citizen Evangelist

Seth Godin responded to an earlier post by Joel Spolsky on the Customer Service. Now… unbeknownst to either of these guys is the fact that they are elite members of a team known as my virtual mentors. They have consistently demonstrated over the years that they are worthy of such an esteemed position…

That said, I’m some dissappointed in their posts on this topic.

Note the wikipedia definition of Customer Service:

Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.

In each case, Seth & Joel talk about Customer Service as being isolated to after a purchase. They also reference this as a lowly role that requires a career path and a escalation proces.

See.. that begins to speak at the heart of the problem here. Customer service is servicing the customer. It is the core of what business is and always will be about. It is not a lowly position, it is the only responsibility of an organization. Service the customer and the customer will compensate.

Last fall, I came across a box which really opened my eyes on what’s going on: Noise, by Bart Kosko, shows how it is often difficult to differentiate the signal from the noise, and that often times, the signal in one situation is noise in another. And yes, I realize my characterization of this makes it sound much more esoteric than it is. Consider this: There are too many things that can go wrong and do go wrong before, during, and after the purchase by a customer. In order to reduce the “noise” from the customer, organizations place “resistors” and “transformers” between the customer and the brain in the company. The job of these circuits is to suppress bad signal / noise and to route boost good signals.

The problem: they are disconnected from the brain, and this latency creates its own noise.

I won’t spend a great deal of time droning on because this topic is more than worthy of a book (and has been, many times over). But, I’ll leave you with this one thought: a real life mentor of mine has always taught me that the most important way to structure the organization is this:

Customer
People dealing directly with the customer
People building products / services for the customer
Management of people/processes
Board of Directors

Shouldn’t we all attempt to structure ourselves around the customer?  Once again, Kathy Sierra  (another wonderful vitual mentor) asks the right question:  Who’s wagging who?

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Now, that’s an interesting concept: “customers possess actual rights.”  It’s a sad thing that a company with as many positive attributes as JetBlue would need to react to a congressional intervention in order to construct their own commitment to customers.  The Bill of Rights the company published was far less than I hoped it would be.  There is no heart in the words.. and only minimalistic commitments that any reasonable customer would expect.

A few examples:

Opening statement:  JetBlue Airways exists to provide superior service in every aspect of our customer’s air travel experience. In order to reaffirm this commitment, we set forth this Bill of Rights for our customers.  These Rights will always be subject to the highest level of safety and security for our customers and crewmembers. 

This sounds pretty good.  Superior Service is a good aspirational goal.  What I read after that found its standard at “expected” service.  A far cry from superior.

Cancellations: All customers whose flight is cancelled by JetBlue will, at the customer’s option, receive a full refund or reaccommodation on a future JetBlue flight at no additional charge or fare.

Uhh … perhaps I’m missing something, but I would natually assume that if you’re going to cancel my flight, you’ll either return my money to me or make sure I can get where I need to go.  Failure to do so would be… fraud??

Ground Delays:  For customers who experience a Ground Delay for more than 5 hours, JetBlue will take necessary action so that customers may deplane.

The next time I have to spend more than 5 hours on a plane on a tarmac is the last time I’ll ever fly your airline.  Why not be more accomodating and set the standard at half that time?  And don’t feed me any rhetoric about costs.  Your costs are largely variable and you’re bound to suffer more if you don’t fill your seats.  I can guarentee that my customer lifetime value combined with my willingness to speak negatively about your services will have a far more significant impact that deplaning.  Think about it.

Now.. its unfair of me not to point out a few of the positive stances.  JetBlue does make a commitmentto compensate for certain issues.

Involuntary denial of boarding = $1,000
Departure delay of 1 to 2 hours = $25 voucher
Departure delay of 2 to 4 hours = $50 voucher
Departure delay of 4 to 6 hours = 1 way ticket voucher
Departure delay of +6 = Round trip ticket voucher
Ground delay of 30 to 60 minutes at arrival = $25 voucher
Ground delay of 1 to 2 hours at arrival = $100 voucher
Ground delay of 2 to 3 hours at arrival = 1 way ticket voucher
Ground delay of +3 at arrival = Round trip ticket voucher
Ground delay of 3 to 4 hours = $100 voucher
Ground delay of +4 hours = customer’s round trip ticket value

The only real problem with this: money doesn’t show me that you appreciate my business.  It doesn’t communicate that I’m important.  It puts my mind in a place where money becomes a lever to be used to get things done.  You want to earn my trust?  Don’t delay.  If you do, be sincere and let me know what is going on.  Provide me with information on when I can expect get on my way.  But, most importantly, find something to comfort me during this time of anxiety.  I’m guessing here, but I don’t think I can use those cash vouchers at the restuarant there in the midway… or at the bar.  If I can’t find a way to relax, I’m going to carry that anxiety on to the plane with me and it will add to the negativity felt by all of the passengers.

C’mon guys.  I have higher expectations of you than this.

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I’ve worked on a little handout to help convey my convictions and illustrate the power of the Collaboration Revolution. I do owe credit to Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba for many of their thoughts over the years.  I’ve included a few of the points they made with some of my thoughts.

I also used photos from iStockphoto to pull off the appearance.  I’m certain that I probably need to attribute them in the document as well.

In any event, I hope that you find this useful.

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It’s hard to believe that so much time has passed since my last post. I’ve been heads down trying to finish up my graduate degree, help some friends launch a new company, and figure out how to get the concepts we worked on during Mootcorp. Well, what was known as Extension Eleven will be rebranded as Whisper Labs. The solution set has evolved ever so gradually based upon the feeback of folks we have been working with. I can’t wait to get the product luanched and in the hands of folks.

The best part is that timing couldn’t be better. As I reviewed Harvard Business Review’s Breakthrough ideas for 2007, I realized that our solution stands in the nexus of eleven of the 20. eleven –> 11 –> 1 to 1 –> collaboration. 2007 will be a very nice year.

1. The Accidental Influentials *
Duncan J. Watts
In his best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell argues that “social epidemics” are driven in large part by the actions of a tiny minority of special individuals. The idea seems intuitively right—we think we see it happening all the time. Nevertheless, this isn’t actually how ideas spread. It’s better to focus on getting enough plain, ordinary people to sign on.

2. Entrepreneurial Japan
Yoshito Hori
Japan’s economic rebound is generally attributed to the turnaround of corporate giants and to industry consolidation. But it is also fueled by the emergence of new companies led by entrepreneurs in their twenties and thirties. An entrepreneurial Japan ”no longer an oxymoron” may ultimately overshadow the much touted start-up cultures of China and India.

3. Brand Magic: Harry Potter Marketing
Frederic Dalsace, Coralie Damay, and David Dubois
Most brands target a specific age group. The big problem with this approach is that it positively discourages customer loyalty and, as we all know, it’s a lot cheaper to keep customers than to find new ones. To get around this problem, companies should consider creating brands that mature with their customers.

4. Algorithms in the Attic
Michael Schrage
For a powerful perspective on future business, take a hard look at mathematics past: the old equations collecting dust on academics’ shelves. Just as big firms need the keen eye of an intellectual property curator to appreciate the value of old patents and know-how, they will need savvy mathematicians to resurrect long-forgotten equations that, because of advancing technology, can finally be applied to business.

6. An Emerging Hotbed of User-Centered Innovation *
Eric von Hippel
Most countries, developing and developed alike, view innovation as a vital input to their economic growth and spend varying portions of their national budgets to support it in companies and research labs, for the ultimate benefit of essentially passive consumers. Denmark is taking a different tack: It’s making “user-centered innovation” a national priority.

9. When to Sleep on It
Ap Dijksterhuis
Use your conscious mind to acquire all the information you need to arrive at a difficult decision, but don’t try to analyze it. Instead, go on holiday and let your unconscious mind digest the information for a day or two. Whatever your intuition then tells you is almost certainly going to be the best choice.

11. Innovation and Growth: Size Matters *
Geoffrey B. West
Newfound general mathematical relationships between population size, innovation, and wealth creation challenge the conventional wisdom that smaller innovation functions are more inventive. They may explain why few organizations today have matched the creativity of a giant like Bell Labs in its heyday.

12. Conflicted Consumers
Karen Fraser
Your customer data indicate strong consumer satisfaction: Repeat purchase levels are high, and many customers have been with you for years. Good news, right? Well, appearances can be deceptive. Buried in the data may be a stealth segment of apparently loyal customers whose ethical concerns make them ready to bolt as soon as an alternative emerges.

15. Act Globally, Think Locally *
Yoko Ishikura
Companies are usually told to “think globally and act locally.” But thanks to their own global information systems and the Internet, knowledge from faraway places can be acquired relatively easily and cheaply. This means that firms have to discover and quickly incorporate good ideas from these diverse sources before their rivals do.

17. The Best Networks Are Really Worknets *
Christopher Meyer
The assumption is that if you build a network platform, people will come. If you expect to get real value from your initiative, though, you must think hard and in advance about exactly what function you want the network to perform. That will help you choose the participants, the nature of their experiences, and the technology. In other words, put the work in “network” first.

19. In Defense of “Ready, Fire, Aim”
Clay Shirky
The bulk of open source projects fail, and most of the remaining successes are quite modest. Still, open systems are a profound threat to many businesses, not only because they outsucceed commercial firms but, more important, because they outfail them.

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