Jan 2008
And the winner in the “Most Worthless CRM Technology” category is…
11/01/08 23:39
I don’t usually blog about this sort of thing. The folks at Grokdotcom (especially Melissa) do a great job of critiquing specific online and customer service “experiences” (disasters), but I just tend to shrug them off and move on.
But recently I’ve had a string of really bad experiences with live chat. Often enough and bad enough that I wanted to comment and point out some common threads I’ve noticed in the poor application of chat technology. Ok, and also just to vent. Here’s a session I had last night on the Apple website, as I was preparing to purchase a MacBook Pro and decided to check out the financing option:
*************************************
You are chatting with Alan, an Apple Expert
Hi, my name is Alan. Welcome to Apple!
Alan: Hi, How are you?
You: Hi. I am looking to do this just to finance a MacBook Pro to replace one I need to return to work. How likely is it that I will be approved?
Alan: I don’t really know. The Juniper Visa Card is associated with Barclays Bank.
You: Are there other financing options?
Alan: You can use a Bank Debit card.
You: A debit card is not financing. That’s cash. Do you know if the card is any easier to qualify for because it is sponsored by Apple?
Alan: Just another minute…
[Almost 5 minutes later]
Alan: The Juniper Visa Card with iTunes Rewards is a credit card issued by Juniper, a division of Barclays Bank Delaware.
Alan: There are two ways to apply. From the main page of the Store, apply before you shop by clicking on the ‘Juniper Visa Card with iTunes Rewards’ tile - OR - apply from the ‘Select a Payment Method’ page during the Checkout process.
Alan: I would recommend filling out the application as they are very good at getting back to you as to weather you are approved.
You: Again, my question is: do you know if this is any easier to qualify for because it is sponsored by Apple?
You: And do you know which credit bureau they check for your credit scores? Can you find out for me?
Alan: I can’t find out for you because it is not sponsored by Apple. It is a completely separate company.
Alan: In Chat I do not have access to personal information.
You: Do you know of any companies that do leasing for Apple equipment?
Alan: I really don’t.
You: Can I get a transcript of this conversation?
Alan: Yes, but only by copy and paste on your end.
You: Ok. signing off. I’m disappointed that this chat was totally non-helpful and didn’t even answer my direct questions. Thanks anyway.
Alan: Thank you for visiting the Apple Store. We appreciate your business.
Thank you for contacting the Apple Store. If you require further assistance, please call 1-800-MY-APPLE.
*************************************
“We appreciate your BUSINESS?!” I walked away and they (at least for the moment) LOST my business solely because of this crappy experience. If you are not going to support a feature/function (like financing) any better than this, DON’T BOTHER DOING IT.
And by the way, how about that fabulous personalization (How did they know my name is “You?”)?
Yes, I realize that “live chat"--like pretty much all CRM applications-- is not at fault in and of itself. A technology can only be as good as the people using it. But I think chat has the following problems:
High expectations relative to the actual benefits- when we “chat” with an online sales rep, we expect to be able to converse with him or her as we would an actual salesperson in a store. But on the internet, “chat” technology and culture are really oriented towards-- and have evolved from-- abbreviated messaging among friends. more like idle chatter. Build a professional sales tool on that foundation? IMO DATS DUM 4 SHUR
Difficult implementation- I’m not talking about how hard it is to get working technically, I mean that it’s hard to train, monitor and balance the necessary quality of service cost effectively. I know– I ran and consulted for some of the earliest, largest multi-touchpoint (phone, email, chat, automated self-service FAQ) contact centers in the early dotcom days. A typical chat rep will be multi-tasking up to 4 chats at a time, while also doing email customer service. Can YOU have 4-6 conversations at a time? So of course, the obvious solution is to outsource your chat to a call center in India. Yeah, let me know how that goes.
The moral of the story is– how many times do we have to say it?– any tool or technology is only as good as the people and the plan behind it. Chat is just one of those “touches” that once you get over the “gotta have it” impulse, is particularly hard to execute well. And because of its immediacy and real-time “voice” can be more damaging to customer relations than most.
Was it Mark Twain who said it?
“It’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”
But recently I’ve had a string of really bad experiences with live chat. Often enough and bad enough that I wanted to comment and point out some common threads I’ve noticed in the poor application of chat technology. Ok, and also just to vent. Here’s a session I had last night on the Apple website, as I was preparing to purchase a MacBook Pro and decided to check out the financing option:
*************************************
You are chatting with Alan, an Apple Expert
Hi, my name is Alan. Welcome to Apple!
Alan: Hi, How are you?
You: Hi. I am looking to do this just to finance a MacBook Pro to replace one I need to return to work. How likely is it that I will be approved?
Alan: I don’t really know. The Juniper Visa Card is associated with Barclays Bank.
You: Are there other financing options?
Alan: You can use a Bank Debit card.
You: A debit card is not financing. That’s cash. Do you know if the card is any easier to qualify for because it is sponsored by Apple?
Alan: Just another minute…
[Almost 5 minutes later]
Alan: The Juniper Visa Card with iTunes Rewards is a credit card issued by Juniper, a division of Barclays Bank Delaware.
Alan: There are two ways to apply. From the main page of the Store, apply before you shop by clicking on the ‘Juniper Visa Card with iTunes Rewards’ tile - OR - apply from the ‘Select a Payment Method’ page during the Checkout process.
Alan: I would recommend filling out the application as they are very good at getting back to you as to weather you are approved.
You: Again, my question is: do you know if this is any easier to qualify for because it is sponsored by Apple?
You: And do you know which credit bureau they check for your credit scores? Can you find out for me?
Alan: I can’t find out for you because it is not sponsored by Apple. It is a completely separate company.
Alan: In Chat I do not have access to personal information.
You: Do you know of any companies that do leasing for Apple equipment?
Alan: I really don’t.
You: Can I get a transcript of this conversation?
Alan: Yes, but only by copy and paste on your end.
You: Ok. signing off. I’m disappointed that this chat was totally non-helpful and didn’t even answer my direct questions. Thanks anyway.
Alan: Thank you for visiting the Apple Store. We appreciate your business.
Thank you for contacting the Apple Store. If you require further assistance, please call 1-800-MY-APPLE.
*************************************
“We appreciate your BUSINESS?!” I walked away and they (at least for the moment) LOST my business solely because of this crappy experience. If you are not going to support a feature/function (like financing) any better than this, DON’T BOTHER DOING IT.
And by the way, how about that fabulous personalization (How did they know my name is “You?”)?
Yes, I realize that “live chat"--like pretty much all CRM applications-- is not at fault in and of itself. A technology can only be as good as the people using it. But I think chat has the following problems:
High expectations relative to the actual benefits- when we “chat” with an online sales rep, we expect to be able to converse with him or her as we would an actual salesperson in a store. But on the internet, “chat” technology and culture are really oriented towards-- and have evolved from-- abbreviated messaging among friends. more like idle chatter. Build a professional sales tool on that foundation? IMO DATS DUM 4 SHUR
Difficult implementation- I’m not talking about how hard it is to get working technically, I mean that it’s hard to train, monitor and balance the necessary quality of service cost effectively. I know– I ran and consulted for some of the earliest, largest multi-touchpoint (phone, email, chat, automated self-service FAQ) contact centers in the early dotcom days. A typical chat rep will be multi-tasking up to 4 chats at a time, while also doing email customer service. Can YOU have 4-6 conversations at a time? So of course, the obvious solution is to outsource your chat to a call center in India. Yeah, let me know how that goes.
The moral of the story is– how many times do we have to say it?– any tool or technology is only as good as the people and the plan behind it. Chat is just one of those “touches” that once you get over the “gotta have it” impulse, is particularly hard to execute well. And because of its immediacy and real-time “voice” can be more damaging to customer relations than most.
Was it Mark Twain who said it?
“It’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”
This is for all the “Little” People…
07/01/08 23:28
Read a great post on Simplenomics entitled, “Here’s a Little Used But Highly Profitable, B2B Sales Tip.”
I couldn’t agree more with what I considered the main theme of the article. Listen to the “rank and file” if you want to know what’s REALLY going on at a company.
At one point in my consulting career, I was hired several times as a “turnaround specialist,” and this was the very first (and sometimes only) thing I did:
1) Survey everyone in the company– top to bottom. Ask basically four questions:
2) Throw out all the responses from senior management. For the most part, they’re the bozos that caused the problems in the first place.
3) Correlate and summarize the results, coming up with three specific recommendations. Build these recommendations directly from the result of the surveys. By the way, you don't necessarily want to tell senior management where those recommendations come from-- they often tend to discount the “little people.&rdquo
4) 9 times out of 10, the client would end up telling me I was “brilliant,” and would want to hire me to implement the recommendations. If the payoff was big enough and I felt they would really follow through, I might consider it.
The moral of the story: Often, there is real WISDOM deep within the organization itself. The solutions to most companies' problems are already obvious to most folks who have to deal with them themselves day in and day out.
Smash the upper management BS-o-matic, haul that “dead moose” carcass (you know, the one nobody wants to talk about) off the conference room table, and harness the knowledge already buried in the organization.
————
Best part of the story? As the article pointed out, just by listening to the “worker bees,” I had instant credibility within the organization and often made truly lifelong friendships that are among the most satisfying of my career.
I couldn’t agree more with what I considered the main theme of the article. Listen to the “rank and file” if you want to know what’s REALLY going on at a company.
At one point in my consulting career, I was hired several times as a “turnaround specialist,” and this was the very first (and sometimes only) thing I did:
1) Survey everyone in the company– top to bottom. Ask basically four questions:
- What works?
- What doesn’t?
- If you could get rid of one thing, what would it be?
- If you could do MORE of one thing, what would it be?
2) Throw out all the responses from senior management. For the most part, they’re the bozos that caused the problems in the first place.
3) Correlate and summarize the results, coming up with three specific recommendations. Build these recommendations directly from the result of the surveys. By the way, you don't necessarily want to tell senior management where those recommendations come from-- they often tend to discount the “little people.&rdquo
4) 9 times out of 10, the client would end up telling me I was “brilliant,” and would want to hire me to implement the recommendations. If the payoff was big enough and I felt they would really follow through, I might consider it.
The moral of the story: Often, there is real WISDOM deep within the organization itself. The solutions to most companies' problems are already obvious to most folks who have to deal with them themselves day in and day out.
Smash the upper management BS-o-matic, haul that “dead moose” carcass (you know, the one nobody wants to talk about) off the conference room table, and harness the knowledge already buried in the organization.
————
Best part of the story? As the article pointed out, just by listening to the “worker bees,” I had instant credibility within the organization and often made truly lifelong friendships that are among the most satisfying of my career.
