Geoff Anderson back for another TechnologMarketing Center round. I am going to divert from heavy topics of the past few posts, and instead focus on one topic that is often not considered up front in the Whole Product concept as taught by the TMC Course. Customer Service or support is what I am talking about. While the examples that I will bring up are primarily B2C examples, I can assure you that the same issues affect the B2B space as well.
One reason that the customer service aspect is neglected is likely due to the Product Management methodologies at play. Being a long time product manager, I know that during the development process, much attention is paid to customer input, market needs, translating them into requirements, and features that the engineering team can act upon. In a well organized business, around the prototype/early beta phase, if you are lucky, the support organization gets involved and they begin to plan for post launch support.
All this is good and well, but does this lead to world class customer experience? Let me relate two stories that I have personal involvement with. Mea culpa: I am a long time Apple consumer, and currently use both a Mac laptop and an iPhone, so I am not completely unbiased.
My company uses Delltm branded laptops for our everyday machines. Likewise I have been issued a Dell laptop. My company pays the premium to Dell for their upgraded next day, on site service option. One would think that would make you all set in the event of a failure. Two years back, while delivering sales training in Singapore (about 27 hours of travel away from Tucson AZ, where I live), my external display cable died. Prior to that one of the three USB ports had failed. Upon my return to the office, I called Dell support. I figured, naturally, that the next day it would be all fixed. I will spare the details, but 10 days later, 4 visits, replacement of: Logic board, Memory, CPU, display panel, and finally, just swapping the laptop for a new unit altogether, I was back up and running. Not a great or even an adequate experience.
Prior to that event, I had a problem with my personal Mac laptop. I called Applecare (their premier support which I do purchase), and after about 5 minutes of troubleshooting, the person on the other end of the phone decided I needed service. The next morning (by 9:00 AM) a DHL driver delivered a prepaid shipping box to my door. I packed and shipped it at the local DHL depot that day, and 3 days later, had my laptop back, fully functional, with all my data and other items in tact.
As a consumer, clearly, I am going to exhibit more loyalty to a company that will go to a higher level of effort to provide a quality experience, and hence the disclosure.
How does this relate to the business to business market? It can be even more important. If you think about services that you commonly use (telecom, logistics, marketing services are but a few that come quickly to mind), it is pretty easy to think of how the service and support is wrapped into your decision to keep using them. Take Telecom for example. Today Telecom is far more than just your telephony service, but includes the lifeblood of your business, the internet connection that allows you to interact with your customers, market via social networking, connect far flung sites together to keep your operation going. How much down time can you tolerate before customers begin to sour, productivity falls, and important transactions are delayed?
What would it take for you to switch to an alternative? As marketeers, we understand that it takes about a 50% improvement in capability/performance/features to overcome the resistance to an entrenched product for a change. But does that relate straight across to desire to change after a major failure of service?
One local example: Recently, the City of Tucson was having a red light camera installed at a busy intersection in the center of town. A careless contractor severed a major communications cable for the ILEC, QWEST, causing a 5 - 7 day outage for hundreds of businesses. This was a COMPLETE outage, phone, internet, leased lines etc. The local Cable provider quickly jumped on this event and began signing up business to their alternative phone/data plans. What are the chances of QWEST getting any of these customers back? Honestly, they are probably gone for good.
In short, while customer service and support may not be an up front consideration, and might not add significant tangible value to a product offering. Failing to provide a compelling offering can hamper your retention and the long term viability of your product success.
Until next month, happy marketeering!
Hate to follow up on my own post, but I had to relate another Apple customer service win. About 6 weeks ago, I was out hiking, and I took a spill. Fell face first off the train, got a good shiner, and my palm looked like chopped liver.
Sadly, my iPhone stopped working. It was in my pack, and it didn't get knocked, but I didn't know what went wrong. IT was dead. No power, no display, no signs of life. I setup an appointment at the Apple store here in town with the Genius bar. I assumed that since it was well out of warranty, they would tell me yep, it was dead, and to buy a replacement.
I was surprised when the genius came out with a new phone, signed some paperwork, and 15 minutes later with $0 out of pocket, I have a new phone, and am happily driving back home.
Flash forward to this last Friday. I am on my 1:1 call with my boss, and the phone dies. I try to call back, and nothing. The iPhone isn't dark. I can still log into my home wifi, and all the other things work, but no connection to AT&T. I reset it, I restore it, I work through the recommendations on troubleshooting it. zero, zip, nada. Today I made another appointment at the Apple store with the Genius bar, fully expecting to be told it is time to buy an upgraded phone, and be done with it.
I would have been wrong. After a few checks, the genius told me the radio had died, and they replaced it AGAIN with another new unit. he said sometimes this happens. No charge, even though it was well out of warranty.
How awesome is that?
Posted by: Geoff Anderson | September 12, 2010 at 02:54 PM