Last year my handbag was stolen by a very professional thief who instantly ferreted out my clumsily disguised PIN number, raced to the cash point, extracted £500 on my First Direct debit card and then proceeded on a spending spree with my American Express card. Amex, as a credit card, was covered, but of course my debit card, being my money, wasn’t. I spoke to a supervisor – describing what happened, that I knew something about company reputations, that First Direct had a particularly good one and would they please at least split the liability. Without hesitation she said OK. Now the point of the story is only partially that the bank agreed to reimburse me for half of the loss when they had absolutely no need to. The more important point was that the woman I spoke to not only recognised a reputational opportunity (which it was since I have told many people about this tiny experience) but was empowered to make the decision on the spot.
I thought of this at our recent editorial meeting (which brought forth the usual rants against telecoms, utilities and other companies who fail so miserably to make buying from them in any way pleasurable) in discussing why some companies are so good at it and others so bad. There have been millions of words written on what is pompously known as Customer Experience Management with every imaginable solution offered. But what it seems to come down to is the difference size makes (First Direct, after all is small compared to its high street competitors) but, more importantly, whether or not the importance of the customer experience is baked in early on so it becomes part of the cultural DNA. Virgin and Disney are both large companies who manage it well.
But what particularly intrigues me and one where I’d be interested in some firsthand experiences is the role of marketing in all this. Marketers are, after all, in charge of the communication promising something that, for one reason or another, the company often fails to deliver. Similarly marketers are at least partially responsible for brand and company reputation (if only in the measuring of consumer perceptions). Yet, the distance from the front line staff or from call centre management or from the customer service staff or from the design of the answering system – all of the activities that contribute to reputation - is enormous. Or is it? Where do marketers in service companies see the boundaries of their responsibilities? Where should they be? What is the reality underlying the lip service?
I would be very interested in some marketers’ views of all this – please email your views, leave a comment on the blog post or develop a longer article for Market Leader.