Faith is a wonderful thing.
And even though you know about it because your parents teach you about it or because some teacher invested some time in you or simply because you love George Michael, it never ceases to amaze me how having faith in one's employees affects CRM.
Today I had to throw out about 30 tires, previously used for safely docking boats (I have yet to buy 7 cars) and I found myself in the unpleasant position of having loaded them into a rented truck with nowhere to take them. After trying unsuccessfully at a couple garbage disposal companies, I had a "Check out the big brain on Brett!" moment and I decided to try a... tire shop. Mercifully, the guy behind the counter, Jonas at Saltjöbadens Däck & Bilservice, said he'd take them in at no cost. He made a split second, honest, sincere & altruistic decision to help me out when I was in need and, as a result, won me as a customer for the rest of my days, so help me God. Of course, I felt obliged to offer him a bottle of whiskey in return, but the fact of the matter remains: as things stand today, I never intend to change my winter/summer tires anywhere else.
Of course, this led me to think (surprise, this time that didn't turn out badly) that this kind of client satisfaction is something all companies should wish for. I suddenly remembered some examples I've heard on the subject, over time.
I believe when empowered with taking decisions, most employees will take the right one. Of course, there's a huge discussion looming over this subject, but bare with me for these stories (some are famous).
1. A guy that has a reservation to pick up a rental car from Avis comes out of an airport and waits in the rain for the Avis bus, who's not showing. Ironically, the Hertz bus drives by two times, and the third time the driver stops, picks up the guy standing in the rain and drops him off at the Avis office. Guess who's gonna use Hertz from now on?
2. A guy working for a company that has never produced tires buys back from a returning, unsatisfied customer a set of counterfeit tires wearing the company's name, without even letting the customer know that they don't make such products.
3. A guy behind the counter working for an airline decides to buy all passengers from a cancelled flight reroute business tickets at competitor companies, because all flights were fully booked in economy.
These three are all examples when the employee steps up and does what most would consider unthinkable, yet profoundly humane. And even if companies do not like the "unpredictable" or the humane (or maybe precisely because of that) these are the two sure fire ingredients that will turn a client into a follower for a very long time. Not to mention the benefits of the PR this kind of stories generate.
Now, these stories are spectacular in themselves, but spectacular stories only comes ever so often, and in the case of CRM, they are even more rare. Moreover, even when they happen, you can't be sure all will turn out well for everyone involved. For example, the airline guy in example three got fired. What companies need to find, if they want to think long-term, is a way to turn this kind of client satisfaction thinking into something more. Maybe into a strategy. No, better yet, into a spectacular strategy.
Take this guy, for example, Jan Carlzon, former CEO of SAS, from another story I've heard recently. He found out about some hotel which had the highest customer satisfaction scores in the world (way beyond the runner-up), and decided he wanted to find out why. The guy books a room at that hotel, spends the night, enjoys some of the facilities, and then asks for a meeting with the manager, still puzzled with not having figured out the answer. In the end, he found out that the employees at the hotel were obligated to ask permission from a manager if they were put in a position to say no to a customer, instead of having to ask permission to the manager to say yes, as we all know it happens everywhere else in the world.
What do you think?
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