In Ripon (Yorkshire), there is a WH Smith which has just got a £600+ order for 30 copies of the same book.
Logging on to their website for over half an hour, it becomes clear that their site will not accept my order – it’s too large and it directs me to ring a call centre.
10 minutes queuing on the call centre, someone in tech or in another country picks up the enquiry. They will talk, but they can’t take the order.
Giving up on technology, I ring the Ripon shop, only to be told that they would love to help but they can’t take an order over the phone for any more than £200 unless I come into the shop.
In the shop it gets worse, yours truly is standing, causing a tail back of pensioners (queuing for their mags and papers) while the cashier swipes my card 3 separate times at £200 per swipe to make up the £600 for the order.
The sad fact here is that WH Smith has no clue at all how bad they are with either the internet or larger orders. The world has changed and some of their marketing has, but the organisation hasn’t.
They employ a management team, a CEO, a marketing team, a web team and whatever else but nobody has realised that they need a system that works and to test that system by trying to use it.
How about you, when did you last pretend to be a customer and try and buy something from your own firm?
Why not think of the ways a client could come into your firm (phone, email, web enquiry, referral etc…) and then try it out. How should each one feel? What is the actual reality?
I personally guarantee that if you do this now, for the rest of the day you will be making the most immediate and positive changes that your firm is crying out for.
In fact, you will wish you had done it last month or last year.
Thank you Stephen,
Quite timely when you consider the BBC Breakfast show reported, this morning, on complaints and poor customer service.
I am smiling at the moment because I have done just as you suggest on many occasions by calling into the office as a Mr Nice, Mr Frustrated and a Mr Angry in order to measure how the receiving member of the Team handled it. When you confess who you really are, while there are smiles and chuckles the message does get across that you simply do not know who is on the other end of the line. I support your recommendation.
Steven
Fantastic advice people need to look at themselves a bit more often
Andrew
Steve – thank you for this blog post. I did this for my company a year ago and it has improved the way we do things. I realised that the way our phones were answered was just not a good welcoming to the firm and since changing it there has been a clear improvement in new clients’ attitudes towards us. We were also able to improve our website and other methods of contacting us. Every business owner should do this.
Interesting thought which relies on having something to buy. In this case I have needed more critical illness cover. It was relatively simple under the GIO and my remortgae. The adviser turned up on time the paperwork was straightforward and there was no misunderstanding over commission.