March 6, 2024 • 36 mins
In our latest episode, we examine new research into the level of customer satisfaction in the UK, where the landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years. We start by discussing the reasons behind the decline in customer’s experiences, from the pandemic's shake-up of our shopping habits, to Brexit and the economic and political whirlwinds influencing staffing.
As we navigate the transformation of customer service, we acknowledge the impact of digital communication, which has both streamlined and complicated customer interactions. In a candid conversation, we highlight the fresh challenges confronting a new breed of contact centre employee, less tethered to traditional phone-based support. Brexit's ripple effects on staffing and the dissonance between consumer expectations and business realities allow us to delve into the tough questions facing the service industry today.
To cap off, we share personal tales that bring home the significance of stellar customer service in the sales journey. We debate the nuances of the UK's tipping culture and its influence on team cohesion and fairness, alongside technology's role in reshaping these interactions. Considering the varied expectations across service sectors, we prompt a broader dialogue on societal norms and dependency on tips for income.
Join us for an episode that doesn't just talk about customer service—but elevates it to an art form, but one we know something about – the art of selling - crucial to the success of any thriving business.
For more info, free resources, useful content & our blog posts, please visit realitytraining.com.
Reality Training - Selling Certainty
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi Bobby, we've got a juicy one today, but before we
start, how are you diddling?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm diddling well.
It's suddenly become a lovelyday here in Lewis, where it's
been very, very wet of late, andit's a beautiful day.
What's it like in the the pillbox that you're currently in?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yeah, in the clay dons.
Well, there is water on theclay.
It is boggy, but it's not boggy.
It's just like doing GCSEpottery and being unable to make
anything because you can't getthe consistency of the clay
right.
You look out the window allaround here and you've got water
sitting on a load of unmadepots.
Is that a lovely image?
(00:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
it's a beautiful image, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, and if anybody One that we can all relate to,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, all of us can relate to the GCSE pottery.
Yeah, in fact, I don't think itwould be just a single exam.
It would be art, of whichpottery would be a small element
.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, no, you're absolutely right, You're
absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, there is no actual exam for pottery unless
you become an artist later.
I call it.
Yeah, my mother has a pottingshed at the end of her garden
with all the bits in?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Did she make it?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Not for years, but I mean she's got a wheel and a
kiln and all the other bits andpieces.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Has she.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
She was a very prolific potter back in her
youth.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
If she wants to get rid of that, I might take it off
her actually.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
What Into what?
The whole lot.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
What are you going to become?
A potter?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, we've been talking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Where are you going to set that up?
Not in your new shed.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
No, it can go where Matty Boy's leaving over, that
way, you know.
Ah, the stables yeah you can goin there.
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, that's a good idea, and the idea of having
Blake pottery would be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
You're telling me I could have a kiln in there.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
You could my gosh.
You could.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And then all these sort of quite little private
potters might emerge and go.
We had no idea that a bloke inthe village had a kiln, and they
don't have to drive to largertowns to get their stuff fired,
and I've become a cottageindustry.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I mean, the kiln is not massive.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
No, of course.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
What you do as a beginner is you'd make lots of
mugs okay, because they'rerelatively simple.
So you make a load of mugs witha handle, put them on far the
lot, so you might do 10 at atime.
You can flog them for threequid a pop at jumble sails and
you know you'd be absolutelyfine.
You'd have quite a lot of mugsto have a living, but you know
you would enjoy it.
(02:19):
So anyway, we move on fromadvanced pottery studies to why
aren't we being served?
This is a podcast all aboutcustomer service in the United
Kingdom.
(02:41):
Bob and Jeremy's Conflab thereality podcast.
This is a podcast all aboutcustomer service in the United
Kingdom and it's been inspiredby a couple of things.
(03:01):
First of all, Anne, who is ourfriend and colleague, sent us
this really interesting articlefrom the Daily Telegraph, which
has a lot of stats in about howcustomer satisfaction has
plummeted in recent years forvarious reasons, and we're going
to talk a little bit about thatbecause that's a lot of our
(03:23):
work.
And also we're going to thinkmore broadly about customer
service across the UK and how weas consumers access it and how
it is delivered to us.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, I think we'll also add in a few things that I
think people could be doing toimprove the delivery of their
service.
But I also want to sort ofremind listeners that we have a
role as well.
And well, let's face it,consumers have become rather
more demanding.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
we could say have they or have they actually been
less engaged and would rathernot engage with people at all?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Well, I think what I think?
We'll go straight into it.
I think what happens is whenthe pandemic hit we lived in an
online world where we wouldorder things and we'd have
trucks and vans deliveringeverything and we didn't go into
retail.
And then we had to reengagewith humans again.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And we're going, oh so much, so much.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
this is dreadful compared to a bloke turning up
with a box, and I understandthat.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Absolutely the skill level.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I mean, there's a lot of reasons, but let's kick off
with the facts from the ICS, whoare the Institute of Customer
Service.
It's at its lowest level since2015.
But I think what's the secondpart of the stat is it's falling
at its fastest pace sincethey've ever bothered to record
satisfaction.
So they record it through avariety of metrics customer
(04:47):
complaints, good service whichget involved.
At the back of this there arevarious quantities of complaints
taken in because companies haveto declare some of this stuff,
especially large utilitycompanies and all sorts of
people.
They gather this data andbecause they're paying for
benchmarking, they get back andsee where they feature in
(05:10):
rankings and stuff, and this isall available for people to
listen to.
That's the first thing.
If you want to check stuff out,you can go to the Institute of
Customer Service.
But why is it happening?
So if we go, I think we look atthe perfect storm of things
that are happening.
So things cost more.
Costs are going up.
You and I have talked a bitabout Brexit.
We can talk about it here.
(05:30):
We could say that there's lesscustomer service-y type staff
around accessing them, certainlyin certain industries like
hospitality, when we come tohigh tourism periods or summer
holidays.
Customer service people areslightly harder to find.
We know that various peoplecomplain I can't get the staff
(05:51):
and you're headhunting them fromsomeone else where they can't
be backfilled.
So we could say some of it'ssocio-political, some of it is
cost and we all just demand more.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I would say what we have had is a shift in behaviour
, and that has been sped up bythe pandemic, and what that
means is that, whereas, let'ssay, 10 years ago, we were more
(06:23):
inclined without much referenceto the internet or anything else
, to go oh, I don't like thisbill from this organization.
I'm going to ring them up withthe number on the letter and
have a conversation with them.
We now have so much interactionwith the internet in advance
that what that is doing isdriving the requirement for
(06:44):
customer service and, as you'vesaid, the numbers of people
delivering customer service isdropping, and the quality of
those individuals and theirability to deal with things is
also dropping.
And this means that you, asyou've said, it is a perfect
storm, because if I can't get myissue dealt with, or if I can't
(07:06):
buy the product I want, or if Ican't change something which is
incorrect, then I'm going tohave to call again, and that's
going to make me even more angry, which means my satisfaction is
going to plummet, and what wehave is a constantly increasing
level of demand against aconstantly decreasing level of
quality.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
There's something else you've said there that
connects to channel.
In that article in thetelegraph and I can't find it to
hand there is a stat that thecompanies that have the least
amount of channels do ratherbetter than people who say
contact us by Twitter, contactus by WhatsApp, contact us by.
I think the multitude ofchannels makes things harder
(07:51):
again, because how many are yougoing to man effectively?
And also what you might do ishave a customer who sends an
email and then they go.
Oh, I'm going to stick it onthis as well, so you might just
be getting in multiplecomplaints.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I don't think it's just complaints, and I think we
need to sort of broaden thisslightly because let's think
about the quality of theindividuals.
So you and I work a lot incontact centres, call centres
and lots of those individualsare very good and have been
doing it for many years and haverolled with the changes of
(08:25):
their various industries.
I would say that coming intocontact centres right now is a
generation of people who haveeither finished school or
finished university who arecoming in to have conversations
with people on the telephone,where previously they have had
actually very few conversationswith anybody on the telephone.
(08:46):
They're so used to doing thingsdigitally on their phones, on
web chat or anything else, thatit is that they're using via
their telephones to actuallyhave a conversation is a
challenge.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So I was talking to a team leader the other day and
they said to a member of theirteam about outgoing calls what
about?
Just this person was a bit ill.
They said have you contactedthe doctor?
He said you know what did hesay?
And the guy went say he didn'tsay anything.
He replied by email, because Ionly ever contact my doctor in
that way.
And so what other outgoingcalls do you make?
And just had a discussion.
(09:18):
This person, who was 22, hadnever made an outgoing call to
an organisation.
He never, ever, emailed,whatsapp, texted, tweeted, and
yet he was in an outgoing calljob.
Yeah it's be ringing people backwho'd received some information
to see if they wanted to go tothe next stage.
He never made an outgoing callpersonally.
(09:39):
So, just as you're saying,there's a generation of people
who just don't have telephoneskills, and yet we've got
thousands, if not millions, ofpeople who want to use the phone
as the channel of communication.
There's a complete disconnectthere.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
That is a staffing generational challenge right
there there is, and I think ifwe think about general life,
energy utilities, telecoms,general things that you need to
do to run your life council tax.
Even you pick up the phone andspeak to someone and the waits
(10:19):
alone can be colossal.
I tried to call HMRC the otherday and before anybody could
pick up my call I was hot onhold for at least 20 minutes.
I'd actually done everything Ineeded to do on their website.
I just went onto their website,found my way through, managed
to get a password re-sent to me,reconnected with the website,
(10:39):
went in, found the thing Iwanted to do, did it, had it
confirmed before anybody hadpicked up the phone.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Did you then need to continue or you hung up?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
No, I hung up.
So you know, had somebodypicked up the phone in a timely
fashion, I could have done itthen, but it was just taking so
long.
I had nothing else to do, so Iwent onto the website and did it
myself.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Interesting.
You're creating a phantomtraffic jam of people and then
you're just hanging up.
So how many other people arealso ringing, not being able to
be served and actually then selfrepair half their problem, you
know?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's interesting, isn't it?
So that's one example, but Ithink the other side of it is
service in general.
Going back to something youmentioned, let's talk about the
B word.
So Brexit has definitely meantthat thousands of people who
worked in hospitality and othercustomers facing roles over the
(11:36):
last 10 years or so have leftthe country, and at the moment
there is a massive number ofvacancies for those roles.
And there's a new chain bakeryI won't say the name opening in
Lewis at the moment, and youknow they're trying to find
staff.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Really Just to work it out.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Absolutely, and so we need people to earn 10, 11, 12
pounds an hour serving stuff tous.
And, of course, theorganizations themselves want
those people to be good,hardworking, efficient, swift,
good at selling cakes and allthe other bits and pieces that
go alongside it.
(12:15):
They want that well rounded,customer facing individual, and
they're struggling to find thembecause we have a society where
those jobs for many years havebeen done by people from other
countries in the main, or, let'ssay, 50% of them.
So I think that's a big issue atthe moment, that we can't find
people to do these jobs.
Secondly, I think if we look atour experience of working in
(12:39):
contact centers and retail, yeah, there you have a real mix of
ability.
And so because, a bit like theinternet, I can go on to Amazon
and select the products I wantwithout any engagement or help
from anybody.
There's also a feeling inretail that you can wander into
(13:00):
a store, select the thing youwant.
I don't actually need to speakto anybody.
And so why don't we employpeople at the lowest possible
rate, just to take the moneywhich is in effect and stack
shelves?
You know, that's it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
There's two clients that we didn't get the work with
, three actually one who's gone,bust Mm-hmm, and that was a
fashion brand, and they told usexplicitly we don't do any
customer service or sales train,we just train people in the
fashion.
Yeah, they've gone and theywere huge.
There's another one we didn'tget, who ranked very low, who
are just about products, and sothey're more interested in
(13:32):
stacking shelves and havingproduct availability yeah.
And the third one is a fashionbrand that is dropped hugely off
the radar, where we spend a lotof time talking to them.
We designed a pilot program and, just as you're saying, their
service levels are just it'shere, it's over there.
What size?
There's no discussion, noinvestigation of why you might
(13:54):
be wearing this, and also theirconversion rate is only ever one
item.
Yeah, I need socks with it, Ineed a tie, I need a jacket.
They don't do anything.
I mean we, they let us in therefor a year or two.
We could absolutely transformthe place, so could other
training companies.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yes, so let's talk about that.
There's still a pilot high,sell it high kind of mentality
across many in the retail sector.
It's interesting that the topof the list, the highest ranked
Organization, gets classified asretail.
But, you don't actually go in ashop and we can name them.
(14:31):
That's a card.
Oh, they are ranking number onefor customer satisfaction and
they're down as a retailer andfood, but it's mostly somebody
Coming to your home with a nicesmiley face bringing in some
boxes and let's be honest,jeremy, come on a card.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Oh is middle class.
So you know, there we are, andyou would expect it to be pretty
good, pretty More.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I don't know, maybe, maybe, but then number two in
customer satisfaction is justphone based and that's first
direct.
I know you've been with themfor years.
Absolutely, they are they aresecond place, and then third,
which is a complete retailerExperience, is John Lewis.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, well, it's not.
Actually it's not completeretailer.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
They probably do 50% online.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, so you can look at those and go okay, those are
your high rated Organizationsfor customer satisfaction.
It's a slightly different thing.
I know that when people likewhich do customer service Tests,
the top three are always Apple,john Lewis and people like lush
.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, we're very customer focused, very hands-on,
quite literally.
But I think that that doesn'tactually tell the whole story.
Okay, because some of that isReputational.
Why are John Lewis always inthe top three?
Because they always have been,yeah, so when you go customers,
there's oh, that's John Lewis.
That's just a reputation.
We know that John Lewis havehad huge issues in the last few
(15:53):
years and, you know, maintainingthe idea of a department store
when we've all got a departmentstore on our phone.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I think you get a bit of confirmation bias on this,
that somebody, yes, has an okayexperience across one or two and
they go Well, that's okay,let's keep them up there because
this is checked and tested.
But if they actually were to bemore diverse and they're
checking they might find ahigher variance In service.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
This podcast comes from reality training Creators
of the five principles which somany brands now use as the basis
of their sales models.
This gives them consistency andcertainty.
Find out more about how we canhelp you at reality training dot
(16:39):
com.
But let's take a look at thefive principles that we use to
help you.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
But let's just talk for a moment about what is
customer service, because One ofour challenges that we keep
having.
I saw a chap on LinkedIn today.
He put out a message sayingentrepreneurs need to stop
talking about calling themselvesentrepreneurs when they start a
business, need to callthemselves sales people.
I like that Because that's whatthey got to do.
They've got to convince peopleand sell.
(17:07):
We constantly battle when we gointo organizations where
ostensibly were either involvedin retention, so they're keeping
customers who are thinking ofcounseling or downgrading or so
on.
Oh, we're dealing with peopleringing to buy something.
They call them customer serviceteams.
I mean, there's some weirdnames of teams are working with
now you know, and I think gotthe word custom service in there
(17:29):
but you and I, we bang the drum.
We say no, no, you're selling,you're selling your organization
, you're selling your efficiency, you're selling your ability to
listen, you're selling yourability to provide a solution.
The whole thing is sales.
Why can't we get a switch tothat?
What is it, bob?
And if we think about a fewclients now, what is it about
(17:49):
this problem of sales?
Why is that perpetuating?
Even more, because if we lookat these stats now it's
plummeting, yeah, didn't they?
Maybe listen to us a bit moreand realize it's a sales job.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Well, maybe they should.
I think they definitely don'tadvertise them as sales jobs.
So you go in and you're toldit's a.
You're going to be doing a jobwhich is along the lines of a
consultant.
Well, you know what consultantssell things too.
They just do it in slightlydifferent way, but they're still
selling something.
But ultimately you are there tosell things.
(18:21):
If what you do results in atransaction, then you're a
salesperson.
First direct are no different.
If I ring up first direct andsay I need a loan, somebody is
going to sell me that loan.
Their job is to sell that loan,to make money on it.
So that's a sales job.
They might say I'm a loanadvisor, but if you're advising
(18:41):
me and it results in a loanwhich you make interest on, then
you've sold it to me.
It's just, it's a semantics atthe end.
I think there is still a Crosssection of society that views
sales with suspicion, and I alsothink there's a lot of people
who are in education or goingthrough university who are
thinking the last thing I wantto do is to become a sales
(19:04):
person.
And yet that is where the vastmajority of jobs are sitting.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
They're just not called that, not just the vast
majority.
According to the ICS again, theInstitute of Customer Service
60% of all employees in the UKwork in customer facing serving
roles there we are, and that's80% of our GDP coming from the
services sector.
Amazing.
So that's over half of us aredoing something service related
(19:32):
and yet our services CAC anddwindling yeah.
So what, what have?
Well, let's talk about some ofthe things that we believe
people should do about it, atdifferent levels, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Mm, hmm.
I mean, I think you could havefive podcasts on this subject.
Well, let's talk aboutindividual.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So you've just talked about university leavers, young
people going into it.
Let's talk about what theycould personally do If no one
does anything for them whatcould they decide to do, and
you'll get an answer from methat you'll enjoy.
But what do you think somebodypersonally could decide?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I think there's two things, because the secondary
decision relies on them doingthe first.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
OK.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And the first thing is to actually put yourself in a
position to receive greatservice and sales behaviors.
Then you appreciate them, thenyou think how they can work for
you.
If you've never received it, ifyou've never sat in a half
decent restaurant, if you'venever been to a good curry house
(20:40):
and have been servedfantastically, then the concept
of it is beyond you.
Yeah, and I think that's thefirst thing you need to actually
understand that it has value.
Yeah, before you then go andtrain yourself in it, what's
yours?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Mine is if you don't think you want to be doing this,
but you've ended up in it, thebest thing you can do for your
longer term prospects is tobecome brilliant at it, even if
that's only for six months thatyou absolutely understand
customers, you dig into whythey're asking this.
What can I do?
What am I completely in controlof?
And then, when you understand acustomer, you're working for an
(21:15):
organization that either makesa product or a service that they
want these customers to takeand keep on taking.
You can then quite easily,having been high up and high
achieving, switch to marketing,go off into product development
and actually use that as aspringboard to go into other
departments.
I remember a guy in my team backat Yellow Pages who told us
(21:38):
clearly he didn't enjoy it andwas only interested in marketing
and he wanted to get rightbehind marketing Yellow Pages.
So he just became brilliant andthen he got a meeting with
marketing and he left us andthat's where he wanted to be.
But he realized he was nevergoing to get the job if he was
desperately average.
They go well, you're not doingvery well where you are.
Why would you move?
So my personal thing for theindividual is to become
(21:59):
brilliant at it for as short aperiod as possible to make a
springboard out, because if youdon't like it, stop doing it.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Well, I think the other side of it is that if you
accept that what you're doing isa sales job especially if
there's an incentive like abonus or commission or on target
earnings or uncapped commissionpots available then rather than
say, well, I need to do theminimum I can to take over,
think about how you can reallymake it work for you, because
(22:30):
the idea of earning goodcommission means that work
becomes a real pleasure andactually it could change your
life.
If your mindset is, I can seehow this will work for me.
So, yeah, it's down to theindividual.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Organizations.
One of the things stated in thereport I read was the huge lack
of training.
Huge lack of training andinvestment.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Now.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
I think there's some people who still believe that
it's the sheer volume of callsthat we're struggling with, it's
the waiting times, it's theturn.
They'll blame anything otherthan the skill set of the
individuals answering the calls.
Their leadership is weak.
Their team leadership is poor.
Fast promotion to leadershippositions with no real
(23:12):
understanding of how to run asales meeting, how to delegate,
how to infuse, how to motivate,how to reward, how to praise,
how to coach.
The list goes on.
First of all, train yourleaders before you even touch
the people doing the calls,because if your leaders are
desperately averaged, all ofthat learned behavior and the
first line management experienceis going to be poor.
(23:32):
So for scale and costefficiency, get your leaders to
be considerably better than theyare.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Shall we do.
Three is the Magic Number.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, let's go to.
Three is the Magic Number.
Cue the music.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
OK, so what's your first one?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I would love to know what is the single best customer
experience service that you'vereceived that you can recall
right now.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
So that was my number two question to you, so we'll
come to you in a sec.
So the best I can recall rightnow was in New York City a few
years ago.
We went to a restaurant thereand this was a very, very good
restaurant that we've beenrecommended to go to, and the
service we got in thatrestaurant was absolutely
(24:24):
stellar.
It was absolutely amazingreally knowledgeable, wonderful,
warm people welcoming you intothis place and giving you the
most wonderful experience.
It was truly magnificent.
And remember this is in theUnited States of America, where
everyone lives on tips.
(24:44):
Everyone is expected toallocate a good chunk of cash
for the, for the bill, and whenthe bill came at the end, it
said on the receipt this is nota tipping restaurant.
We do not ask for gratuitous.
Our service is included.
Now, that was extraordinary tobe in America, where everyone
(25:07):
tips, and yet there was noexpectation of it.
They had all decided to giveevery single customer the best
evening out they'd ever had, andwe did, and it was amazing and
we loved it and we came outglowing from that place and I
think that is the size of theprize.
If you can please yourcustomers that well then they'll
(25:29):
always talk about it.
They'll always come back,you'll always have a business,
you'll always have a job, and Ithink that, for me, was the best
.
What about yours?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well, the most consistently good is more
important than the single most,and it's the Buckingham Fort.
We were there two nights ago.
You and I can go there.
We took Anne and the rain.
David and his team, ourwonderful, kind, efficient,
knowledgeable.
The food's delicious.
We have some humor.
He gave you a brand.
He gave you two flippingbrandies.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yes, I forgot that.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, so kind, but they just know my kids go there
on their own.
Now he's got the nextgeneration of blakes coming
through.
It's just consistently supreme.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Okay, so my first question to you was what's the
worst customer serviceexperience you can recall?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Wow, that might be harder.
No, it isn't.
It's buying a suit with my sonand shopping Milton Keynes and
it was an early indication ofdisloyal bonding.
When my son was going in forthe sixth form and we were
looking at these things, wefound a suit we quite liked and
I went well, look, we shouldjust look at a few other shops.
And he said, no, no, I reallylike this.
And the guy said to me if youcome back on Monday, that suit
(26:43):
will be 25% cheaper.
What he didn't understand is myson needed to be wearing it on
the Tuesday of that week.
I wasn't gonna wait six, sevendays to get a suit.
I'd already told him that isthat he's going to school in the
next few days.
Just ridiculous, pointless,annoying.
And that whole concept of ourbook, of course, disloyal
(27:06):
bonding slagging off, hisorganization telling me
something surreptitious, hopingthat I'll like him and buy a
world.
The opposite effect was true.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Great, and what's your second question?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
My second, one thing is if there's one thing people
listening to this episode couldeither take away in a position
of leadership or they're runninga team, they're running their
own business what should they dojust to improve their own
customer service?
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I think, as you've just discussed, they need to
accept that they're running asales organization and
revitalize what they do and beproud of that loud and proud.
We're here to sell stuff.
This is how we're gonna do it,because I think if you do that
and people jump on board, youwill achieve so much better
results than just pretendingthat you're just serving people
(27:50):
Good got one for me.
Yes.
Now my third one is a biggerdiscussion, but I think it's a
big thing.
So I just talked about thisrestaurant in New York where
they didn't receive tips.
What is your opinion on theculture of tipping in the United
Kingdom?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Well, yeah, this is big.
As an ex-waiter who wasn't paidbefore the minimum wage was
invented, I had to not onlysurvive, but my entire wage was
tips.
But that was working till threeo'clock in the morning getting
the light back from Peckham.
Huge sacrifices, not veryhealthy working conditions.
Now people are paid a minimumwage.
(28:30):
I think the problem ofindividual tips is I think it
goes against teamwork andcollaboration, because chefs
don't get them and other peopledon't get them bus boys and so
on and whatever you want to callthem.
So I think you can tip, but Ithink it should now be shared.
I've changed my opinion on thembeing individual, but I
actually prefer when service isincluded at a lower rate.
(28:52):
So I think 10% has been addedto your bill.
What it's not worth it, I thinka discretionary or 5%.
Please take it off if you thinkit's worth it, paid.
If not not.
So I would say a standardizedservice amount.
So I tell you something elsethere's a new restaurant in my
town opened up, where you orderby an app at the table.
The only thing we do is bringit.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
And there's no chat or anything, and really that
should just be the efficiency ofthe bringing and, but there's
no real discussion of menu.
There's no conversation.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Well, most of the time, it's not 10%, jay, it's
12.5%.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Well, there you go, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
And it's interesting that there are certain clubs and
restaurants that we go to whoautomatically add that to
everything you buy.
Okay, that's one thing, but youknow that going in.
I suppose the other side of itis, though, that there are
barbers, cab drivers and otherswho expect a tip, and if you go
in a London cab now and you payby card, you get to choose the
(29:54):
percentage you give them.
So you are definitely gonna begiving them a tip and I find it
very unusual that certain jobsabsolutely exist on the tips
which come, some are just addedon.
Yeah, and I do feel that ifit's an organizational thing, if
it's on the credit card to it,then it must be that everyone
(30:16):
pays 12.5% more.
I do find that slightly galling, cause that means that your
service can be pretty poor andyou're gonna get 12.5% on top
automatically, and of course youcan say, well, let's take it
off, but then you feel like atight ass and I just think that
that, I think, is very poor partof customer service, where you
(30:36):
are forced to pay extra.
I find that the worst thingabout.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
We've all seen strange videos of people in the
United States turning up todeliver stuff on doorsteps and
then, because they don't get atip, they start reloading their
car with the produce.
Why am I being served thesevideos?
And look at this person.
You expect to tip.
It's your job.
So there's a whole generationof younger people who don't want
to give tips anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
No.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
And I think, if you're doing a job that relies
on tips, maybe find someone elsewho values you slightly more
and actually decides to pay youmore.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Well, here's a thing If I go and get my haircut, okay
, and it's 15 quid, and I givethe guy a couple of quid more,
okay, that's a traditional habitthat has been built up over
years.
Okay, If someone goes to abeauty salon and has a treatment
of some kind, a massage orwhatever it may be and it's 50
(31:31):
quid, do they give the person atip.
Is that part of the culture?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I thought the regularity of their purchasing
is worth it rather than tip.
You would hope so.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
But it's a very similar thing.
There's certain things thatseem to demand a tip, certain
things you think there's no wayI tip that person.
If you're in the middle of asupermarket and you say, excuse
me, can you show me where thewine section is, they go oh, you
come along here and take youalong.
And they said let's drive downthat aisle there.
Okay, that's helpful, that'sreally good.
(32:05):
Am I going to slip them a pound?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
No.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
You know, and yes, they've been really helpful and
useful to me.
So again, culturally, I thinkthere's a really odd thing If
you're at the till of asupermarket and the person puts
stuff in bags for you becauseyou're on your own and you're
doing a big shop do you?
Slip them a quid.
When you've paid 100 quid, areyou going to give them an extra
pound?
Do people do that?
(32:27):
I don't think they do.
It's weird.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
It's funny.
Tarantino, as we know, inReservoir Dogs wrote a whole
scene, about this, about theargument at the cafe at the
beginning about the need to getwaitresses, and one of them is
highly expensive, would you meanyou don't tip yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Steve Buschemi says I don't tip yeah, and he's saying
you should tip.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
No, I don't tip, you need to, and their wages are
made up, and this is how thewhole society runs.
And is it, travolta?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
who's defending?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
it or someone else?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
No, no, no, no, that's.
He's not in Reservoir.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Dogs.
No, it isn't Travolta, sorry,is it Chris Penn?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I'll have to watch that scene again.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
My last question to you, which is much more kind of
dull but interested All thesechannels that exist for customer
service yeah, all thesedifferent ways of communicating
either a problem or a repurchase, or an upgrade or a change of
address, and so it goes on.
Which channel has the hugeopportunity to become a
brilliant customer servicechannel?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
It's a really good question.
I think that if contact centerschanged to tele sales teams, I
think they would have a massiveopportunity.
I think move away from service,move back into sales, and every
(33:43):
call that comes in is anopportunity to upsell, cross
sell.
But more importantly, I thinkwe need to get away from siloing
calls into retention calls,cancellation calls, complaints.
You as an individual should bemulti-skilled to be able to
handle any sort of inquiry andupsell that inquiry from
whatever it's about at thatpoint, and I think if you
(34:07):
actually had professionalsalespeople doing that job who
are well trained, with goodquality IT, yeah, and a bit of
energy, it would be amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Lovely, I agree.
That would be it, yeah goodAnything else to say, but it's a
sort of fact, isn't it, thatcustomer service is everything.
I remember I think I told youthis, didn't I?
I went no, we were going torecord this that when my friend
René moved here from New Zealandhe had to set up his utilities,
his broadband, and when he tookon one of his pubs and he could
(34:36):
not believe because he hadn'tlived here for 25 years, whereas
in New Zealand you make a callof guy, picks it up and goes,
yep, and starts helping youstraight away Do you remember I
made up the name?
He lived in Walla, relu orsomething.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Well, I think that's a good point.
And when we were talking justnow about tipping as well, I
thought about when you booktickets for something now and
let's say the tickets are 100quid, as they often are, and
then they say, oh, there's abooking fee of seven quid.
And you go, hang on, I'm online, I'm selecting my seat.
I'm paying the money.
(35:10):
Where's the fee here?
Where's the?
Who am I actually paying to dothis?
And I think some time?
Yeah, that's just, you know,someone's slipped that in and
that's pure profit and we acceptthat as well.
And I think maybe there needsto be a slight backlash where
people say no, none of us aregoing to book our tickets in
advance, we're only going to buythem on the day from the box
(35:32):
office.
Imagine the queues you know, andthen we would have to pay a
booking fee.
I think there needs to be a bitof a challenge to these things,
which are quite annoying.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I don't know if there isn't a booking fee.
If you walk into the theater,in your book they just add the
350.
That's interesting.
I might have to consider that.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I wonder because I remember back in the 80s when
bands would announce tours orconcerts, people would flock to
the actual venue.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I think there's got to be a thing there where, if
it's a ridiculous additionalcharge, they're having a laugh
and we should just refuse to pay, and then they're spending.
It's on the night and peoplequeue yeah, wow, that's
interesting, isn't it?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Well, thanks for tuning in.
Yes, indeed If you'd like thisepisode, do send it to somebody
and say listen to this bud.
And if you want to write us areview, or just subscribe so you
never miss them, we'd love that.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
See you soon.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Bye for now.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Bye, bob and Jeremy's Conflab.
The reality podcast.
Hi Bobby, we've got a juicy one today, but before we
start, how are you diddling?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm diddling well.
It's suddenly become a lovelyday here in Lewis, where it's
been very, very wet of late, andit's a beautiful day.
What's it like in the the pillbox that you're currently in?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yeah, in the clay dons.
Well, there is water on theclay.
It is boggy, but it's not boggy.
It's just like doing GCSEpottery and being unable to make
anything because you can't getthe consistency of the clay
right.
You look out the window allaround here and you've got water
sitting on a load of unmadepots.
Is that a lovely image?
(00:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
it's a beautiful image, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, and if anybody One that we can all relate to,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, all of us can relate to the GCSE pottery.
Yeah, in fact, I don't think itwould be just a single exam.
It would be art, of whichpottery would be a small element
.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, no, you're absolutely right, You're
absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, there is no actual exam for pottery unless
you become an artist later.
I call it.
Yeah, my mother has a pottingshed at the end of her garden
with all the bits in?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Did she make it?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Not for years, but I mean she's got a wheel and a
kiln and all the other bits andpieces.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Has she.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
She was a very prolific potter back in her
youth.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
If she wants to get rid of that, I might take it off
her actually.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
What Into what?
The whole lot.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
What are you going to become?
A potter?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, we've been talking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Where are you going to set that up?
Not in your new shed.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
No, it can go where Matty Boy's leaving over, that
way, you know.
Ah, the stables yeah you can goin there.
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, that's a good idea, and the idea of having
Blake pottery would be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
You're telling me I could have a kiln in there.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
You could my gosh.
You could.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And then all these sort of quite little private
potters might emerge and go.
We had no idea that a bloke inthe village had a kiln, and they
don't have to drive to largertowns to get their stuff fired,
and I've become a cottageindustry.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I mean, the kiln is not massive.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
No, of course.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
What you do as a beginner is you'd make lots of
mugs okay, because they'rerelatively simple.
So you make a load of mugs witha handle, put them on far the
lot, so you might do 10 at atime.
You can flog them for threequid a pop at jumble sails and
you know you'd be absolutelyfine.
You'd have quite a lot of mugsto have a living, but you know
you would enjoy it.
(02:19):
So anyway, we move on fromadvanced pottery studies to why
aren't we being served?
This is a podcast all aboutcustomer service in the United
Kingdom.
(02:41):
Bob and Jeremy's Conflab thereality podcast.
This is a podcast all aboutcustomer service in the United
Kingdom and it's been inspiredby a couple of things.
(03:01):
First of all, Anne, who is ourfriend and colleague, sent us
this really interesting articlefrom the Daily Telegraph, which
has a lot of stats in about howcustomer satisfaction has
plummeted in recent years forvarious reasons, and we're going
to talk a little bit about thatbecause that's a lot of our
(03:23):
work.
And also we're going to thinkmore broadly about customer
service across the UK and how weas consumers access it and how
it is delivered to us.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, I think we'll also add in a few things that I
think people could be doing toimprove the delivery of their
service.
But I also want to sort ofremind listeners that we have a
role as well.
And well, let's face it,consumers have become rather
more demanding.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
we could say have they or have they actually been
less engaged and would rathernot engage with people at all?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Well, I think what I think?
We'll go straight into it.
I think what happens is whenthe pandemic hit we lived in an
online world where we wouldorder things and we'd have
trucks and vans deliveringeverything and we didn't go into
retail.
And then we had to reengagewith humans again.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And we're going, oh so much, so much.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
this is dreadful compared to a bloke turning up
with a box, and I understandthat.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Absolutely the skill level.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I mean, there's a lot of reasons, but let's kick off
with the facts from the ICS, whoare the Institute of Customer
Service.
It's at its lowest level since2015.
But I think what's the secondpart of the stat is it's falling
at its fastest pace sincethey've ever bothered to record
satisfaction.
So they record it through avariety of metrics customer
(04:47):
complaints, good service whichget involved.
At the back of this there arevarious quantities of complaints
taken in because companies haveto declare some of this stuff,
especially large utilitycompanies and all sorts of
people.
They gather this data andbecause they're paying for
benchmarking, they get back andsee where they feature in
(05:10):
rankings and stuff, and this isall available for people to
listen to.
That's the first thing.
If you want to check stuff out,you can go to the Institute of
Customer Service.
But why is it happening?
So if we go, I think we look atthe perfect storm of things
that are happening.
So things cost more.
Costs are going up.
You and I have talked a bitabout Brexit.
We can talk about it here.
(05:30):
We could say that there's lesscustomer service-y type staff
around accessing them, certainlyin certain industries like
hospitality, when we come tohigh tourism periods or summer
holidays.
Customer service people areslightly harder to find.
We know that various peoplecomplain I can't get the staff
(05:51):
and you're headhunting them fromsomeone else where they can't
be backfilled.
So we could say some of it'ssocio-political, some of it is
cost and we all just demand more.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I would say what we have had is a shift in behaviour
, and that has been sped up bythe pandemic, and what that
means is that, whereas, let'ssay, 10 years ago, we were more
(06:23):
inclined without much referenceto the internet or anything else
, to go oh, I don't like thisbill from this organization.
I'm going to ring them up withthe number on the letter and
have a conversation with them.
We now have so much interactionwith the internet in advance
that what that is doing isdriving the requirement for
(06:44):
customer service and, as you'vesaid, the numbers of people
delivering customer service isdropping, and the quality of
those individuals and theirability to deal with things is
also dropping.
And this means that you, asyou've said, it is a perfect
storm, because if I can't get myissue dealt with, or if I can't
(07:06):
buy the product I want, or if Ican't change something which is
incorrect, then I'm going tohave to call again, and that's
going to make me even more angry, which means my satisfaction is
going to plummet, and what wehave is a constantly increasing
level of demand against aconstantly decreasing level of
quality.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
There's something else you've said there that
connects to channel.
In that article in thetelegraph and I can't find it to
hand there is a stat that thecompanies that have the least
amount of channels do ratherbetter than people who say
contact us by Twitter, contactus by WhatsApp, contact us by.
I think the multitude ofchannels makes things harder
(07:51):
again, because how many are yougoing to man effectively?
And also what you might do ishave a customer who sends an
email and then they go.
Oh, I'm going to stick it onthis as well, so you might just
be getting in multiplecomplaints.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I don't think it's just complaints, and I think we
need to sort of broaden thisslightly because let's think
about the quality of theindividuals.
So you and I work a lot incontact centres, call centres
and lots of those individualsare very good and have been
doing it for many years and haverolled with the changes of
(08:25):
their various industries.
I would say that coming intocontact centres right now is a
generation of people who haveeither finished school or
finished university who arecoming in to have conversations
with people on the telephone,where previously they have had
actually very few conversationswith anybody on the telephone.
(08:46):
They're so used to doing thingsdigitally on their phones, on
web chat or anything else, thatit is that they're using via
their telephones to actuallyhave a conversation is a
challenge.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So I was talking to a team leader the other day and
they said to a member of theirteam about outgoing calls what
about?
Just this person was a bit ill.
They said have you contactedthe doctor?
He said you know what did hesay?
And the guy went say he didn'tsay anything.
He replied by email, because Ionly ever contact my doctor in
that way.
And so what other outgoingcalls do you make?
And just had a discussion.
(09:18):
This person, who was 22, hadnever made an outgoing call to
an organisation.
He never, ever, emailed,whatsapp, texted, tweeted, and
yet he was in an outgoing calljob.
Yeah it's be ringing people backwho'd received some information
to see if they wanted to go tothe next stage.
He never made an outgoing callpersonally.
(09:39):
So, just as you're saying,there's a generation of people
who just don't have telephoneskills, and yet we've got
thousands, if not millions, ofpeople who want to use the phone
as the channel of communication.
There's a complete disconnectthere.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
That is a staffing generational challenge right
there there is, and I think ifwe think about general life,
energy utilities, telecoms,general things that you need to
do to run your life council tax.
Even you pick up the phone andspeak to someone and the waits
(10:19):
alone can be colossal.
I tried to call HMRC the otherday and before anybody could
pick up my call I was hot onhold for at least 20 minutes.
I'd actually done everything Ineeded to do on their website.
I just went onto their website,found my way through, managed
to get a password re-sent to me,reconnected with the website,
(10:39):
went in, found the thing Iwanted to do, did it, had it
confirmed before anybody hadpicked up the phone.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Did you then need to continue or you hung up?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
No, I hung up.
So you know, had somebodypicked up the phone in a timely
fashion, I could have done itthen, but it was just taking so
long.
I had nothing else to do, so Iwent onto the website and did it
myself.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Interesting.
You're creating a phantomtraffic jam of people and then
you're just hanging up.
So how many other people arealso ringing, not being able to
be served and actually then selfrepair half their problem, you
know?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's interesting, isn't it?
So that's one example, but Ithink the other side of it is
service in general.
Going back to something youmentioned, let's talk about the
B word.
So Brexit has definitely meantthat thousands of people who
worked in hospitality and othercustomers facing roles over the
(11:36):
last 10 years or so have leftthe country, and at the moment
there is a massive number ofvacancies for those roles.
And there's a new chain bakeryI won't say the name opening in
Lewis at the moment, and youknow they're trying to find
staff.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Really Just to work it out.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Absolutely, and so we need people to earn 10, 11, 12
pounds an hour serving stuff tous.
And, of course, theorganizations themselves want
those people to be good,hardworking, efficient, swift,
good at selling cakes and allthe other bits and pieces that
go alongside it.
(12:15):
They want that well rounded,customer facing individual, and
they're struggling to find thembecause we have a society where
those jobs for many years havebeen done by people from other
countries in the main, or, let'ssay, 50% of them.
So I think that's a big issue atthe moment, that we can't find
people to do these jobs.
Secondly, I think if we look atour experience of working in
(12:39):
contact centers and retail, yeah, there you have a real mix of
ability.
And so because, a bit like theinternet, I can go on to Amazon
and select the products I wantwithout any engagement or help
from anybody.
There's also a feeling inretail that you can wander into
(13:00):
a store, select the thing youwant.
I don't actually need to speakto anybody.
And so why don't we employpeople at the lowest possible
rate, just to take the moneywhich is in effect and stack
shelves?
You know, that's it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
There's two clients that we didn't get the work with
, three actually one who's gone,bust Mm-hmm, and that was a
fashion brand, and they told usexplicitly we don't do any
customer service or sales train,we just train people in the
fashion.
Yeah, they've gone and theywere huge.
There's another one we didn'tget, who ranked very low, who
are just about products, and sothey're more interested in
(13:32):
stacking shelves and havingproduct availability yeah.
And the third one is a fashionbrand that is dropped hugely off
the radar, where we spend a lotof time talking to them.
We designed a pilot program and, just as you're saying, their
service levels are just it'shere, it's over there.
What size?
There's no discussion, noinvestigation of why you might
(13:54):
be wearing this, and also theirconversion rate is only ever one
item.
Yeah, I need socks with it, Ineed a tie, I need a jacket.
They don't do anything.
I mean we, they let us in therefor a year or two.
We could absolutely transformthe place, so could other
training companies.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yes, so let's talk about that.
There's still a pilot high,sell it high kind of mentality
across many in the retail sector.
It's interesting that the topof the list, the highest ranked
Organization, gets classified asretail.
But, you don't actually go in ashop and we can name them.
(14:31):
That's a card.
Oh, they are ranking number onefor customer satisfaction and
they're down as a retailer andfood, but it's mostly somebody
Coming to your home with a nicesmiley face bringing in some
boxes and let's be honest,jeremy, come on a card.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Oh is middle class.
So you know, there we are, andyou would expect it to be pretty
good, pretty More.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I don't know, maybe, maybe, but then number two in
customer satisfaction is justphone based and that's first
direct.
I know you've been with themfor years.
Absolutely, they are they aresecond place, and then third,
which is a complete retailerExperience, is John Lewis.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, well, it's not.
Actually it's not completeretailer.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
They probably do 50% online.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, so you can look at those and go okay, those are
your high rated Organizationsfor customer satisfaction.
It's a slightly different thing.
I know that when people likewhich do customer service Tests,
the top three are always Apple,john Lewis and people like lush
.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, we're very customer focused, very hands-on,
quite literally.
But I think that that doesn'tactually tell the whole story.
Okay, because some of that isReputational.
Why are John Lewis always inthe top three?
Because they always have been,yeah, so when you go customers,
there's oh, that's John Lewis.
That's just a reputation.
We know that John Lewis havehad huge issues in the last few
(15:53):
years and, you know, maintainingthe idea of a department store
when we've all got a departmentstore on our phone.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I think you get a bit of confirmation bias on this,
that somebody, yes, has an okayexperience across one or two and
they go Well, that's okay,let's keep them up there because
this is checked and tested.
But if they actually were to bemore diverse and they're
checking they might find ahigher variance In service.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
This podcast comes from reality training Creators
of the five principles which somany brands now use as the basis
of their sales models.
This gives them consistency andcertainty.
Find out more about how we canhelp you at reality training dot
(16:39):
com.
But let's take a look at thefive principles that we use to
help you.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
But let's just talk for a moment about what is
customer service, because One ofour challenges that we keep
having.
I saw a chap on LinkedIn today.
He put out a message sayingentrepreneurs need to stop
talking about calling themselvesentrepreneurs when they start a
business, need to callthemselves sales people.
I like that Because that's whatthey got to do.
They've got to convince peopleand sell.
(17:07):
We constantly battle when we gointo organizations where
ostensibly were either involvedin retention, so they're keeping
customers who are thinking ofcounseling or downgrading or so
on.
Oh, we're dealing with peopleringing to buy something.
They call them customer serviceteams.
I mean, there's some weirdnames of teams are working with
now you know, and I think gotthe word custom service in there
(17:29):
but you and I, we bang the drum.
We say no, no, you're selling,you're selling your organization
, you're selling your efficiency, you're selling your ability to
listen, you're selling yourability to provide a solution.
The whole thing is sales.
Why can't we get a switch tothat?
What is it, bob?
And if we think about a fewclients now, what is it about
(17:49):
this problem of sales?
Why is that perpetuating?
Even more, because if we lookat these stats now it's
plummeting, yeah, didn't they?
Maybe listen to us a bit moreand realize it's a sales job.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Well, maybe they should.
I think they definitely don'tadvertise them as sales jobs.
So you go in and you're toldit's a.
You're going to be doing a jobwhich is along the lines of a
consultant.
Well, you know what consultantssell things too.
They just do it in slightlydifferent way, but they're still
selling something.
But ultimately you are there tosell things.
(18:21):
If what you do results in atransaction, then you're a
salesperson.
First direct are no different.
If I ring up first direct andsay I need a loan, somebody is
going to sell me that loan.
Their job is to sell that loan,to make money on it.
So that's a sales job.
They might say I'm a loanadvisor, but if you're advising
(18:41):
me and it results in a loanwhich you make interest on, then
you've sold it to me.
It's just, it's a semantics atthe end.
I think there is still a Crosssection of society that views
sales with suspicion, and I alsothink there's a lot of people
who are in education or goingthrough university who are
thinking the last thing I wantto do is to become a sales
(19:04):
person.
And yet that is where the vastmajority of jobs are sitting.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
They're just not called that, not just the vast
majority.
According to the ICS again, theInstitute of Customer Service
60% of all employees in the UKwork in customer facing serving
roles there we are, and that's80% of our GDP coming from the
services sector.
Amazing.
So that's over half of us aredoing something service related
(19:32):
and yet our services CAC anddwindling yeah.
So what, what have?
Well, let's talk about some ofthe things that we believe
people should do about it, atdifferent levels, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Mm, hmm.
I mean, I think you could havefive podcasts on this subject.
Well, let's talk aboutindividual.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So you've just talked about university leavers, young
people going into it.
Let's talk about what theycould personally do If no one
does anything for them whatcould they decide to do, and
you'll get an answer from methat you'll enjoy.
But what do you think somebodypersonally could decide?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I think there's two things, because the secondary
decision relies on them doingthe first.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
OK.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And the first thing is to actually put yourself in a
position to receive greatservice and sales behaviors.
Then you appreciate them, thenyou think how they can work for
you.
If you've never received it, ifyou've never sat in a half
decent restaurant, if you'venever been to a good curry house
(20:40):
and have been servedfantastically, then the concept
of it is beyond you.
Yeah, and I think that's thefirst thing you need to actually
understand that it has value.
Yeah, before you then go andtrain yourself in it, what's
yours?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Mine is if you don't think you want to be doing this,
but you've ended up in it, thebest thing you can do for your
longer term prospects is tobecome brilliant at it, even if
that's only for six months thatyou absolutely understand
customers, you dig into whythey're asking this.
What can I do?
What am I completely in controlof?
And then, when you understand acustomer, you're working for an
(21:15):
organization that either makesa product or a service that they
want these customers to takeand keep on taking.
You can then quite easily,having been high up and high
achieving, switch to marketing,go off into product development
and actually use that as aspringboard to go into other
departments.
I remember a guy in my team backat Yellow Pages who told us
(21:38):
clearly he didn't enjoy it andwas only interested in marketing
and he wanted to get rightbehind marketing Yellow Pages.
So he just became brilliant andthen he got a meeting with
marketing and he left us andthat's where he wanted to be.
But he realized he was nevergoing to get the job if he was
desperately average.
They go well, you're not doingvery well where you are.
Why would you move?
So my personal thing for theindividual is to become
(21:59):
brilliant at it for as short aperiod as possible to make a
springboard out, because if youdon't like it, stop doing it.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Well, I think the other side of it is that if you
accept that what you're doing isa sales job especially if
there's an incentive like abonus or commission or on target
earnings or uncapped commissionpots available then rather than
say, well, I need to do theminimum I can to take over,
think about how you can reallymake it work for you, because
(22:30):
the idea of earning goodcommission means that work
becomes a real pleasure andactually it could change your
life.
If your mindset is, I can seehow this will work for me.
So, yeah, it's down to theindividual.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Organizations.
One of the things stated in thereport I read was the huge lack
of training.
Huge lack of training andinvestment.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Now.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
I think there's some people who still believe that
it's the sheer volume of callsthat we're struggling with, it's
the waiting times, it's theturn.
They'll blame anything otherthan the skill set of the
individuals answering the calls.
Their leadership is weak.
Their team leadership is poor.
Fast promotion to leadershippositions with no real
(23:12):
understanding of how to run asales meeting, how to delegate,
how to infuse, how to motivate,how to reward, how to praise,
how to coach.
The list goes on.
First of all, train yourleaders before you even touch
the people doing the calls,because if your leaders are
desperately averaged, all ofthat learned behavior and the
first line management experienceis going to be poor.
(23:32):
So for scale and costefficiency, get your leaders to
be considerably better than theyare.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Shall we do.
Three is the Magic Number.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, let's go to.
Three is the Magic Number.
Cue the music.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
OK, so what's your first one?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I would love to know what is the single best customer
experience service that you'vereceived that you can recall
right now.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
So that was my number two question to you, so we'll
come to you in a sec.
So the best I can recall rightnow was in New York City a few
years ago.
We went to a restaurant thereand this was a very, very good
restaurant that we've beenrecommended to go to, and the
service we got in thatrestaurant was absolutely
(24:24):
stellar.
It was absolutely amazingreally knowledgeable, wonderful,
warm people welcoming you intothis place and giving you the
most wonderful experience.
It was truly magnificent.
And remember this is in theUnited States of America, where
everyone lives on tips.
(24:44):
Everyone is expected toallocate a good chunk of cash
for the, for the bill, and whenthe bill came at the end, it
said on the receipt this is nota tipping restaurant.
We do not ask for gratuitous.
Our service is included.
Now, that was extraordinary tobe in America, where everyone
(25:07):
tips, and yet there was noexpectation of it.
They had all decided to giveevery single customer the best
evening out they'd ever had, andwe did, and it was amazing and
we loved it and we came outglowing from that place and I
think that is the size of theprize.
If you can please yourcustomers that well then they'll
(25:29):
always talk about it.
They'll always come back,you'll always have a business,
you'll always have a job, and Ithink that, for me, was the best
.
What about yours?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well, the most consistently good is more
important than the single most,and it's the Buckingham Fort.
We were there two nights ago.
You and I can go there.
We took Anne and the rain.
David and his team, ourwonderful, kind, efficient,
knowledgeable.
The food's delicious.
We have some humor.
He gave you a brand.
He gave you two flippingbrandies.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yes, I forgot that.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, so kind, but they just know my kids go there
on their own.
Now he's got the nextgeneration of blakes coming
through.
It's just consistently supreme.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Okay, so my first question to you was what's the
worst customer serviceexperience you can recall?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Wow, that might be harder.
No, it isn't.
It's buying a suit with my sonand shopping Milton Keynes and
it was an early indication ofdisloyal bonding.
When my son was going in forthe sixth form and we were
looking at these things, wefound a suit we quite liked and
I went well, look, we shouldjust look at a few other shops.
And he said, no, no, I reallylike this.
And the guy said to me if youcome back on Monday, that suit
(26:43):
will be 25% cheaper.
What he didn't understand is myson needed to be wearing it on
the Tuesday of that week.
I wasn't gonna wait six, sevendays to get a suit.
I'd already told him that isthat he's going to school in the
next few days.
Just ridiculous, pointless,annoying.
And that whole concept of ourbook, of course, disloyal
(27:06):
bonding slagging off, hisorganization telling me
something surreptitious, hopingthat I'll like him and buy a
world.
The opposite effect was true.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Great, and what's your second question?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
My second, one thing is if there's one thing people
listening to this episode couldeither take away in a position
of leadership or they're runninga team, they're running their
own business what should they dojust to improve their own
customer service?
Speaker 2 (27:28):
I think, as you've just discussed, they need to
accept that they're running asales organization and
revitalize what they do and beproud of that loud and proud.
We're here to sell stuff.
This is how we're gonna do it,because I think if you do that
and people jump on board, youwill achieve so much better
results than just pretendingthat you're just serving people
(27:50):
Good got one for me.
Yes.
Now my third one is a biggerdiscussion, but I think it's a
big thing.
So I just talked about thisrestaurant in New York where
they didn't receive tips.
What is your opinion on theculture of tipping in the United
Kingdom?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Well, yeah, this is big.
As an ex-waiter who wasn't paidbefore the minimum wage was
invented, I had to not onlysurvive, but my entire wage was
tips.
But that was working till threeo'clock in the morning getting
the light back from Peckham.
Huge sacrifices, not veryhealthy working conditions.
Now people are paid a minimumwage.
(28:30):
I think the problem ofindividual tips is I think it
goes against teamwork andcollaboration, because chefs
don't get them and other peopledon't get them bus boys and so
on and whatever you want to callthem.
So I think you can tip, but Ithink it should now be shared.
I've changed my opinion on thembeing individual, but I
actually prefer when service isincluded at a lower rate.
(28:52):
So I think 10% has been addedto your bill.
What it's not worth it, I thinka discretionary or 5%.
Please take it off if you thinkit's worth it, paid.
If not not.
So I would say a standardizedservice amount.
So I tell you something elsethere's a new restaurant in my
town opened up, where you orderby an app at the table.
The only thing we do is bringit.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
And there's no chat or anything, and really that
should just be the efficiency ofthe bringing and, but there's
no real discussion of menu.
There's no conversation.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Well, most of the time, it's not 10%, jay, it's
12.5%.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Well, there you go, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
And it's interesting that there are certain clubs and
restaurants that we go to whoautomatically add that to
everything you buy.
Okay, that's one thing, but youknow that going in.
I suppose the other side of itis, though, that there are
barbers, cab drivers and otherswho expect a tip, and if you go
in a London cab now and you payby card, you get to choose the
(29:54):
percentage you give them.
So you are definitely gonna begiving them a tip and I find it
very unusual that certain jobsabsolutely exist on the tips
which come, some are just addedon.
Yeah, and I do feel that ifit's an organizational thing, if
it's on the credit card to it,then it must be that everyone
(30:16):
pays 12.5% more.
I do find that slightly galling, cause that means that your
service can be pretty poor andyou're gonna get 12.5% on top
automatically, and of course youcan say, well, let's take it
off, but then you feel like atight ass and I just think that
that, I think, is very poor partof customer service, where you
(30:36):
are forced to pay extra.
I find that the worst thingabout.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
We've all seen strange videos of people in the
United States turning up todeliver stuff on doorsteps and
then, because they don't get atip, they start reloading their
car with the produce.
Why am I being served thesevideos?
And look at this person.
You expect to tip.
It's your job.
So there's a whole generationof younger people who don't want
to give tips anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
No.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
And I think, if you're doing a job that relies
on tips, maybe find someone elsewho values you slightly more
and actually decides to pay youmore.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Well, here's a thing If I go and get my haircut, okay
, and it's 15 quid, and I givethe guy a couple of quid more,
okay, that's a traditional habitthat has been built up over
years.
Okay, If someone goes to abeauty salon and has a treatment
of some kind, a massage orwhatever it may be and it's 50
(31:31):
quid, do they give the person atip.
Is that part of the culture?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I thought the regularity of their purchasing
is worth it rather than tip.
You would hope so.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
But it's a very similar thing.
There's certain things thatseem to demand a tip, certain
things you think there's no wayI tip that person.
If you're in the middle of asupermarket and you say, excuse
me, can you show me where thewine section is, they go oh, you
come along here and take youalong.
And they said let's drive downthat aisle there.
Okay, that's helpful, that'sreally good.
(32:05):
Am I going to slip them a pound?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
No.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
You know, and yes, they've been really helpful and
useful to me.
So again, culturally, I thinkthere's a really odd thing If
you're at the till of asupermarket and the person puts
stuff in bags for you becauseyou're on your own and you're
doing a big shop do you?
Slip them a quid.
When you've paid 100 quid, areyou going to give them an extra
pound?
Do people do that?
(32:27):
I don't think they do.
It's weird.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
It's funny.
Tarantino, as we know, inReservoir Dogs wrote a whole
scene, about this, about theargument at the cafe at the
beginning about the need to getwaitresses, and one of them is
highly expensive, would you meanyou don't tip yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Steve Buschemi says I don't tip yeah, and he's saying
you should tip.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
No, I don't tip, you need to, and their wages are
made up, and this is how thewhole society runs.
And is it, travolta?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
who's defending?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
it or someone else?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
No, no, no, no, that's.
He's not in Reservoir.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Dogs.
No, it isn't Travolta, sorry,is it Chris Penn?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I'll have to watch that scene again.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
My last question to you, which is much more kind of
dull but interested All thesechannels that exist for customer
service yeah, all thesedifferent ways of communicating
either a problem or a repurchase, or an upgrade or a change of
address, and so it goes on.
Which channel has the hugeopportunity to become a
brilliant customer servicechannel?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
It's a really good question.
I think that if contact centerschanged to tele sales teams, I
think they would have a massiveopportunity.
I think move away from service,move back into sales, and every
(33:43):
call that comes in is anopportunity to upsell, cross
sell.
But more importantly, I thinkwe need to get away from siloing
calls into retention calls,cancellation calls, complaints.
You as an individual should bemulti-skilled to be able to
handle any sort of inquiry andupsell that inquiry from
whatever it's about at thatpoint, and I think if you
(34:07):
actually had professionalsalespeople doing that job who
are well trained, with goodquality IT, yeah, and a bit of
energy, it would be amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Lovely, I agree.
That would be it, yeah goodAnything else to say, but it's a
sort of fact, isn't it, thatcustomer service is everything.
I remember I think I told youthis, didn't I?
I went no, we were going torecord this that when my friend
René moved here from New Zealandhe had to set up his utilities,
his broadband, and when he tookon one of his pubs and he could
(34:36):
not believe because he hadn'tlived here for 25 years, whereas
in New Zealand you make a callof guy, picks it up and goes,
yep, and starts helping youstraight away Do you remember I
made up the name?
He lived in Walla, relu orsomething.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Well, I think that's a good point.
And when we were talking justnow about tipping as well, I
thought about when you booktickets for something now and
let's say the tickets are 100quid, as they often are, and
then they say, oh, there's abooking fee of seven quid.
And you go, hang on, I'm online, I'm selecting my seat.
I'm paying the money.
(35:10):
Where's the fee here?
Where's the?
Who am I actually paying to dothis?
And I think some time?
Yeah, that's just, you know,someone's slipped that in and
that's pure profit and we acceptthat as well.
And I think maybe there needsto be a slight backlash where
people say no, none of us aregoing to book our tickets in
advance, we're only going to buythem on the day from the box
(35:32):
office.
Imagine the queues you know, andthen we would have to pay a
booking fee.
I think there needs to be a bitof a challenge to these things,
which are quite annoying.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I don't know if there isn't a booking fee.
If you walk into the theater,in your book they just add the
350.
That's interesting.
I might have to consider that.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I wonder because I remember back in the 80s when
bands would announce tours orconcerts, people would flock to
the actual venue.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I think there's got to be a thing there where, if
it's a ridiculous additionalcharge, they're having a laugh
and we should just refuse to pay, and then they're spending.
It's on the night and peoplequeue yeah, wow, that's
interesting, isn't it?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Well, thanks for tuning in.
Yes, indeed If you'd like thisepisode, do send it to somebody
and say listen to this bud.
And if you want to write us areview, or just subscribe so you
never miss them, we'd love that.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
See you soon.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Bye for now.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Bye, bob and Jeremy's Conflab.
The reality podcast.
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