The Financial Services Authority (FSA), the government regulator of the financial services and banking industries in the United Kingdom (the equivalent of the Federal Reserve in the United States), published figures last Thursday regarding customer complaints and  is ordering banks to address the issue.

Specifically, the FSA’s consultation paper contains the following proposed change to the complaints handling rules for U.K. financial firms:

• Abolition of the ‘two-stage’ complaints handling rule to incentivise firms to resolve complaints fairly the first time
• Requiring firms to identify a senior individual responsible for complaints handling
• Carry out “root-cause analysis” if a series of complaints come in about specific issues

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I want to start a discussion on what innovation means in the context of the customer service world by telling you a tale of two cities (or in this case, two banks). This will move us closer to understanding what innovation might mean, specifically in the banking industry, but we can apply the principles to any industry. And think about these examples from the perspective of a customer service executive and also from the viewpoint of a regular customer.

Story #1–A few weeks ago I left the Holborn tube stop in central London on the way to work and it was the grand opening of Metro Bank in London, the first new consumer bank in the U.K. in more than a century. I had seen the signs for the new bank since I walk by it every day on the way to work but beyond the advertisements (the bank is open early & late and open seven days a week) I hadn’t given it more than a glancing thought.

But what was going on for this new bank opening wasn’t your typical ribbon cutting ceremony (although that happened too). It was a carnival atmosphere with free popcorn, performers on stilts wearing costumes in the bank’s brand colours, a shoe shine stand was setup, and there were balloons everywhere. I watched both tourists and office workers get caught up in the excitement.

I wondered what all the hoopla was about. It’s just another bank right?

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Having spoken recently with some of CCC’s European members (one from the Travel & Leisure industry and three from the Financial Services industries), one of the questions that invariably arise is: how should I use Twitter or Facebook or other types of Social Media for customer service? 

Photo: Andreas Praefcke

In my last post about Social Media, I didn’t address this specific question, only venturing as far as to say: 

Using Twitter [or Social Media in general] in the customer service realm is not about amassing the most number of followers or how many emails we send, it’s about measuring the number of customers we help and showing that to executives. Second, it’s using that customer feedback from Social Media to make real improvements, hopefully at the root-cause level, to our customer experience to boost satisfaction and loyalty.

That addresses what Social Media’s general goal/success measure should be, but that doesn’t address the question of how to take action in social media channels to achieve that goal. Read More »

I’m an early adopter and passionate advocate of Social Media. It’s part of my job (but primarily it’s because I like this stuff) to help customer service executives be aware, read, and follow some of the best thinkers in this area. This is a few weeks old I admit, however, but there were good takeaways from a SXSW panel on customer service in a 140 character world (e.g Twitter) that I wanted to share.

Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang (by the way, you should be following & reading this guy, he’s doing smart work in the social media space) for the heads up on this panel, which included customer service representatives from Comcast, Microsoft, and HP. Disclosure, the Council works with some of these organisations.

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When you ask people what they dislike about customer service, what’s one of the first things they mention?

While some customers may mention the hold time or the length of the call with the customer service agent, more often than not people complain loudly about IVRs. They are viewed as a necessary evil for many customers and companies alike. Making the IVR an easier experience for the average person is a noble goal. But unfortunately, a negative IVR experience in the past can condition customers to the unfortunate habit of zeroing out at all costs (honestly, we’ve all done it before, pressing zero repeatedly to escape the touch-tones).

We’ve all heard of sites like GetHuman that help customers bypass IVRs by showing which numbers to hit to either:

1. get to any frontline staff as soon as possible or

2.  route to the correct department

Why are sites like these so popular? The reality is that most customers don’t always realise IVRs are for routing purposes, which actually benefit them.

Companies continually reinvest in getting IVRs right but how can we help customers with shortcuts? Or put another way, what if we brought an easier IVR experience to the customer?

Well, there’s an app for that. Read More »