12 minutes to answer the phone – Escape Prepay from EZ Pay

I am going to start posting good & bad customer support stories in the hope that some of these companies (particularly the bad ones) can start paying attention. This is the first hopefully one of not many. Alas from my experience, there will be more many more.

Customer support is a balance, it needs to be cost effective for the company offering the service so you don’t want more service reps than you need. This can be expensive. On the other hand, you need enough customer service representatives so that your customer isn’t on the phone for 12 minutes. A waiting customer is an annoyed customer. And you are really playing with fire if you are in an easily duplicated industry Such as EZ Pay is with its Escape pre pay card.

EZ Pay has some serious questions to ask itself, because they have lowered their costs by outsourcing to India (or some such place). I am all for outsourcing, in fact I actively promote it. However if you as the company are going to benefit from reduced costs & in this case reduced quality of service, then surely you have an obligation to have a reasonable number of reps answering the phones.

Outsourcing is about bringing down costs, while maintaining quality and speed of delivery. It should not be seen as a cost only exercise. EZ Pay with its Escape Card have it wrong. The only thing they achieve when the make customers wait 12 minutes for a simple question, is to drive customers to one of the 100 other Pre Pay cards available in the market today.

Pick up your socks EZ Pay. Call me and I will show you how if you wish.

Customer Service and the Web – Are companies taking it too far

Companies are forever trying to save money in all area’s of business. Since arriving in the UK, I have noticed that here in the UK, there seems to be an ever increasing practice to drive customers like mad to the internet. The number of companies that make it so difficult to get hold of a “Real Person” is truly amazing. I along with anyone else can understand the need to lower costs and human resource of any kind is one of a companies largest expenses.

How damaged is your brand if you reduce customer service to a list of answers on a website? Is the potential savings so big that you are willing to alienate your customers and drive them to despair … trying to reach you? What’s more, how does a set of questions on a website, ensure customer retention, prospect retention, deliver great feelings of awesome customer service or up-sell your customer?

The answer

==== It doesn’t ====

What I think many companies will learn the hard way is that automation is great, but you cannot remove the human element from good customer service. Companies will see their customer churn rates ever increase because people that don’t want customer service are those that are looking for the cheapest solution. If you can’t be the cheapest, you will loose out. The truly valuable customers, those that maintain a relationship with their providers will choose to stay with companies that offer “Good Customer Service”.

Launching our services in the UK

Hi all,

It has again been a while since the blog was tended too. Life gets busy as you can imagine and the blog has fallen by the wayside. If anyone is still out there, be of good cheer we are back, and will be posting thoughts and ideas on a more regular basis. A few things have changed though and here they are:

We are launching our services in the UK. We still support New Zealand customers but we are looking to go global.

We have partnered with Staffey to provide high value, high quality outsourcing solutions. Visit www.staffey.com for more details on their great service delivery.

We are horrified more than ever at the poor customer service so many companies now provide. It is going to be our goal to expose poor customer service & celebrate great customer service. Whether this is provided internally or outsourced.

Keep an eye out on things, we are still here, and still going strong.

Trying to automate the recruitment process

A company recently tried to implement an automated recruitment process to try to reduce or eliminate the vast amounts of wasted time going through CV’s and interviews. It seems like a good idea and as a 3rd party to the process I have watched the results with interest.

They have developed the software themselves and seem to have had reasonable success. As a 3rd party watching the process I have noticed a couple of things.

1) There were a number of emails to the info @ email account indicating that the software didn’t work.

2) The process of applying was very stringent, with only one correct pathway to completion.

This automated application process did indeed reduce the number of valid applications from 700 to 100. That of course was the general idea. For many internal, simple roles that are infact automated themselves, this may actually be a good thing.

The question I raised though was this: Would the automation process actually drive away the kind of candidates that you may actually want?

To explain, take sales for example. If I were a sales executive applying for a job, I would want to be able to sell myself in some way. To be channeled down a pathway would put me off, as I would feel that they were looking for a “me too” person. Not someone with unique skills.

Another example, A network engineer, If I were an engineer, I would want to show case my skills. Especially if I knew I was good. Would it annoy me to be lead down a path? Would I pre judge what kind of person they were looking for? Would I feel that they were after a “me too” engineer?

Automation is great, it provides great efficiency’s in running business. Is recruitment a place you can automate? Can you cut corners carefully enough to make gains in the process?

Annual Chill out day

I have just made a call to a company today during the normal calling that I do every day. Here is the message on the phone.

“No one is available to take your call as today is our annual chill out day, please call us back on Monday”

What a bold and courageous move. Imagine the brownie points you would get from your staff. And how big an impact would it have on your customers? I am sure if you gave them notice, they would be fine or in fact be quite impressed.

This is the first time I have come across such a great idea implemented in action. In these challenging times, it does good to be creative.

Latest Hays salary survey for Australia & New Zealand

The 2008 survey is out. I find their report quite comprehensive while being easy and simple at the same time.

A great resource for employers and employees alike.

Balancing environment and personality

I have spent a bit more time thinking about this after the move of a social person into the nether regions of a company I work with. There must be a balance between the environment and culture a company wants to create and the personalities within it.

Everyone is different. One of the easiest ways around clashing personalities and environment is to only employ people with like minds. So each person is comfortable within the created environment. Of course this is not easy to do, especially within a tight labour market where you take the best you can find.

Some people thrive from an open plan office environment, others find it too distracting. Maybe there is a way to mix it up. Other times some personalities can become overpowering for others and stifle their ability to be highly productive.

One of the best ways to ensure the balance between personality and environment is right is to meet with your people often, informally to see how they are finding things. Also get management to have the personality and environment balance on their agenda’s. Watch how relationships are going between staff.

Creating the right kind of environment is a key element to creating a happy workplace for your staff.

Moving a social person to the back office

What happens when you move a social person into their own remote office? Give it 2 months and they will leave. Part of a socialites worklife involves talking and being around collegues. I get a chance to see this theory in action.

A company that I work with has just moved their socialite into an area all by herself. So in 2 months from this date we will see if she is still around. It is a hard balance when it comes to social people. Obviously being social carries a risk of being less productive than someone that is a bit more reserved and quiet.

However if someone is very good at their job and a social person too what do you do? One thing you don’t do is isolate them. It is important to find ways that can cater to their need to socialise, while still maintaining the high work standards.

I will give you an update in 2 months time.

Microsoft’s tips for working from home

Here is a link to 7 tips Microsoft provides to help make the working experience for staff members productive. In my opinion the biggest factor that has stopped this becoming a reality for many employees and employers is the PROCRASTINATION BEAST.

While the tips that Microsoft provide, procrastination is still in my opinion the biggest killer to home based employees. Because their time is paid for by the employer, the employer can rightly expect the same level (or in theory more) productivity from home based workers. But at home it is easy to become distracted.

One day this phenomenon will become more common place, until good systems can be wrapped around it though it will remain a rarity among companies, rather than the norm.

Is not telling customers you outsource decieving them?

I had an interesting conversation with an accountant the other day. I found out that they have a small outsourcing branch in India processing some of the more standard accounting functions. They had a team of 4 trained by New Zealanders in New Zealand accounting practices.

The interesting thing is that because it is non customer facing work, all their customers don’t know that they send some of their work off shore. The question becomes then “Is this practice deceiving your customers? “. Personally I don’t think so. Though I am sure others will disagree.

Ultimately as a company you are contracted to deliver a service. Surely the way you deliver that service should be up to you. The issue is not so much whether you do off shore resourcing rather it is about what level of transparency you will provide your customers.

It is a choice each company that send work offshore needs to make. Some will be transparent and offer lower rates for work done offshore, others will keep that portion of their service very quiet. The concern you may have if you do keep things quiet is what will happen when (if ever) your customers find out you have been sending their work off shore?