Episode 43 Customers Don't Tell The Truth
During one of the core note speeches in Microsoft Digital Transformation Academy in Vegas, David Kidder, Co-founder of Bionic, mentioned a quote from the book "The Start-up Playbook":
"Customers don’t tell the truth. See what they do, not what they say."
It is not really a ground breaking line - I guess you may have heard about it before. But it indeed resonated with me right on the spot.
That is so true. It reminded me of the experience with Citibank. I became a customer to Citibank when I moved to Chicago in 2015. Citi does a good job in basic debit and credit card services. But when things get wrong, going through customer service was such a pain. I switched to another bank recently, part of the reason being their customer service.
There is always a "Please rate your experience with your customer service" at the end of the call. If I was lucky that day, I would rate, maybe 8 or 10. If the experience was bad, I would not bother staying online for an extra second.
Assuming my behavior is common, then I would imagine the results from these "customer ratings" is hugely biased. Are customers not telling the truth? We can say that. But more importantly, customers are not provided opportunity to tell the truth.
What are some possible solutions?
Why not asking? Why doesn't the customer service rep just ask at the end of the call, "How do you think Citi can improve according to your experience today?" or even "What do you think I should do to improve next time serving customers?"
It's much harder to say no at people's face, a.k.a. refusing to giving feedback when asked by a real person. And Citi will get much richer "truth" from how customers really feel about their service.
For example, if Citi gives me a chance to tell them how I feel. I will say, "It may be my fault, but the ascent of some reps is so strong, plus they speak so fast, that I can barely understand. I understand that it's the diversity in this country that makes it wonderful. But it would be great if the rep can speak slower once he/she figured English is not a primary language of this customer, which is fairly easy to tell. Why not include this tip in your employee training?"
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So, yes, customers often don’t tell the truth. Apart from seeing what they do, we should ask ourselves, "Are we ready to listen?"
"Customers don’t tell the truth. See what they do, not what they say."
It is not really a ground breaking line - I guess you may have heard about it before. But it indeed resonated with me right on the spot.
That is so true. It reminded me of the experience with Citibank. I became a customer to Citibank when I moved to Chicago in 2015. Citi does a good job in basic debit and credit card services. But when things get wrong, going through customer service was such a pain. I switched to another bank recently, part of the reason being their customer service.
There is always a "Please rate your experience with your customer service" at the end of the call. If I was lucky that day, I would rate, maybe 8 or 10. If the experience was bad, I would not bother staying online for an extra second.
Assuming my behavior is common, then I would imagine the results from these "customer ratings" is hugely biased. Are customers not telling the truth? We can say that. But more importantly, customers are not provided opportunity to tell the truth.
What are some possible solutions?
Why not asking? Why doesn't the customer service rep just ask at the end of the call, "How do you think Citi can improve according to your experience today?" or even "What do you think I should do to improve next time serving customers?"
It's much harder to say no at people's face, a.k.a. refusing to giving feedback when asked by a real person. And Citi will get much richer "truth" from how customers really feel about their service.
For example, if Citi gives me a chance to tell them how I feel. I will say, "It may be my fault, but the ascent of some reps is so strong, plus they speak so fast, that I can barely understand. I understand that it's the diversity in this country that makes it wonderful. But it would be great if the rep can speak slower once he/she figured English is not a primary language of this customer, which is fairly easy to tell. Why not include this tip in your employee training?"
---
So, yes, customers often don’t tell the truth. Apart from seeing what they do, we should ask ourselves, "Are we ready to listen?"
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