UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI): Institute of Customer Service

What do customers want from contact centers: McKinsey

Poor customer service costs UK firms billions – so why can’t they get it right?: Consumer affairs | The Guardian

 

[00:00:00] James: hello, I'm James.

[00:00:05] Jimmy: Hi, I'm Jimmy.

[00:00:06] James: Welcome to A Job Done Well,

[00:00:08] Jimmy: the podcast about the world of work and how to improve the daily grind

[00:00:12] James: Good afternoon, how are you doing? What are we talking about this week

[00:00:14] Jimmy: What's up? Ah, in trying to understand why and where for presumably. Should be very interesting. I actually would say

[00:00:29] James: why and wherefore presumably.

Should be very interesting. Well actually I would say that, wouldn't I? Right then, what else can you tell me?

[00:00:40] Jimmy: Well, this week, James, I was made

redundant

this

[00:00:44] James: And funnily enough,

[00:00:45] Jimmy: Again? Again. And, and, funny enough, we are doing an episode

[00:00:49] James: children. They went

[00:00:50] Jimmy: But no, this was just, this was by my children. They went to London yesterday.

The city of my birth. The place where I spent years going backwards and forwards

[00:01:01] James: they were going

[00:01:02] Jimmy: hand. Exactly. They didn't talk to me about the fact they were going there.

They didn't ask my advice on how to get there.

The quickest, cheapest, easiest routes. They didn't ask me on where they should go shopping, where they should eat, nothing. They were not interested in

[00:01:15] James: Your opinion was irrelevant.

[00:01:18] Jimmy: I'm redundant from giving them

[00:01:19] James: advice.

And then, how do you feel about that?

[00:01:22] Jimmy: We'll talk about that in a few episodes time.

[00:01:24] James: How

[00:01:24] Jimmy: How about you, what have you been up

[00:01:25] James: been up to? Well, you know, I declared satisfaction on the old garden. The builder's gone. They're gone? No, no, no, no, no, no. Mrs. Love has been out and bought God knows how many plants. So after this, I'm going back and I am planting.

That's my job. I've got me nice little trowel and my little neeler things and that's me. I'm away

[00:01:43] Jimmy: got a kneeler? Yeah,

[00:01:44] James: yeah middle aged neeler, mate

[00:01:46] Jimmy: Jesus, you are such an old fogey,

[00:01:49] James: tragic. Well, I yeah, I need one at least i've got

[00:01:52] Jimmy: gone. So this

series of podcasts we're going to do, we're going to be inviting guests along to explore This subject of customer experience in the UK. So did you know James, , that we have changed from being a manufacturing economy to a service economy. So 81 percent of the UK's economic output comes from service industries and 83 percent of us are employed in the service industry.

So it is vitally important to the UK economy. And so what we are going to be doing is we're going to get guests on to talk about a few questions that we'll go through in a second and give some insights on how their organizations and their experience and their leaders think about service, how it's delivered and how you can improve it.

So the questions are, and , we as a kickoff, we are going to answer those questions today. We're going to give our opinions. And then we're going to have a range of people coming in occasionally to answer them.

[00:02:54] James: and see what they think. So go on then, what are the four questions? Right,

[00:03:01] Jimmy: So what do you think the state of customer experience is in the UK? Bearing in mind it's such an important part of the economy. How are we doing? Then the second one is, why do you think So what's your evidence for saying that? And how do you think we've ended up? In the position that you're saying we are.

[00:03:20] Jimmy: Who does this well?

[00:03:21] James: economy. Yep.

[00:03:22] Jimmy: And how would you improve customer experience?

[00:03:26] James: Right then.

[00:03:27] Jimmy: So they're the four questions

[00:03:28] Jimmy: Right, so let's start. What do you think the state of customer experience is in the UK? 80 percent of us work in it. How are we doing?

A

[00:03:39] James: think that on the whole, it's a bit mixed, but it's pretty much the same as it has been.

[00:03:45] Jimmy: that.

[00:03:46] James: And let me explain why I think that. So, when, and I'm going back a bit right, when in the 19, I'm going back a long way, in the 1970s, I remember vividly going to the bank with my dad. Yes. Yeah, and it was a big thing.

If we went away for the weekend, my dad had to get to the bank before 12 o'clock on a Saturday, . Yeah. Because after that the bloody bank closed, and if the bank closed we wouldn't have any cash, and that would be the weekend up in smoke. Yeah, and this was a routine that we had to do. And,

I mean, that's pretty poor, isn't it? ? The customer service, you can't get your money. And you start to think about that and you think on the one hand, well, the technology is amazing, right? You go through, first of all, you had them, they'll hold in the walls, the cash points. Then you moved into the chip and pins.

He didn't need the cash at all. And now you've got internet banking and you can do it all over your phone. And the positive is. My bank is now a, it's a wine bar. I it is a wine bar. . It quite literally is a wine bar. So on the one hand, the technology I think has moved us on leaps and bounds and the things which were just painful you don't have to do anymore.

Yeah. Same. You can go to the post office or whatever it might be. A lot of that stuff is gone from the world.

[00:04:59] Jimmy: Measure,

[00:05:00] James: if you take that as your measure. Yeah. Yes. But on the other hand. I do remember when I go into the bank And you used to have to stand and wait, didn't you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And now what you do is you phone them and you sit and wait.

[00:05:15] Jimmy: Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:05:16] James: Yeah, absolutely. So on the one hand, things have got much, much better, but on the other hand, they haven't got better at all. ,

And then you then add onto that the fact that actually, , the service industry has grown massively. So, like I said, when I was a kid, it was the bank and the post office. Well, now I've got me internet, I've got me broadband, I've got me mobile phone, I've got online delivery, whatever it might be.

But now I have to deal with a whole plethora of suppliers, most of whom, frankly although they're giving me something, a project that I couldn't have when I was a kid. Yeah. , the quality of the service that they deliver is just a bit woeful. They tie themselves up in knots.

And they really aren't thinking about what they're doing. So let me give you a case in point, because I'm banging on a bit. .

So I think I mentioned it in one of our episodes, but I tried a new 3Dongle.

Right, this is the new 5G Wi Fi thing. They sent it to me. It sort of worked, but it didn't work. That's why I returned it. Yeah. And then, , to return it, you know, if it had been Amazon, I'd have just clicked the button and I would have returned it. They'd have printed me a label. No, no, no, no.

I had to call an Indian call center. ? And then, obviously they don't want me to return it. So then I had to, got passed through to a logistics company who do the returns for them. And they said they'd send me a label. ? Three working days. Three working days to send a label over the internet this is.

Right? And then of course nothing happened. But I need to return this dongle. So then I phoned them again and I went to the call centre and then I went to the logistics. They're three working days. I got the label.

[00:06:48] Jimmy: So

[00:06:49] James: you. Right? So then I

printed the label off and I posted it. Now the thing was, I have to say, I'll come to this later.

Return via DPD. Oh, I think they're

[00:06:58] Jimmy: Yeah, DPD

[00:06:59] James: Yeah, DPD picked it up.

. They sent me a nice little e mail saying We've dropped off your dongle. A week later, I get an e mail from this telephony supplier, saying they're going to bill me because I haven't returned my dongle.

I'm thinking, hang on, I've got an e mail telling me you've got my dongle.

 So then of course what do I do? I phone the Indian call centre and then I follow the logistics firm and da da da da da and then they need to know what the return number is, the ticket number that I got from DPD. Anyway, my point being, oh, go on on this for hours.

But, the quality of service is just dreadful because it wasn't well thought through, it's just disjointed. And so like I say, on the one hand I think things have got an awful lot better, but on the other hand, I don't think we're good at it, we don't manage service well.

[00:07:42] Jimmy: I think there's a couple of interesting points there, Jones, the changes over time.

, you're talking about the banking changes. And I can remember , when we were young and you went into the branch, and then they started making you use the telephone. I couldn't use the telephone. I was like, hated it. And then you got used to it. I did everything over the phone.

I couldn't imagine going into a branch And then they brought in apps and online. And I was like, I can't do this online.

I do it on the phone. Then you get used to the online. And I couldn't, I can't ring them up now. I don't want to speak to them. I don't want to go in a branch. So it's interesting how your behavior changes over time.

I think we'll come back to that. But also, let's say the plethora of service providers that you then now interact with. Right. So it used to be like. Like

the bank, post office, a few shops, , but now the retail experience you have is constant, , health, wellness, , logistics, suppliers, , financial services, TV, media, these are all service industries.

[00:08:45] James: So I have a slightly different view. So I think, I

[00:08:52] Jimmy: just horrible. So I have a slightly different view from you. , I don't think back as far as you. And,

[00:08:59] James: deeper thinker

[00:09:01] Jimmy: And which is surprising because, well, you are definitely a deeper thinker than me.

But we're the same age. Despite the people think I'm 10 years younger

[00:09:09] James: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:09:10] Jimmy: But anyhow, I think more recently, I think service in the UK is getting worse. And I think it's getting significantly worse. And my evidence for that is twofold. If you look at.

I know this is a generalization, right? So but if you look at the Institute of Customer Service, they do surveys and they look across all service industries and their trend has been downwards in the last two years of overall

[00:09:37] James: Yeah.

[00:09:38] Jimmy: And it is the lowest since 2015. The Observe did a piece of analysis last year and they worked out that the UK is losing. 11. 4 billion pounds a month in fixing problems with service companies fixing stuff rather than get it right first time we're fixing stuff.

And thirdly the FOS

complaints. So this is the financial ombudsman and they deal with complaints from people about their financial services firms. Their complaints last period were up 20 percent . And they uphold a third of those in the customer's favor. So that would tell me complaints are going up and organizations are wrong.

So I think there's a macro picture that we've talked about. But I think my experience is, is quite schizophrenic. So I think that large organizations that I deal with, and this is very subjective. This is my experience dealing with companies like Virgin Media, Zurich, Barclays. I've had complaints about all three of those and I deal with many, many more, but all of those are difficult to deal with.

I think they're not trustworthy, their treatment's poor , when they want to put things right, when they eventually accept something's wrong, they do, but I'd rather they got it right first time. So I think big organizations are useless at customer service in general. However,

I think small organizations deliver in general.

Fantastic service. If I think about local shops, local businesses, trades, , I think they really value their customers. They know the importance of their customers. They take pride in what they're doing. They try and understand and deliver what their customers. So my take on customer experience in the UK is downwards, but it's a game of two halves.

Big organizations on the down, small, still doing a great job.

[00:11:34] James: but I think therein lies the point, ? So coffee shops, if you go into one of the big multiple coffee shops, it's distinctly

Whereas if you go into your local coffee shop Invariably the service is a lot better, right?

And the reason why the service is a lot better is if the service isn't good, they go out of business pretty bitty quickly.

[00:11:52] Jimmy: the reason why the service is better is if the service isn't good, then you're out of business pretty quickly. But you know, in, on average it's five times more expensive to recruit a new customer than is paying an existing, , your profit is greater and, , there's a correlation between satisfaction and profit.

[00:12:20] James: don't have a theory. So there's

[00:12:23] Jimmy: and so is revenue. So, , you take more money in, you make more profit.

Why don't big organizations get

[00:12:30] James: that? So And you're going to like this. It's a bit like running a bath.

a bath. Yeah.

So if you think about it, yeah, when you when you've got a business with customers, it's a bit like a bath full of water, right? On the one hand, you've got the taps on bringing new customers in. And on the other hand, you've got the plug out new customers going out.

Yeah.

If you've got a small business with not many customers, actually what's going out the plug hole makes a big, big difference.

You notice it.

[00:12:59] Jimmy: More noticeable.

[00:13:00] James: Yeah. If you've got a big business with well. Companies we've worked with, millions of customers. Then actually what happens is the organization starts to worry about the water in the bath. Yeah? The customers they've got. And they don't worry or see how much water is going out of the plug hole. Yeah? So you start to manage the bath rather than managing the plug hole.

[00:13:22] Jimmy: That that's, that's, that's a good analogy. Right.

[00:13:24] James: and if you're managing the bath rather than the plug hole, then you're into, how can I get as much money out of this bath full of water as possible? Yeah? Rather than taking a long term view and thinking, Oh my lord, yeah, let's put the plug in.

[00:13:36] Jimmy: think the interesting thing in parallel to that, James, is if you're worrying about the size of the bath, and a lot of companies see the size of the bath as just the financial performance, just, it's just the numbers, you know.

[00:13:48] James: they've got,

[00:13:49] Jimmy: I think that in the last couple of years, organizations have got much more focused on their cost and, , they're forgetting about the fundamental principles around satisfying customers, about, , good service costs less, you know, the acquisition numbers I was throwing around, all that sort of stuff's gone out the window because they're just focusing on the downward pressure on cost.

[00:14:13] James: Yeah, well, but it's how can I make as much money as possible out of the customers that I have got?

[00:14:18] Jimmy: possible out of the customers that I've got. Yeah, but, if you

[00:14:25] James: Yeah, but if you are worried about it from a short term perspective,

[00:14:30] Jimmy: it's

[00:14:30] James: yeah, then really it's very easy to not worry about your customer service because particularly for business to consumer organizations, yeah, the consumer doesn't have much power in this.

The only thing they can do is leave and actually switching costs are a bit of a pain. So probably a lot of them will stick around for a while. Yeah. So the customer has no power. So actually, you know, you make them wait on a call center or you don't do what you say you're going to do It's very easy to save money by salami slicing away the service that's offered

[00:15:01] Jimmy: designers.

, to sum up, where we are so far, you think service is much the same, I think service has got worse, we both agree.

because they're managing the bathwater. So the

[00:15:12] James: Yeah

[00:15:13] Jimmy: more than anything. I think another thing though, which I think links to managing the bathwater, , back to that transition, we were talking about going through banking where you went from branch to phone to

online that happened over a lot of years and I think it was a little bit uncomfortable for me at times, but I Did it at a certain pace and I got used to it and I learnt it and I adapted my behaviours and I of reaped the benefits.

I think today, the chase for technology in a lot of organisations, are going through, , chatbots, AI, robotics, all these sorts of technologies, that definitely , can add value and have a place, but it's just Throw everything at it, it's a solution for all sorts of things, and design it from a cost perspective, rather than a customer

[00:16:01] James: Yeah, but it's oh, we were talking jargon the other day, weren't we, and one of the phrases I like was jump the shark. , I'm taking you bit of jargon here, jump the customer, so what do I mean by that?

So if you think about it, right, you provide a service, stage 1, to a customer, stage 2, and the customer gives you some money, stage 3, ?

The problem is that a lot of organizations are very short term focused and what they do is they jump the customer, they're only worried about the money.

[00:16:29] Jimmy: the other

[00:16:29] James: And if you start to focus on the money and you've got a load of short term targets to hit.

It's very easy to not worry about the customer at all and just start to focus on the financials.

Yeah. There was a McKinsey survey that you showed me and I can't remember

[00:16:46] Jimmy: one about the one about volumes yeah that's I mean that's scary What they were saying is that, basically call volumes had increased over recent years.

Yeah. And organizations were not worried about the particular increases in call volumes, which is scary in itself. But 57 percent of people in service industries, running service organizations, believe that call volumes would go up 20 percent in the next couple of years. Right,

[00:17:19] James: so

you've got,

[00:17:20] Jimmy: That's going through the roof.

[00:17:21] James: yeah, of course, you've got volumes going up.

[00:17:23] Jimmy: up. Yeah. Right?

[00:17:24] James: Which, A, suggests you're not managing your system terribly well, because people don't want to be calling.

Yeah? Yeah? And then the other thing was, the number of people, or the percentage of people, were worrying about mitigating volumes was, what, 20 percent or something like that?

? So volumes are going up. People aren't worried about trying to mitigate. What are they worried about? They're worried about revenues.

And then the other thing they were worried about was,

and I shouldn't laugh, but AI. Right?

[00:17:49] Jimmy: everyone

[00:17:50] James: So everybody's getting hot and frothy about AI to try and service all these calls, which they shouldn't be getting in the first place because they screwed something up.

[00:17:58] Jimmy: up.

Yeah. And, and actually things like AI are fantastic if used in the right way to help your customers, At the moment it's being used to help cut costs. And it's not necessarily solving customer problems, which is why volumes of contacts are going up because you're not satisfying that demand. So I think,

[00:18:20] James: using it to address the symptom, not the cause.

[00:18:22] Jimmy: and the best delivery of digital technology improvements, I believe, are the ones that are designed with the customer in mind and often with the customers, co created with the customers.

And then you've got every chance of satisfying the needs and then adopting it. At the moment, we've been forced down certain routes that make it almost impossible at times to speak to somebody. And when you do, you eventually get to speak to somebody. Rarely do they have the capability or the authority to deal with your problems.

[00:18:56] James: And I do think there's a little bit here just about lack of ability to understand and manage a service system.

Right? So what do I mean by that? Well, if the economy has changed so rapidly from a manufacturing industry to a service

Actually, understanding how a service industry works and how to do it is a skill that a lot of people don't have because it's, it's something new.

On that point,

We should take a break to hear from our sponsor.

[00:19:24] James: We cover a whole host of topics on this

[00:19:27] Jimmy: Purpose to corporate jargon.

[00:19:29] James: but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well.

[00:19:32] Jimmy: Easier said than done. So, If you've got Unhappy customers or employees Bosses or regulators Breathing down your neck

[00:19:41] James: of control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised just keeps failing to deliver. So

[00:19:51] Jimmy: Can help if you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organization's.

Get in touch at jimmy at jobdonewell. com

[00:20:01] James: Or james at jobdonewell. com.

[00:20:04] James: Right.

[00:20:06] Jimmy: So

[00:20:07] James: ranting about?

[00:20:07] Jimmy: , so we talked about state of customer experience in the UK. Why do we think it's that way and why did it get that way? But tell me James, who does this well?

[00:20:18] James: Organisations that I think do this well. The obvious one is Amazon.

[00:20:23] Jimmy: Yeah.

[00:20:24] James: Well, people, yeah, well, I don't think it is. I think people can bitch and moan about Amazon. They've got a bad rep for the way they treat their people. Yes, get that. However,

Do

you know, if I want some screws, I go on Amazon.

If I want a book, I go on Amazon. Yeah, well, it just, it saves me. Yeah, everything. . And what I order, they deliver it. day.

[00:20:48] Jimmy: I know I'm a relatively intelligent person. I still don't understand how all of these things, it doesn't matter which of the millions of things I order, they can still get it to me

[00:20:58] James: don't know

[00:20:58] Jimmy: unreal if you think about

[00:20:59] James: it.

Yeah. They very rarely don't deliver and when they don't deliver it, what do they do? No questions asked. None of this faffing about with three call centers, like my favorite telephony supplier. Yeah. They send you a label and you can return it, or they give you a refund. Bang. Just like that. No messing about.

Yeah, and so you've got this huge amount of customer trust in the organization. Yeah, and I think they do a brilliant job. But the point is, I mean, it was Jeff Bezos thing, wasn't it? Be the world's most customer centric company.

But it does show the art of the possible. So there's one.

The other two that I think would call out DPD, I think, well, maybe that's linked to Amazon, but the delivery company.

Yeah. Right. No faffing about. We've got it. We've put, taken it to where we said we were going to take it easy to do, easy to manage. I think they do a fantastic job. And then the other one that I really would call out actually, but it's the same sort of thing is John Lewis. .

? Thing for me with John Lewis, I remember vividly going in, it was about

five o'clock on a Wednesday evening. This poor bloke, he'd obviously got his paperwork to do, he's sitting there, he's got files out and God knows what, he's biro, he's not having a good time.

And I walked in and I stood there and I was expecting to get a good stiff ignoring and he looked up at me and he said, Oh, I'm sorry, sir. And I said, Oh, sorry, busy. Cause he's obviously got finished before. He said, Oh, I'm never too busy for a customer, sir. But it's just that whole attitude. Yeah. And what'd you do?

You you buy things from

[00:22:30] Jimmy: right? It's like your middle class comfy slipper,

[00:22:32] James: well, absolutely. Yeah. John Lewis and Volvos. You can't go wrong.