Refine & Redefine

Consumers Want Fast, Friendly Service

More than a third of consumers report having had a bad experience with a service provider, and the vast majority of them took time to complain about it, a recent survey finds.

The consulting firm Accenture surveyed 1,000 consumers about in-home service calls, and found that while most people still pick up the phone to complain to the company, many are increasingly going to online sites like Facebook and Angie’s List to lodge their grievances. Twenty percent of consumers under age 35 said they expressed their views online, compared with about half that for those age 35 to 44.

Consumers are also willing to go to another provider because of bad service: 63 percent of complainers, or 23 percent of the total, said they switched to a different company, and 77 percent of complainers (28 percent of the total) looked to use other service providers more often.

The survey findings also suggest that consumers judge companies like cable and satellite providers, appliance installation and repair firms, home improvement contractors and utilities not only on the range of services they provide, but also on how well they perform them — and on how promptly they fix things when something goes wrong.

In other words, customers want their cable company to deliver high-speed Internet connections. But they may care even more that the cable guy can fix that broken modem on the first try. Younger consumers, in particular, have higher expectations for friendly, knowledgeable customer service.

Based on the survey, Accenture offers this consumer-friendly advice to companies: Invest in training your service representatives, and outsource with care. And rather than focusing on managing the company’s reputation in online forums, companies should invest in providing better service overall. “Social media can be an asset or a liability,” the survey analysis says. The answer, the analysis went on, “rests very much in how well the company provides service in the first place.”

Have you had a particularly bad experience with in-home services? How did you complain? And did you switch companies as a result?

Source: NY Times Blog

SBI launches SMS UNHAPPY Scheme

Today, the State Bank of India introduced a unique customer service initiative for its 130 million customers. The Chairman, Shri O.P Bhatt, while launching the scheme across the country from the Bank’s Local Head Office at Bhopal, expressed great happiness over being able to make this offering to the public. The scheme named “SMS Unhappy” has been tested out on a pilot basis at select centres since last October, and having received highly encouraging response, is now being rolled out pan India.

Ordinarily, a consumer who has a complaint, or has encountered a problem, would need to lodge a written complaint with his branch, or send an email to the Bank, giving the details of his account number, and the problem to be resolved. Many customers find it difficult to do this in the midst of their many priorities, and so put off reporting a complaint, even though the issue remains alive.

For the first time, here we have a Bank going out to its customers, inviting them to just send one SMS, “Unhappy”, to the number 8008202020. The rest of the action rests with the Bank. In a perfectly automated fashion, this message reaches the “Happy Room” at the Bank’s Circle Headquarters, from where executives who are passionate about customer delight, call the customer on his mobile phone, understand from him the exact nature of the problem faced by him, assure him of prompt resolution, and escalate this issue to the office which has to take action. What is more, when the required action has been taken, the customer is contacted by his branch and the Happy Room to update him on what has been done. Most of the complaints are closed within 48 hours. Needless to say, this results in absolute delight for the customer. Feedback received from the pilot run, has been very encouraging. Initial customer reactions to this proactive initiative on the part of the nation’s largest Bank, have been very positive. Already complaints have shown a decreasing trend.
What is so special about this initiative is that, having sent one SMS, the customer has absolutely nothing to do; his mind can be at rest, and he is assured of speedy results. Working just on SMS, the facility can be accessed at any time of day or night, from anywhere– even while waiting for a flight to take off! And what’s more, being paperless, it is a Green Banking initiative.

With the national launch of this initiative, and widening of its reach, consumers of banking services can look forward to a new era of fast, hassle-free complaint resolution, and, better, delightful experiences with their Bank.

What do you think will this initiative help in bringing down number of complaints? Share your thoughts with us

Source: http://bit.ly/hZiHda