I've posted recently about my experiences with Australia's two airlines and the contrasting customer service I've received on both. My business currently flies with Virgin after recently changing our policy of flying with Qantas. The poor service simply became inexcusable. But I'm not sure it is the fault of the staff, but more of the management. Today there was a quote from Virgin Australia CEO John Borgetthi, who said it is the airline’s crew who decide ultimately what passengers will experience. To me, that summed up the current differences between to the two airlines. This is what he said:
“We have consumer feedback, emails, random surveys but one of the most important elements of information is the crew because they see things every day and they know what works and doesn’t and what should be changed,” he said.
“The majority of the changes we have made have come from the crew.
“We talk about the cabin interior and making seats bigger and more comfortable, but above all I think what the people want apart from a smooth operation is service – a friendly, genuine, engaging service. And that’s something we have got and will continue to provide as we have but step up one more level, which we will,” he said.
For any company that really believes in customer service you must do exactly what John suggests you do - look after your staff, listen to your staff, but most of all empower your staff!
Tuesday 10 May 2011
Thursday 5 May 2011
Outsourcing - better for who?
Yesterday the Westpac IT systems went down due to some air conditioning failures. Westpac were quick to point out that all of their hardware is managed by a third party (in this case IBM). From Westpacs point of view, they now have an opportunity to recover some of ther losses from IBM due to the service level agreements that they will have in place. However, I doubt any Westpac customers will have an opportunity to recover lost revenue or lost time or increased inconvenience.
It also brings into question exactly who benefits from these massive outsourcing deals that are done by larger enterprises. In my experience, they are highly competitive which means the organisations that win these contracts are operating on razor thin margins. The first thing they do is get rid of any "excess" staff. The next thing they do is make a risk assessment on the hardware that they "inherit" and see how long they can get away with not replacing anything. They then look at where they can possibly recover some costs by hitting the organisation, in this case Westpac, with change requests or contract variations that will keep the entire engagement in the black. The main beneficiary of all of this is Westpac themselves. They get a lower cost service and they get someone else to blame and cover costs if something goes wrong. A good friend of mine recently left one of the large outsourcing companies as the pressure was too much for him. His company had underbid to win the business and they couldn't take enough cost out to make it profitable. So he was constantly managing a customer that was almost always very unhappy.
If a large organisation (be they a bank or telco or any industry that serves consumers) really cared about their customer base then they would look to manage their IT with a customer focus, rather than with a razor sharp cost only focus. But perhaps the banking shareholders wouldn't like that.
It also brings into question exactly who benefits from these massive outsourcing deals that are done by larger enterprises. In my experience, they are highly competitive which means the organisations that win these contracts are operating on razor thin margins. The first thing they do is get rid of any "excess" staff. The next thing they do is make a risk assessment on the hardware that they "inherit" and see how long they can get away with not replacing anything. They then look at where they can possibly recover some costs by hitting the organisation, in this case Westpac, with change requests or contract variations that will keep the entire engagement in the black. The main beneficiary of all of this is Westpac themselves. They get a lower cost service and they get someone else to blame and cover costs if something goes wrong. A good friend of mine recently left one of the large outsourcing companies as the pressure was too much for him. His company had underbid to win the business and they couldn't take enough cost out to make it profitable. So he was constantly managing a customer that was almost always very unhappy.
If a large organisation (be they a bank or telco or any industry that serves consumers) really cared about their customer base then they would look to manage their IT with a customer focus, rather than with a razor sharp cost only focus. But perhaps the banking shareholders wouldn't like that.
Sunday 1 May 2011
Empower your employees!
Today I traveled on a plane from Sydney to Melbourne. I was flying with Virgin Blue (after recently moving all our business to VB from Qantas) and I had purchased my flight for around $70. All good! But it was a pleasant surprise when, just as the seat belt sign was turned off, the hostess came up and offered to shift me and my wife up to the front to sit in two premium economy seats! I'm a gold FF these days with Virgin, and that's how I was chosen for this excellent "gift" but it struck me that this had never ever occurred on any flights that I was on with Qantas, despite being a gold (and for the last 3 years Platinum) FF. So in 10 years holding the status of either Gold or Platinum with QANTAS, the only thing they had ever done for me was refuse me upgrades (despite me saying I would pay or use points). Many of those upgrade requests were even more infuriating when I would get on the plane only to discover there were empty business class seats - but for Qantas, rules are rules. It really goes to show how great you can male a customer feel by having a truly customer focused team on the ground. But the most important point from this story is to empower you front line people to make decisions that impact positively on your customers. This was something that I learned when I was working for PeopleSoft and, in my view, was one of the main reasons peoplesoft became the huge company it did.
So well done Virgin Blue and thanks for the upgrade. I think QANTAS has a lot to learn to ensure it remains the number one Australian airline.
So well done Virgin Blue and thanks for the upgrade. I think QANTAS has a lot to learn to ensure it remains the number one Australian airline.
Tuesday 5 April 2011
NBN....why oh why
You can imagine my surprise when I heard that there were issues with cost blowouts on the NBN. There are now some saying it will never happen as the contractors cannot actually build any network for the price that the government is expecting from them. If it goes ahead, once again the public will have to pay for this infrastructure that 95% of Australia simply doesn't need.
I want to know why the government aren't spending 40Billion on public transport? Or Health? Perhaps those were considered too hard. I can imagine Mr. Conroy saying something like "hey lets lays some cables in the ground and get some extra votes from rural Australia - how hard can that be".
If only Australia had some real leadership in the parliament.
I want to know why the government aren't spending 40Billion on public transport? Or Health? Perhaps those were considered too hard. I can imagine Mr. Conroy saying something like "hey lets lays some cables in the ground and get some extra votes from rural Australia - how hard can that be".
If only Australia had some real leadership in the parliament.
Saturday 2 April 2011
Wishlist for the next mobile device
There is one item that is sadly lacking in EVERY computing device that represents our words with text. It is something that, had it been available, would have saved me counteless hours of counselling (thats me of others you understand!), arguments, bad weekends and lost opportunities.
Its a "sarcasm" font. I suspect it would look a lot like comic sans serif which already has the comic aspects imbedded, but more improtantly,when someone saw it they would know immeidately - oh, he was just being sarcastic!
Its a "sarcasm" font. I suspect it would look a lot like comic sans serif which already has the comic aspects imbedded, but more improtantly,when someone saw it they would know immeidately - oh, he was just being sarcastic!
Monday 28 March 2011
My Dog
It just hit me!
My dog sleeps about 20 hours a day.
She has her food prepared for her.
She can eat whenever she wants, 24/7/365.
Her meals are provided at no cost to her.
She visits the Dr. once a year for her check-up, and again during the year if any medical needs arise.
For this she pays nothing, and nothing is required of her.
She lives in a nice neighborhood in a house that is much larger than she needs, but she is not required to do any upkeep. If she makes a mess, someone else cleans it up.
She has her choice of luxurious places to sleep.
She receives these accommodations absolutely free.
She is living like a Queen, and has absolutely no expenses whatsoever.
All of her costs are picked up by others who go out and earn a living every day.
I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head.......
My dog is a POLITICIAN
(not original - but funny don't you think :) )
My dog sleeps about 20 hours a day.
She has her food prepared for her.
She can eat whenever she wants, 24/7/365.
Her meals are provided at no cost to her.
She visits the Dr. once a year for her check-up, and again during the year if any medical needs arise.
For this she pays nothing, and nothing is required of her.
She lives in a nice neighborhood in a house that is much larger than she needs, but she is not required to do any upkeep. If she makes a mess, someone else cleans it up.
She has her choice of luxurious places to sleep.
She receives these accommodations absolutely free.
She is living like a Queen, and has absolutely no expenses whatsoever.
All of her costs are picked up by others who go out and earn a living every day.
I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head.......
My dog is a POLITICIAN
(not original - but funny don't you think :) )
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Customer Expectations
I've written before on customer expectations and how important it is to set these appropriately, but a recent experience really highlights how important it is to not only set the appropriate expectation to your customer - but to deliver on that expectation. Here is my story:
I've flown Qantas pretty much exclusively for the last 7 years. I'm currently a Platinum frequent flyer and have been for about 3 years. As a Platinum level FF I have high expectations. I don't expect to be kept waiting to check in, I expect access to the first class lounge, I expect the odd upgrade and I expect to get my seat preferences. In the 7 years I've been with Qantas I've had just one upgrade. It was from business to first on a trip from Hong Kong to Sydney - but in 7 years (3 as Platinum) this did not meet with my expectations. I expect flexibility but increasingly Qantas would not allow a last minute change when checking in - no matter how much you were prepared to pay! Not what I expected as a Platinum FF. Finally, and this was the last straw, I recently did a trip to the US flying Qantas. The first issue was when I went to check in at Melbourne. I stood waiting in the first class line while about 20 people were served in the economy queue. Not what I expected (and if I had actually paid for a first class ticket I probably would have asked for my money back there and then!). Eventually I was served - not even a sorry for the wait! The entire trip (and this trip consisted of 7 flights) I didn't once get my seat preference - though the worst was on the 15 hour flight back from LA to Sydney when my wife and I were in the middle of a bank of 4 with two singles on either side. This is probably the worst seat on the plane - and NOT what I expected. Qantas had raised my expectations to a high level with their tiered FF program - and then failed to deliver on every one of the expectations I had.
So, on the back of that, I decided that Platinum was actually of limited value to me, and I moved all my business to Virgin Blue (we are an account that spends just on 6 figures, so this is a reasonable amount of business that Qantas has lost).
Virgin Blue, for moving the account to them, immediately gave me Gold status. My first flight with Virgin I arrived at the counter ahead of time and asked, hopefully, whether there were any flights leaving earlier. Based on my Qantas experience I expected a stony faced response that they couldn't do anything (I didn't purchase the fully flexible fare) and that I would just have to wait. But no, the Virgin attendant got me onto the next flight (delaying the gate closure so she could get me a seat) AND upgraded me to premium economy!
Now I know that all airlines screw up eventually - they have to given the number of people involved in their service delivery. But given my Virgin Blue experience it will be a long time before Qantas is in a position to win back my personal business and my companies business. The QANTAS CEO was recently quoted as saying he wanted to win back some of the share they had lost from Virgin - but I don't see that happening if they continue to set high expectations for their customers, then fail to deliver on ANY of those expectations.
The point for this post? Don't set an expectation that you cannot deliver on. Decide what you want to be and stick to it. If you want to offer tiered service levels, then you better be damn sure you can meet the high expectations you are setting for the top tier standard.
Tell me about your experiences. When did you have an expectation set too high and the organization failed to deliver? How did you feel about that? Did it make you take your business elsewhere?
I've flown Qantas pretty much exclusively for the last 7 years. I'm currently a Platinum frequent flyer and have been for about 3 years. As a Platinum level FF I have high expectations. I don't expect to be kept waiting to check in, I expect access to the first class lounge, I expect the odd upgrade and I expect to get my seat preferences. In the 7 years I've been with Qantas I've had just one upgrade. It was from business to first on a trip from Hong Kong to Sydney - but in 7 years (3 as Platinum) this did not meet with my expectations. I expect flexibility but increasingly Qantas would not allow a last minute change when checking in - no matter how much you were prepared to pay! Not what I expected as a Platinum FF. Finally, and this was the last straw, I recently did a trip to the US flying Qantas. The first issue was when I went to check in at Melbourne. I stood waiting in the first class line while about 20 people were served in the economy queue. Not what I expected (and if I had actually paid for a first class ticket I probably would have asked for my money back there and then!). Eventually I was served - not even a sorry for the wait! The entire trip (and this trip consisted of 7 flights) I didn't once get my seat preference - though the worst was on the 15 hour flight back from LA to Sydney when my wife and I were in the middle of a bank of 4 with two singles on either side. This is probably the worst seat on the plane - and NOT what I expected. Qantas had raised my expectations to a high level with their tiered FF program - and then failed to deliver on every one of the expectations I had.
So, on the back of that, I decided that Platinum was actually of limited value to me, and I moved all my business to Virgin Blue (we are an account that spends just on 6 figures, so this is a reasonable amount of business that Qantas has lost).
Virgin Blue, for moving the account to them, immediately gave me Gold status. My first flight with Virgin I arrived at the counter ahead of time and asked, hopefully, whether there were any flights leaving earlier. Based on my Qantas experience I expected a stony faced response that they couldn't do anything (I didn't purchase the fully flexible fare) and that I would just have to wait. But no, the Virgin attendant got me onto the next flight (delaying the gate closure so she could get me a seat) AND upgraded me to premium economy!
Now I know that all airlines screw up eventually - they have to given the number of people involved in their service delivery. But given my Virgin Blue experience it will be a long time before Qantas is in a position to win back my personal business and my companies business. The QANTAS CEO was recently quoted as saying he wanted to win back some of the share they had lost from Virgin - but I don't see that happening if they continue to set high expectations for their customers, then fail to deliver on ANY of those expectations.
The point for this post? Don't set an expectation that you cannot deliver on. Decide what you want to be and stick to it. If you want to offer tiered service levels, then you better be damn sure you can meet the high expectations you are setting for the top tier standard.
Tell me about your experiences. When did you have an expectation set too high and the organization failed to deliver? How did you feel about that? Did it make you take your business elsewhere?
Saturday 19 March 2011
The school bully
A story about bullying.
Many of us saw this week the video of a small boy taunting a larger, bigger boy whilst throwing punches and dancing around in front of the larger boy. All of a sudden the larger boy has had enough, he swings into action and grabs the smaller boy in a headlock. He then lifts him (easily) above his head and body slams him on to the concrete. The smaller boy staggers up and walks away. Score one for the good guys.
This video brought back some strong memories from my early years at secondary school. I had begged my parents to send me to a technical school (they used to be separate 35 years ago - if you wanted to do a trade you went to the tech). I wanted to be a mechanic and so my parents, against their better judgement, sent me to the technical school. It was a decision i would regret for the 3 years I was there. The school was out of control with bullying, fighting and pack rapes all happening regularly - but the most constant being the bullying and physical violence. As someone who wasn't all that confident and wasn't all that big (I didn't put on any hight or weight until I was about 16) I was fairly low in the pecking order. Not at the bottom mind you - which meant I also contributed to this culture of bullying on occasions. But low enough that I was constantly on the lookout for groups that might be traveling the school yard looking for someone lower in the pecking order so that they could give them swift kick, smack across the head or worse. One "punishment" that was quite common for these pack animals was "the pole". "The Pole" was often administered for no reason at all, occasionally because you wouldn't "bow down" to someone or in one particular case, lick someones boots. There was a small kid at our school a lot like the kid in the video this week. He took great joy in the humiliation of other children and would often travel around with bigger kids - but he was always first to administer the punishment despite his size. I had a mate name Michael Jones. We called him Jonesy of course and he was quite tall, but a bit of a dork with thick glasses and a quiet, humble demeanor. He was a good mate and we did almost everything together including riding our bikes to school and home each day. This one morning we arrived at school and we were riding our bike to the bike racks. We were on the school grounds and you were not supposed to ride your bike whilst in the school grounds. Along came this kid with his mates. Darren Chilvers was his name and he was a small blond kid who was always wearing dirty clothes and an even dirtier mouth. He saw us riding our bikes and immediately appointed himself school prefect, telling us to get off our bikes. We did - we didn't want trouble, it was not something we went looking for. But Chilvers wasn't happy with that. Like the boy in the video, he really enjoyed making fun of other kids, especially of those kids were bigger than him. For this attack, it seemed I was not going to be the target. He asked Jonesy what his punishment should be for riding in the school yard. Jonesy was feeling particularly brave today (who knows why - perhaps it was the bike ride which had elevated his heart rate up, or perhaps he had just had enough). He told "Chilvers" to "F*%# Off. Chilvers made some remark about how little boys shouldn't swear and Jonesy, feeling even braver, told him that the only little person here was Chilvers. Well, it never took much to get a reaction from this kid and his mates quickly grabbed Jonesy, one on each arm. Chilvers told Jonesy to lick his shoes. The mates tried to push jonesy's head down to the shoes but they couldn't hold him and get his head down to the ground. Then Chilvers pronounced judgement - "your getting the pole jonesy unless you lick my boots". Jonesy didn't look scared and continued to struggle to get away from the guys holding him, but to no avail. They marched him towards the nearest pole and as they let go of his arms, they grabbed his legs - one on one leg, two on the other and they pulled hard on his legs, slamming his testicles into the pole. Jonesy screamed in agony but managed to get one leg free and kicked one of the guys holding him. This was enough for the others to decide their job of discipline was complete and they ran off. I then wheeled both bikes over to Jonesy, who was still laying on the ground holding himself. He had a pained look on his face and as I handed him his bike he said thanks. I said "Thats ok", but he wasn't being thankful at all. He was being sarcastic. He then went on to ask my why I didn't help him and I didn't know - other than self preservation I had no excuse as to why a let them do that to my friend. But I'm not alone - many kids who are victims of bullying feel guilty because they didn't do anything to ghelp a friend or even themselves - or they simply felt helpless in the face of such an attack. Im 47 now but many of these bullying incidents are as real in my memory as if they happened yesterday. I don't still feel guilty for not helping Jonesy or for not fighting back, though I do sometimes still feel very angry at the teachers that allowed this type of thing to go on, or the parents who raised their children to be this way with others. I also sometimes feel sorry for the kids that were the bullies. I heard that Darren Chilvers has had a pretty terrible life. His father used to beat him, he has been in and out of prisons and has been married and divorced a number of times - I feel sorry for his kids given he probably never learnt how to be a good parent.
The issue of bullying is not an easy one to tackle - it requires concerted effort on all fronts. Just as more effort from me might have saved Jonesy from the pole, we all need to be willing to risk something to solve this problem. It wont change overnight, and violence like that which was seen in the video this week is not the answer - adults, parents, teachers, politicians (Yes, even politicians can help) - anyone that has any influence over what happens in our schools and how our children behave needs to be aware of the issue and be constantly working to solve the problem.
So what do you think you can do about it? Got any good ideas that don't involve teaching our kids how to fight and defenec themselves?
Many of us saw this week the video of a small boy taunting a larger, bigger boy whilst throwing punches and dancing around in front of the larger boy. All of a sudden the larger boy has had enough, he swings into action and grabs the smaller boy in a headlock. He then lifts him (easily) above his head and body slams him on to the concrete. The smaller boy staggers up and walks away. Score one for the good guys.
This video brought back some strong memories from my early years at secondary school. I had begged my parents to send me to a technical school (they used to be separate 35 years ago - if you wanted to do a trade you went to the tech). I wanted to be a mechanic and so my parents, against their better judgement, sent me to the technical school. It was a decision i would regret for the 3 years I was there. The school was out of control with bullying, fighting and pack rapes all happening regularly - but the most constant being the bullying and physical violence. As someone who wasn't all that confident and wasn't all that big (I didn't put on any hight or weight until I was about 16) I was fairly low in the pecking order. Not at the bottom mind you - which meant I also contributed to this culture of bullying on occasions. But low enough that I was constantly on the lookout for groups that might be traveling the school yard looking for someone lower in the pecking order so that they could give them swift kick, smack across the head or worse. One "punishment" that was quite common for these pack animals was "the pole". "The Pole" was often administered for no reason at all, occasionally because you wouldn't "bow down" to someone or in one particular case, lick someones boots. There was a small kid at our school a lot like the kid in the video this week. He took great joy in the humiliation of other children and would often travel around with bigger kids - but he was always first to administer the punishment despite his size. I had a mate name Michael Jones. We called him Jonesy of course and he was quite tall, but a bit of a dork with thick glasses and a quiet, humble demeanor. He was a good mate and we did almost everything together including riding our bikes to school and home each day. This one morning we arrived at school and we were riding our bike to the bike racks. We were on the school grounds and you were not supposed to ride your bike whilst in the school grounds. Along came this kid with his mates. Darren Chilvers was his name and he was a small blond kid who was always wearing dirty clothes and an even dirtier mouth. He saw us riding our bikes and immediately appointed himself school prefect, telling us to get off our bikes. We did - we didn't want trouble, it was not something we went looking for. But Chilvers wasn't happy with that. Like the boy in the video, he really enjoyed making fun of other kids, especially of those kids were bigger than him. For this attack, it seemed I was not going to be the target. He asked Jonesy what his punishment should be for riding in the school yard. Jonesy was feeling particularly brave today (who knows why - perhaps it was the bike ride which had elevated his heart rate up, or perhaps he had just had enough). He told "Chilvers" to "F*%# Off. Chilvers made some remark about how little boys shouldn't swear and Jonesy, feeling even braver, told him that the only little person here was Chilvers. Well, it never took much to get a reaction from this kid and his mates quickly grabbed Jonesy, one on each arm. Chilvers told Jonesy to lick his shoes. The mates tried to push jonesy's head down to the shoes but they couldn't hold him and get his head down to the ground. Then Chilvers pronounced judgement - "your getting the pole jonesy unless you lick my boots". Jonesy didn't look scared and continued to struggle to get away from the guys holding him, but to no avail. They marched him towards the nearest pole and as they let go of his arms, they grabbed his legs - one on one leg, two on the other and they pulled hard on his legs, slamming his testicles into the pole. Jonesy screamed in agony but managed to get one leg free and kicked one of the guys holding him. This was enough for the others to decide their job of discipline was complete and they ran off. I then wheeled both bikes over to Jonesy, who was still laying on the ground holding himself. He had a pained look on his face and as I handed him his bike he said thanks. I said "Thats ok", but he wasn't being thankful at all. He was being sarcastic. He then went on to ask my why I didn't help him and I didn't know - other than self preservation I had no excuse as to why a let them do that to my friend. But I'm not alone - many kids who are victims of bullying feel guilty because they didn't do anything to ghelp a friend or even themselves - or they simply felt helpless in the face of such an attack. Im 47 now but many of these bullying incidents are as real in my memory as if they happened yesterday. I don't still feel guilty for not helping Jonesy or for not fighting back, though I do sometimes still feel very angry at the teachers that allowed this type of thing to go on, or the parents who raised their children to be this way with others. I also sometimes feel sorry for the kids that were the bullies. I heard that Darren Chilvers has had a pretty terrible life. His father used to beat him, he has been in and out of prisons and has been married and divorced a number of times - I feel sorry for his kids given he probably never learnt how to be a good parent.
The issue of bullying is not an easy one to tackle - it requires concerted effort on all fronts. Just as more effort from me might have saved Jonesy from the pole, we all need to be willing to risk something to solve this problem. It wont change overnight, and violence like that which was seen in the video this week is not the answer - adults, parents, teachers, politicians (Yes, even politicians can help) - anyone that has any influence over what happens in our schools and how our children behave needs to be aware of the issue and be constantly working to solve the problem.
So what do you think you can do about it? Got any good ideas that don't involve teaching our kids how to fight and defenec themselves?
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