Customer Satisfaction and Reputation Management

Have you checked out Google Maps? It is a very convenient service to help you find directions to where ever you are going, including in many locations, a street view of the place you are planning to visit. But there are more features on Google Maps than just finding your way. Did you know customers can leave reviews of sites they visit on Google Maps?

Pownum is a complaint aggregator located in Northhampton, England. They have some interesting twists in their value proposition, that differentiates them from other complaint sites and encourage consumers to enter complaints and reviews on their site as opposed to other complaint aggregators..

In my previous article, I described why customer satisfaction can be impacted by having people with the right skills. Clearly having staff with the wrong skills can hurt a customer’s perception of the organization, and impact sales of its products, its ability to deliver valuable services or provide needed support. But what skills should be measured? Here’s a ‘software organization’ example.

One of the root causes of customer satisfaction problems is the skills of the people on the front line, dealing with customers. One of the techniques to ensure that customers are well served, is to ensure that there is a method to regularly check the skills of the front line staff and a training program to maintain the right mix and level of skills. The concept is called a Skills Inventory. This article covers why a skill inventory is important, what a skills inventory really is, how to do a skills inventory, and how to get started.

Seth Godin, author of many books on marketing, spoke at a conference a few years ago on the topic of ‘Why are So Many Things Broken” and the 20 minute video is worth watching to remind ourselves of why we must be vigilant as customer satisfaction advocates to the customer’s view. Always look at the products and processes from the customer’s perspective. In his video, Seth talks about the 7 kinds of ‘broken’ with many humorous examples.

Toyota has issued a new recall on July 29, 2010 for its Avalon and Lexus LX 470 brands. The Avalon recall is for the 400,000 Avalons from the 2000 – 2004 models in the US, Canada, China and Saudi Arabia. The recall is designed to repair a problems with flawed steering locks. The Lexus LX 470 recall is for 80,000 LX 470s (also known as Land Cruiser 100s outside the US) from the 2003 – 2007 model years. This recall is related to steering shaft disengagement. This recall tarnishes Toyota’s reputation in a new way.

More and more organizations are embracing Social Media as an add on to their existing customer service strategies. Gatwick airport is a recent example.
London Gatwick Airport has recently implemented a Twitter account @Gatwick_airport to receive feedback from travelers. According to Samantha Holgate, the Head of Airport Communications, “…the instantaneous nature of Twitter means that a lot of problems or concerns will be brought to our attention quickly. Problems and concerns that we will ideally be able to do something about.” A prominent sign appears next to the Check Information screen announcing the Twitter address.

In an earlier blog post, I highlighted that Tony Hayward, BP CEO had been removed from being the spokesman for the BP Oil Spill. I speculated that there would be soon be a change in BP Management. Politically, BP had to wait until the well was capped so that a new executive would have a chance to prove himself with the press and the public. It was announced this week that Bob Dudley, an American, would be replacing Tony Hayward effective Oct 1, 2010.

Here’s an excellent recent overview video on Social Media statistics. It is oriented towards executives and marketing departments. But there are lessons for Customer Satisfaction, customer service and public relations professionals as well.

Social Media is changing the customer service discipline in many ways. We are now seeing the emergence of Certification courses to ensure customer service personnel have the right skills to engage in Social Media activities on behalf of their organization. There is an implied assumption that the organizations has a strategy and policies to deal with social media. Those policies needs to be communicated as well.