Acknowledgement is, in our eyes, the magic element of any relationship. Including business relationships: All encounters and exchanges related to a seller/buyer, company/customer relationship.
Going deeper we now determine 3 values of Relationship Quality: Satisfaction, Trust and Commitment. Important to mention is that these values work both ways. Both parties ‚work‘ to establish and nurture these important relationship factors. However, the ‚seller‘ in the relationship is in the lead.
What you give, you’ll get back.
Customer satisfaction is defined as a measurement that determines how happy customers are with a company's products, services, and capabilities. Consistency of satisfaction is key. Consistency in behavior isn’t enough though. Constantly evolving your offer and service levels and keeping efforts high in order to satisfy your customers anew, is what makes consistency of satisfaction.
Customer trust is the faith a consumer has in a company. It shows confidence in a company's commitment to delivering on its promises and doing what's right for the customer. Customer trust is the faith a consumer has in a company.
You’ve correctly already observed that trust and commitment go hand in hand. Trust however is an emotion that goes both ways. The company shows the customer it can be trusted but in terms of acknowledgement, the company also shows it trusts its customers. Many, many services are plagued by rules that directly flow from mistrust in the customer. This is a message to the customer about how he is seen, acknowledged, and indirectly how the customer may trust the company in return. Trust is subject to value exchange: you get what you give.
Commitment can only be attained when there is mutual trust (see: hand in hand) and the two parties share each other's values. In a committed relationship both suppliers/company and customers strive to uphold the relationship and never want to exit which in turn results in building the relationship stronger and sharper. Again, commitment, like trust, is a two way street that requires mutual effort. And again, what you give is what you will get back.
A story: Recently the relationship between ‚my‘ bank, CreditSuisse, and me expired. I emphasized ‚my‘ bank because that is what I felt for quite a long time. CreditSuisse has always been successful in positioning themselves as ‚THE‘ bank, and with me being quite receptive to doing business with THE bank I saw them as ‚my‘ bank. Over the years however it wasn’t that they were acting as ‚my‘ bank.
Incidents occurred every now and then but lately the occurrences started to increase in frequency.
In one recent episode my credit was cancelled. At the time it was quite a nuisance so I think I rightly enquired what brought on this change (or change of heart) about my credit. The reply to my enquiry was quite surprising: „A robot has determined that based on my asset movements my credit is cut“… and that „this robot looks to protect customers from unnecessary debt“. The fact that I was actually using the credit and it thus not being ‚unnecessary‘ was lost on my counterpart in this exchange. The fact that a robot apparently now controls my relationship with ‚my‘ bank wasn’t a very comforting thought, especially because it seems that none of the humans I was interacting with at the bank had any power over the decisions of this robot and were even helplessly and comfortably hiding behind it’s ‚decisions‘.
Satisfaction: Low. I don’t think I need to explain what happens when suddenly, without prior warning, a credit is cancelled.
Trust: None. It’s often hard for a human to trust another human. For a human to trust a robot and its apparently quite sudden and random decisions plus the complete incapability of the humans employing the robot to do anything about its workings is at least discomforting. In reality it results in a deep sense of distrust.
Commitment: Not being able to answer my request for "business as usual" and the re-establishment of the credit I enjoyed prior to the robot’s Monday-morning-crankiness did result in a sense of commitment. Unfortunately it felt the commitment was aimed at getting rid of me as a customer.
As a side-note: throughout the recent experience with CreditSuisse I did actually and seriously at times wondered if there might not have been an actual strategic attempt to dump me as a client, and with me possibly hundreds of other ‚unwanted‘ clients, but I decided that was too off to be true… Still, sometimes…
In another episode I lost my bank card. I had been traveling and sincerely didn’t know where my card could be, it might have even been stolen without me noticing it, so I thought it best to have the card cancelled. I immediately called (still) ‚my‘ bank, CreditSuisse. After waiting seriously long for the line to be answered I was made aware of the fact that the number I’d called was apparently the wrong number and that the correct hotline number is on the back of the (missing) card… (No further comment).
After waiting for ages again to be transferred to the right hotline I got the same person on the phone (no kidding).
As a sidestep I’ll give you some sentences that I was expecting would follow: (Some ideas that might reflect what a correct Customer Experience could look like)
„I’m so sorry to hear that. That is a real nuisance.“
„Do you use ‚pay-by-phone“ so you at least have some means? If not we could activate that for you if you’d like?“
„We’ll cancel the card right away. It’s active immediately to ensure no-one can misuse your card“
„Would you like us to go through the account’s movements together to see if any deductions are off?“
„Did you lose it or were you possibly robbed? Have you checked if anything else is missing?“
„We imagine you might need another card. We’ll send you that as soon as possible“
„Is your card activated for online purchases? If the card is misused for such transactions you are insured.“
The answer I really got was: „It’ll cost 55 Swiss Francs to cancel the card“ (for those of you abroad that’s about the same in EUR or USD)
I was flabbergasted. I thought it was a joke at first. Unfortunately that thought was very short-lived. And the best thing was still to come… After my refusal to pay for it the answer was „okay then I will make it undone again“. So the effort was doubled just to make sure I was in as much peril as possible…
Satisfaction: None.
Trust: None. I did now trust that CreditSuisse would even go through the effort to consciously put me in harm’s way.
Commitment: Once again the commitment was aimed at losing my business rather than retaining it.
As I was driving into town whilst on the phone with, soon to be, 'my old‘ bank, driving down the main street of town I ran into three different banks. The one that acknowledged my existence by making time to welcome me as a new customer got me. The other two… didn’t have time! (This deserves a blog entry in itself).
I gave the order to automatically transfer all my funds, including savings and pension fund, to my new bank. ‚My new‘ bank. I was committed. Committed to run away as far a possible from CreditSuisse.
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