MARKETING How not to do customer service
DON’T POUR FUEL ON THE FLAMES
Ignored customers soon find alternative avenues through which to spend their money, which is preventable with a split-second of effort
DON’T TREAT THE CUSTOMER AS “JUST ANOTHER NUMBER” I am sad to say this one is from personal experience. Dealing with customers can often be a lengthy, timeconsuming process, and it is easy to be tempted to take short-cuts. Don’t! I recently contacted Ryanair and, after filling in their contact form with my name, writing a charming email, which was signed off with my name and then including my booking information, which also displayed my name, they replied to my request with “Dear customer”. For a company that some already see to be unconcerned about the welfare of its customers and more about the bottom line, this type of attitude where “we couldn’t be bothered to personalise our reply” becomes standard leaves the customer feeling cold, ignored and unimportant. Ignored customers soon find alternative avenues through which to spend their hard-earned, costing you money for what would have been a split-second of effort. Many mass-marketing templates now include formulae as standard to insert the customer’s name, and this personal touch lets them know you have taken them and their concerns seriously.
MAKE SURE YOU FULLY UNDERSTAND TRENDS BEFORE APPROPRIATING THEM The “meme” craze exploded in the latter half of the previous decade, with internet users across the globe using these universally recognised images to express themselves through an idea, style or action, often for comic effect. Ranging from grumpy cat - a cat whose grumpy face comes with pessimistic quips - to trollface, which is used when you are messing with someone for the fun of it or “trolling”, the trend shows no sign of going away any time soon. So naturally, companies are keen to use memes to their advantage. There is nothing wrong with this strategy (as long as you adhere to proper copyright laws), and marketers have been jumping on and off bandwagons for centuries, but if you are going to do this you need to make sure you fully understand the meme. Don’t make the mistake of countless others who have used a meme they didn’t understand properly, which gave the actual message the complete opposite meaning of that which they intended. For help, visit knowyourmeme. com/memes.
Back in the airline industry again, this time with Easyjet, another low-budget airline which doesn’t seem to have grasped that low-budget doesn’t have to mean low-service levels. When Mark Leiser, a law lecturer, columnist, and Easyjet passenger tweeted about his flight being delayed as he sat in the airport lounge, he thought nothing of it. After all, he wasn’t famous and was merely venting his frustration that he might miss his connection. So it came as a huge surprise that, when he began queuing to board his flight, he was stopped by Easyjet staff and told in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t be allowed to board his flight because of the tweet. Aside from the absurd idea of stopping someone from boarding a paid for flight because of a random member of the public’s fairly innocuous tweet, nobody at Easyjet stopped to think that if they confronted a man who was using Twitter to complain, then he might just use Twitter to complain even more. What should have been a nothing tweet about a delay that very few people read suddenly exploded into a national scandal, bringing scorn and mockery on Easyjet. People will always complain to release frustration at situations that are out of their control (that’s not to say they often don’t have just cause) but sometimes, left to their own devices, their venting is harmless. By engaging and needlessly escalating the situation, Easyjet managed to make a mountain out of a molehill. Contact: luke.garner@ talkbusinessmagazine.co.uk Tweet us @talkbusinessmag with your stories of poor customer service. SPONSORED BY
72 July 2014
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30/06/2014 15:19