RSSA fairly big component of the work I am doing at the moment is focussed on improving the way our customers experience Telstra, right from the time before they are even considering our products, through to their post-purchase interactions with the company.
One of the biggest challenges I face is to step outside my everyday role as a Telstra employee and view the company from the eyes of a customer. I am sure that this is not only a problem I face, but one that a lot of people have when trying to improve the way customers interact with a company. We seem to get so caught up in “the way we do things”, or the processes we follow internally, and forget that to a customer none of that really matters.
One way to overcome this problem is to view each interaction with a customer as a ”transaction”. That is, when a customer deals with a company it is because they generally want to achieve a specific outcome. The role of the company in this “transaction” is to make it as easy as possible for the customer to achieve that outcome. The customer doesn’t generally care how the company does this internally, just that they get what they need from the interaction.
This model applies both in the typical notion of a transaction such as a purchase, as well as any other customer interaction, such as going online to search for product information, or calling a call-centre to report a fault. These can all be viewed as “transactions”.
This transaction-based view of the world is useful when trying to see things from a customers perspective. By always thinking “how would the customer want this transaction to occur?”, it is much easier to see where issues may arise and problems occur, rather than trying to shoehorn customers into already existing processes or methods that are internal to the company.
I should point out that the overall customer experience of a company is usually made up of many “transactions” with that company, and as such care must be taken to ensure the overall experience is an excellent one. However, breaking the experience down into its individual components can be a useful way to view things, as long as the customer’s end-to-end experience is a good one.
December 5, 2008 at 11:12 am
I have a different way of tackling the same challenge. I try to get the organisation I work for (a large Australian bank) to see the customers as “doing life” rather than “doing transactions”.
eg
A failure to transfer money by phone banking isn’t a “phone banking transaction difficulty” in the eyes of the customer. It is a “can’t get money across to my MasterCard to buy the concert tickets for the gig of the year”
Encountering a rude or unhelpful staff member in a branch isn’t “a poor branch transaction”. It is more like “that person really made me fell crap and ruined my morning”.
The reverse of these types of scenarios is equally compelling. I feel very fortunate to be a role which gives me access to true “voice of customer”, through our complaint data and channels like Twitter. I get to *feel* what it’s like when we get the transaction right and when we make a complete meal of it.
Keep up your efforts on improving the customer experience. Australia has slipped, IMHO, in retail service quality. It’s great to see a growing number of people committed to making a difference.
In terms of further reading, I can highly recommend the various “Consumer Emotions Study” research papers released by Psychologica, SOCAP et al. Older versions (up to ~2005) are available on the ‘net. Invaluable reading for someone in your role.
DJ
December 5, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Hi Derek,
Thanks for the reply. Your comment has made me realise that I didnt adequately explain what I meant by viewing each transaction through the eyes of the customer.
What I meant by this was to do as you say, to view an attempt to transfer money not as a “phone banking transaction” (an internal to teh company view of the world), but rather as a “getting money to where I need it transaction” (customer view of the world).
What you have suggested takes this one step further which I think is a very valuable insight. As well as viewing the transaction from the customers perspective, it is useful to think about why the customer is doing it. I will certainly take that on board.
Shugg
December 8, 2008 at 12:10 pm
A large part of the task ahead of you, no doubt, will be getting customers to notice the change rather than just assume a random staff member has been nice of their own accord.
How will you be able to implement these changes company wide? Surely starting with one department followed by another and another might miss some important opportunities. If a customer receives great service in one area but has a negative experience the next time, wouldn’t all the hard work come undone? Then the company has to start all over again with that customer.
It’s a very interesting project. I look forward to hearing how it progresses.
July 1, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Hey Shane. You recently started following me on Twitter (@n3rdfury) and out of curiosity I read some of your comments on Telstra. I’m a front-line FOH SC who started in our fabulous online space (email, then chat, a little correspondence), and has recently been moved onto the phones to a) help cement new system knowledge (I don’t want to name anything here, for obvious reasons, but you know what I’m talking about specifically) and to gain a ‘holistic’ view of the company. Tough going from online to phones, but I agree with the needs of the business to make sure everyone is up there with knowledge and flexibility.
I was interested to see you’re taking a cust-sat POV on cust-sat – working the front line, do you know what makes a customer happy? Not up-selling. Many of my customers tell me they hate the selling spiel – wireless and security on every damn call! They hate it, but our targets require us to do it.
For the last two months I spent time working BOH work, helping out the Wendouree team do remediations, and it struck me like a brick just how many poor sales there were, and how many people I’d have to call and advise that “I’m sorry, Mr. Smith, but that offer you were offered is not available to you because you’re not a new customer,” or “Hi, miss Green? Just calling about your recent order with us, we need to get a few details for the credit assessment – uh, what do you mean you never asked for wireless? Oh, you wanted a wi-fi modem?” I have a stack of dealer feedback forms and RightWays to cover our building.
Not to mention the overseas centres we have, and localised poor SCs who seem to be staffed by people that like to transfer back to similarly trained colleagues if it’s remotely complex, and seem to think with their targets and AHT over satisfaction. I myself have been on the receiving end of the “Oh, I’ll just have to pass you to our specialist billing team, sir” stick. And they tried to get me on wireless, promising me it would be cheaper than my ADSL and better suited to my usage despite my lack of laptop and 50GB+ usage per month.
I know we’re a business and all, and I know we need to make money, but people are generally angry when they have to deal with that, and then we’re expected to upsell them security et al. We’ve got gubbermental restrictions, boss, and customers want a reason to stay – we’ve cornered the techie, never-goes-down aspect, but the average consumer doesn’t notice that or care that much – and we’ll probably never corner the price market – so we really need to refocus back on customer satisfaction over sales targets and AHT.
Sorry to ramble, but your post struck a chord – it’s nice to see someone that wants what I want.
Now, I just gotta hope you don’t want to let my manager know I’m some kind of dissenter.
Oh, and these are solely my views and are not condoned and do not represent views by Telstra Group nor any of its subsidiaries, staff or management!