Customer engagement – empathy as a “must have”
ICDP has been challenging the value of overly-rigid customer-facing processes for some years. Real customer satisfaction is not about tick-box surveys that reflect someone’s idea of the perfect process and the things that matter, but how the customer actually feels following some interaction in a commercial process. It is often about how you deal with something that goes wrong, rather than an exchange which is perfectly executed, but is otherwise uneventful. Ritz-Carlton hotels – often held up as an exemplar in customer service – is characterised more in the media and my personal experience by how they handled exceptional situations rather than the fact that you had a brilliant night’s stay with a tasty meal and attentive staff.
I was reminded of this during a short break last week following the NADA Show. Both involved my partner, Deborah, and in each case something had gone wrong. The way in which they were handled was totally different, one by a taxi driver who we will never see again and I am sure has never had a day’s training in customer service skills, the other by a steward and purser on American Airlines who have probably had as many days training in customer service as they have in safety drills. So who should step forward and claim my personal prize for customer service. Spoiler alert – it was not the one with the training, customer surveys and numerous processes…
On the taxi ride back to the airport, Deborah’s phone had fallen out of her bag. The American Airlines check-in process was lengthy, and it was half an hour or so before Deborah realised as we were going through security that her phone was missing. I called her number with no response, checked with Lost and Found with no luck, and messaged the taxi company to see whether the driver had found it. Shortly afterwards, we got a response, that the driver had it and was already heading back to the airport so that I could meet him outside. Airport security helped me to get from the drop-off area back to the gate in two minutes (another great customer service example), so that we made the flight with the phone, including the treasured photos, messages and contact details that we all wish we’d backed up – after we’ve lost our phone.
The contrasting story was the one that should have gone well. Deborah is a vegan and we had pre-ordered a vegan meal, successfully (and tastily) delivered on the outbound BA flight. When the steward came to serve her on the American return flight, the meal was vegetarian, rather than vegan. When she pointed this out, and I confirmed that we had ordered vegan, the steward’s response was to restate that what he had was vegetarian. There was no apology, no offer to check through the dishes and see what might be OK, what might have dairy content. His approach was abrupt with a “take it or leave it” attitude. Deborah had no choice but to leave it, but that is not the end of the story. He returned a few minutes later to serve drinks, and opened a new bottle of soda, positioned at his chest height so that the top was just over Deborah’s head. As he opened the bottle, the drink frothed up, over her head, dress and seat. His response was to laugh, saying “oh, it’s only soda water”. When he saw my reaction, he said “oh, your partner’s not too happy.” I spoke to the purser, expressing my view that his actions had been deliberate. She seemed shocked and ensured that the steward was moved to a different section of the aircraft, but was similarly unhelpful about the meal. She later came and issued compensation of AA points using a device which had an app installed including a menu of what points were paid for incorrect meal, damage to clothing and presumably a list of other potential service failures. I am sure that the investment in the device, application and process was all designed by someone working in customer service – an investment in failure. The points will be of no use to me as I will never fly American Airlines again, and urge anyone reading this to avoid them as well. I will pursue real redress through other channels.
However, the real lesson here is not that American is an airline to avoid, but about customer engagement. The taxi driver had empathy. When he heard the phone ring in the back of the taxi he immediately realised what had happened, and took the initiative to start back to the airport so that we had a good outcome. He and the airport security staff recognised the inconvenience that would be caused if the phone could not be reunited with the customer without delay. He saw the customer’s point of view. (And he was honest, unlike a Yucutan police officer who we also encountered, but that’s another story…) By contrast, the American Airlines steward took no interest in the fact that he did not have meals to serve to a premium customer on a long-haul flight through a failure on the part of the airline. Moreover, in the face of a complaint about that, he thought he would improve his working day with a bit of “harmless fun” at the customer’s expense. (His much later grovelling apology was too pathetic to recount here.) His sole interest was getting to the end of his shift and a layover in London, the customer was an object he encountered in the course of the day.
Empathy is about all the things shown in the illustration at the top of this blog – listening, hearing, understanding, responding – and doing all these things in an authentic way, not with a false smile and follow-up survey (which I am sure will arrive from American Airlines in the next 24 hours anyway…)