Niko Herzeg Marketing

Today I went to buy a new card for public transport in Rotterdam. The machine where you can buy those things did not work. Kind of. It took my money, but it did not give me a card. So I was forced to go to the office of the transport and report this. Once there, I handed over the receipt I got from the machine on which you could see the amount taken from me and my bank account.

As I was asking for a cash reimbursement, the lady behind what I can only hope is bulletproof glass, told me she could not help me. Yes I had a monetary receipt, but I did not have a confirmation receipt that showed that the transaction was completed. Now of course I tried to explain that, since the transaction was aborted before I got the fucking card, I was not able to get a confirmation receipt.

She handed me 20-question double sides a4 form and told me to fill it out wait for the bank statement and then send everything to headquarters. “You are going to have to work a bit to get your money back young man”, is what she told me while not even trying to hide her smugness.

Customer service. I will go out on a limb here and state that any category can be turned on its head by two things:
1. Offer something that, customers expect will deliver the tangible/tech benefits all brands in the category provide, but just a bit better.
2. Put the customer first in every process that, if not executed well, will have a negative effect on the customer experience.

Look around you and tell me I am wrong. While everybody is putting on more bells and whistles, toying with web 2.0 and social media and the likes, driving trough internal agendas, how many companies can you count that really make it a pleasure to do business with them. Not many.

Of course in the case of the RET, they have little incentive to put me the customer first and take care of the little things like simple refunds. They will tell me they have just installed a new payment system with electronic cards and stuff and point to that as thinking of customers.

Conviently forgetting no customer needed to old way of paying for fairs to go (though a case can be made for forced progress of an society. I just don’t buy it). It was an internally driven development now marketed as something done with the customer in mind. But easily receiving my refund, well that is just not important to a customer…

Yes, there are sometimes instances of major category game changing gangbusters. And yes, we should not shy away from chasing them.

But the reality is that if we do that which the category promises just a bit better than the rest and put the customer front and centre in out actions and service, we most likely will blow the rest out of the water.

Now of course just because I make it sound this simple, does not make it easy. It involves changing culture in companies, hiring practices, research and execution.

Yet when 80% of business says they provide great customer service and only 5%-10% of their customers confirm this, well it is an advantage worth the trouble.