Can Sprint reinvent its woeful customer service?

J.D. Power ranks Sprint's customer service last among wireless carriers. They are infamous for poor service, such as the time they ingloriously "fired" their 1,000 or so customers who complained the most. Now, CEO Dan Hesse is trying to change all that. The question is can Sprint succeed where it has failed so many times before?

The answer remains to be seen, but Sprint has taken two key steps that I applaud.

1. They made customer service a priority for every executive in the company. This includes hiring Bob Johnson as the company's Chief Service Officer. Weekly executive meetings lead off with a briefing on customer service.
2. It focuses service reps on problem resolution and customer satisfaction, not talk time. This is a relatively new move for Sprint, but a report on MSN claims the average number of times a customer calls each year has decreased nearly 50%, allowing them to shut down 17 vendor call centers.

Sprint still lags the other carriers in service, but it can take time to change the market's perception about your company. For now, perhaps they should set their sites on not being last.

Are you smart enough to be a U.S. citizen?

I've often heard the joke that the U.S. citizenship test is so hard that most Americans couldn't pass it. It's kind of funny, but it is also a little disturbing. The History Channel has set up an interactive, multiple choice version of the citizenship test on their website so people can try it out and see if they really are smart enough to be a U.S. citizen. I took their full 96 question version and am happy to say I got 95 out of 96 questions right. Thank goodness I don't have to move out of the country! Try it out for yourself here.

How is the U.S. citizenship test relevant to performance? Like the questions on the quiz, we've probably all been schooled on our company's policies and procedures at some point in time. We risk forgetting about these policies and procedures if we aren't reminded of them or haven't made them a habit. In other words, your most seasoned, veteran employees may be most at risk for not being smart enough to be your employee.

What can be done?

A few simple, but often overlooked tips should do the trick.

1. Never assume that anyone is performing correctly.  Observe and monitor every employee's performance from time to time.
2. Provide "refresher" opportunities on important policies, procedures, or product information. I've often made this type of knowledge into a quiz game where employees could earn small prizes or take turns quizzing each other.
3. Don't overlook poor performance.  Do something about it immediately, before it becomes a bad habit.

Easy enough, right? Sure it is, but things are easier said than done. Good luck keeping your employees smart enough to be your employees.

Turn 'em loose, like rappin' the GAAP!

Customer service scripts, rules, and regulations are often designed to maintain consistency but often result in frustrated customers and a lack of genuine warmth. I'd much rather companies lay down the standards or guidelines and then give their employees permission to be themselves and respond to the customer as long as they stay within the guidelines.

Many of you have heard of the Southwest Airlines rapping flight attendant.  This is a great example of letting employees be themselves as long as they adhere to the standards.  He hits all the FAA requirements, but he uses his personality to make it memorable.

He was such as hit that Southwest actually had him deliver some required legalese at a recent shareholder's meeting. Check it out below.  If instructions on fastening a seatbelt and Generally Accepted Accounting Principals (GAAP) can be made more exciting, just imagine what ditching the script can do for something your customer actually cares about!

Rappin' the GAAP

Pre-flight Announcements - CNN Story

Cox vs. Brinks: The cost of incompetence

Companies that don't invest in hiring, training, and supervising capable employees often pay a big price on the back end. Consider this update on the battle royal between Cox and Brinks. (Read previous post here.)

What happened?

A third technician (first one was from Cox, second one was from Brinks) came to the house to restore my home phone service. Nate was a Cox sub-contractor, so in a sense he represented a third company. He took a quick look at my system and told me the biggest problem was the system wasn't set up correctly. Nate was very professional and wouldn't accuse the other two technicians of not knowing how to do their jobs. All he said was, "I'm here now and I can fix this."  Everything was up and running after about 30 minutes.  Thanks, Nate!

The Cost of Incompetence

Let's look at the cost Cox Communications paid for not sending a competent employee to the house the first time:

1. Initial installation.  ~ 2 hours
2. Return trip to fix problems with house alarm caused during installation.  ~2 hours
3. Repair trip six months later, caused in part due to poor installation.  ~ 1.5 hours
4. Call center rep time to schedule repeat visits. ~ 30 minutes.
5. 2nd repair trip. ~ 30 minutes.
6. Total time: 6.5 hours

According to Nate's diagnosis, the problem would not have happened had the system been installed correctly the first time. This problem effectively cost Cox 4.5 hours of wasted time. Multiply this by the many customers who have certainly faced similar problems and Cox has a huge opportunity to improve customer satisfaction and simultaneously reduce service costs.

T-Mobile's Ad Cost Them Money and Saved a Customer

Like many of you, I've been through my fair share of cell phone carriers.  T-Mobile has managed to keep my business for the past several years due in large part to their outstanding customer service. They don't have the latest technology, coolest phones, or even the fastest network, but everything they do seems geared towards making it easy for me to be a customer.

Their latest television commercial is a gutsy move that prompts viewers to go to an independent website which recommends the least expensive cell phone plan that fits your needs. I checked it out and immediately found a way to save $10 by switching to another T-Mobile plan. Yes, other carriers were represented, but the first three recommendations were T-Mobile plans.  Nice!

What can we learn?

Helping the customer succeed sells. And, a customer who succeeds because of your company is much more likely to remain loyal.

Some math geniuses might point out that T-Mobile just lost $120 in revenue per year by prompting me to reconsider my cell phone plan. Ah, but this is where a finance-only approach can be short-sighted. Just last week, I was on the Verizon website scouting out the latest BlackBerrys and imagining how much more productive I could be on a faster network. T-Mobile's ad didn't lose them $120 per year. It saved them nearly $1,200 per year by ensuring I stayed on-board as a customer.

Check out the commercial here:

Who is talking about customer service?

I try to stay current by reading a number of leading business publications such as Inc., BusinessWeek, and FastCompany. Many of the magazines and newspapers I read maintain websites that are full of helpful information, often organized by topic such as "sales", "finance", "leadership", and so on. It seems a bit odd that "customer service" is typically absent from these lists.

So, who is talking about customer service? And, why don't these leading publications have a customer service column?

I have many theories (and I would love to hear yours!), but here is my best guess. Customer service is simply taken for granted all too often. Customer service seems so, well, common sense. Is it?

Booking meeting space: trying to save your reputation

A good thing happened this Monday. Cyrena from one of Hotel A's properties called to apologize for poor service and see if there was anything she could do to make it right. (See my previous posting on Cyrena and others for the full back story.)

I was impressed that she made the effort to call, wanted to hear me out, and was attempting to make things better. It didn't put her hotel back into the running for my event, but it may have been just enough for me to consider her property in the future.

Look for tomorrow's installment where I'll update you on my site visits and hotels that apparently think "1 business day" means 10 calendar days.

Booking meeting space: better never than late

I'm sure you've heard that old saying, "Better late than never." Today I found an example of the opposite, "Better never than late."

On April 18 I submitted an online request for a quote on meeting space to 12 hotels in Los Angeles and Orange County.  The requests went to two hotel chains, referred to here as Hotel A and B because this is an active sales process. Both chains claimed a 1 business day response time on their websites.

Today, 6 business days later, I received a voice mail from someone at one of Hotel A's locations. The salesperson left a brief message where she essentially told me to expect a call tomorrow from someone else. Tomorrow I will be visiting some of her competitors who have already sent me proposals so her phone call was too little, too late.

In this case, it would have been better to never call at all. Blame it on technology, say your dog ate the lead, or perhaps corporate commandos from another company broke into your office in the middle of the night and stole your computer. Come up with something. Anything. Except, of course, "We just got around to calling you today." Now, you won't get the business AND you'll look worse than if you hadn't bothered to call at all.