legal department he told him to sort them out before heading back to his plush office 20 floors above.

Life was not so good for Mr MD, the little customers so far below were reducing by the day.

His legal team needed more staff. The cost of postage was rocketing and sales were down.

His pile of insignificant letters were increasing by the day so he ordered the mail room to deliver them directly to the basement.

Mr MD was now getting worried, his towering office block was no longer looking shiny and the little customers were deserting him and moving to the little competitor down the street.

He called a meeting of his advisors who all gathered in his office and set around his big oak desk. “Why are our customers leaving us” he demanded.

Everybody in the room looked at the head of production who slowly went red. “We have more products than ever” he said and everybody looked happy…. “but we now face competition”. The table went quiet.

“OK” said Mr MD looking at the head of marketing, “we need to advertise more and sell more products”

The decision was made.

One of the two printers in the basement was turned off and the apology letters were reduced by half, the money saved was diverted into increased advertising.

Life was OK.

A few weeks later, things still looked gloomy. The mail room had asked for more staff to help move the customer complaints letters to the complaints team in the basement which were now piling up and the legal team were now working over time to send out the threatening letters. Internal costs were rising and sales were falling.

Mr MD was worried so called in Mr Expert.

The expert arrived the next day and parked in the almost empty customer parking bay and headed to the top floor.

Notebook in hand he greeted the MD with a smile and firm hand shake. They both sat and stared at the empty large oak table. “What is going wrong” demanded Mr MD, I want you to sort it out.

And so Mr Expert spent the next few weeks travelling between the floors of the office block, never using the express lift but preferring to use the employee lift.

Starting in the mail room he saw all the bags of complaints coming in and few products going out.

The staff were more and more stressed because more each day more bags arrived. He walked with the mail man with one of the bags into the basement. The bag was placed neatly at the end of a long line of unopened bags.

At the other end of the long line of mail bags sat an assistant, a young man fresh from college who had been tasked with reading each complaint and putting them into piles.

The first pile of letters were from people who had not complained before, the second was from those who were complaining again.

Mr Expert talked to the young man for a few minutes and then watched as the piles of letters were moved.

The pile of letters of customers who had not complained before were thrown into the rubbish bin, a large container which went to the incinerator.

The pile of letters of customers who had previously complained were then split into two piles, those who had complained once before and those who had complained twice.

The ones who had complained once joined the pile next to the printer and the rest were sent up to the legal department.

Mr Expert followed the letters up to the legal department where they joined a smaller number of unopened mail bags. At the far end sat another a tired young man tasked with sorting the letters into two piles.

The first pile was assigned to the threaten customer pile the next smaller pile went to the finance department to refund the money.

Mr expert then went to the production department, lots of computers and machinery was strangely silent, a small team were building the products to be sold to the dwindling customers. The rest of the team were trying to look busy. Things were looking bad and Mr Expert was worried.

Next visit was to the sales and marketing department, a hive of activity, their increased budget had allowed them to employ more staff and they were working on a number of campaigns informing the customers that the competition was bad and they were good.

Mr Expert walked out to the car park and talked to the customers.

He spent the day talking and writing notes.

The next day he did the same and the day after that until he had nearly filled his notebook.

Mr Expert then spent another week talking to every member of the company, he was now on notebook number 2 which was also getting full.

He then scheduled another meeting with Mr MD who was getting anxious for some news.

Travelling up the lift to the top floor he bumped into the complaints team assistant, the young man looked older and filled with tension but Mr Expert talked to him some more and together they went to the top floor and saw Mr MD looking down at the nearly empty customer car park far below.

What is the news demanded Mr MD and what is he doing here, pointing at the scared young man dressed in slightly too short trousers and an ill-fitting shirt.

This young man is here to explain your problems said Mr Expert as he quietly placed the notebooks on the big oak desk.

After a few minutes, the young man began to talk, the more he talked the more relaxed he became, months of frustration had finally been released and he explained all that he knew.

“Sir”, he started, “this is what your customers are telling you…”

• They expect you to correct your mistakes and do so quickly and in doing so they give you a chance at retaining them but they are ignored

• When you don’t correct them quickly they get frustrated and tell their friends

• When you do everything in your power to ensure you don’t have to refund them or exchange the faulty goods they go to your competitors

• Your customers tell you what is wrong with your products but you ignore them

• They see your company as a faceless company, all interaction with them is at arms length and there is no human touch

• They believe you do not care about them and treat them like commodities

The young man finished talking and looked sheepish as Mr MD grew more and more angry.

Mr Expert stared at Mr MD and said “there is more….”

• You as the boss of your company are so far removed from your customers you would not recognize them and they don’t recognize you

• You don’t realize that keeping the customer happy keeps you in business

• You think that saving money by not providing a good customer experience is good for your company.

• You forget that it is much easier to keep a customer than it is to get a new one

Mr MD appeared totally devastated and was now looking decidedly shaky as he stared blankly out of the window. “Ok” he said, “ how do we do it right”

Another hour passed as Mr Expert explained the plan.

There was much to do so Mr MD and Mr Expert summoned all the deputy MDs to the basement.

They were shocked to see the chaos and all the complaints. The printer was turned off and the room fell silent for the first time in years.

“Team”, said Mr MD, “we have a huge challenge ahead and I need your help to turn this company around”

“No longer will we ignore the customers so forget the past and look to the future, this is what we will do….”

• We will respond quickly and courteously to every letter we receive.

• If we are in the wrong we will put it right immediately and will compensate for our mistake

• We will all take responsibility. Letters will be hand signed and personalized to each individual customer

• We will encourage feedback and more importantly we will act on it

• The complaints team is no more. The team is now called ‘Customer Services' and it will mean just that

• The task now is to reduce the number of complaints. The emphasis is on fixing the problem not hiding it.

• We now need to start looking after our customers.

A new buzz was felt in the big shiny building, the change was dramatic.

The customer services team moved to the ground floor and became visible to the customers.

Mr MD moved his office down to the 1st floor, he wanted to be able to see his customers faces.

He started to speak to his customers and spent time each week talking to them in the car park. Things were starting to get better.

As the months passed, the customers started to drift back, trust had been lost but the rumors quickly spread that this was a company that had truly changed. The customer car park was no longer empty and production slowly started to increase.

Customer feedback was used to identify faults and fixes were made to the products, quality increased, and complaints reduced.

The change reflected in all literature and a guarantee was added to each product.

‘if you are not entirely satisfied, 100% then we will replace or fully refund. Guaranteed’

and for the first time the guarantee was true.

The young man was promoted to the new role of Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) ambassador.

His job was simply to look after the customers and the better he got the more customers they had so the busier he became. He loved his job.

And what happened to Mr Expert ?

He went to another company to solve another problem.