Customer Satisfaction and Engagement. Learn From the Locals

I’ve compiled the January 2010 UK Institute of Customer Service (ICS) figures into a table ranked by score (rounded to whole numbers) irrespective of sector. Local services make up four of this top ten. John Lewis/Waitrose take two more of the places, and Marks & Spencer/Marks & Spencer Food take two more. Toby Carvery and Virgin Holidays complete the top ten.

We can clearly see local businesses emerging with good results. I think this is because small local businesses worry less about things like vague customer satisfaction figures, and more about personal, connected service. Too often big brands risk losing that sense of connectedness as they strive to hit a spurious measure. Deliver service purposefully, and the scores will come. Very encouraging.

If you want to see where your company ranks, the full table can be downloaded here. By measuring scores irrespective of sector, some interesting results emerge. For example, despite all the industrial unrest and inconvenience caused by that, British Airways scrapes into the top 25.

It would be interesting to overlay employee engagement scores onto this table. I expect that the local businesses would disappear from sight. That’s not a criticism, it’s just that they don’t need to measure employee engagement, it’s literally staring them in the face. I’m not convinced that most big businesses need to measure it either; they just do it because everyone else does. And in so doing, most businesses risk chasing an improving employee engagement measure, instead of actually engaging. As you can see from the chart above, there appears to be a connection. If anyone has any further research on this that they’re willing to share feel free to post it here.

The July ICS figures are just out and it’s slightly disappointing to see they make fewer results available. I’ll carry out a similar comparison of these figures and publish them soon. Meantime if you have any stories of local v global, better or worse, feel free to share them with us.

Ballad of Barclaycard

Katherine’s a good friend of mine, and we were recently talking about the effect of disengagement on customer service. Katherine told me the tale of her ongoing Barclaycard experience. I shan’t go into all the details, but the story is a catalogue of lost paperwork, waiting for the contact centre to answer, failed promises on call backs, and a breakdown of trust. At one point while Barclaycard were searching for (another) lost debit mandate, Katherine was advised by them to pay her monthly credit card bills twice, just to make sure she didn’t incur any debit interest! As far as I know – the matter is not yet resolved.

Regular readers may know that when I recently heard of a similar story involving BT, a short song helped a friend and BT customer to a swifter resolution. Who knows what will happen this time? Are you listening Barclaycard?

Verse 1:

I sent you my debit mandate, and you lost it

I sent another, then another, to be sure

Then you said that I should pay you twice

While you try to find it

So I won’t incur any interest

Are you sure?

Chorus:

I’m lost in the call centre of incompetence

You’re a big company can it really be that hard

I’m asking you to reinstate my debit mandate

I’m going off you very quickly Barclaycard

Verse 2:

Now the months go by and still you keep me waiting

I pay you manually, don’t trust you any more

I dread to think what you are doing to my credit rating

With all these errors, it’s probably gone through the floor

Chorus:

I’m lost in the call centre of incompetence

You’re a big company can it really be that hard

I’m asking you to reinstate my debit mandate

I’m going off you very quickly Barclaycard

Give Peas A Chance

One of the most enjoyable talks I gave in the past 18 months was called Plant & Grow. I was invited to speak with the graduate and fast track community at BT. I remember the talk because the audience were a bright, energetic and enthusiastic bunch. They were interested in my views on networking.

I remember the talk because it was one of the first times I used the power of social media to learn from other people about what might help make this talk really interesting, and at least a little different. As a group we agreed that networking has far more value if you show genuine interest in people, and act like a bee, giving and taking. The networking butterfly flitting from place to place leaving business cards, though pretty, left us….unfulfilled.

I’m interested in gardening too, so with a name like Plant and Grow that’s another reason I can recall this talk so well. I also managed to get in a relevant reference to the late, great Joe Strummer and his powerful short speech titled, Without People You’re Nothing. For me it’s hard not to recall something fondly if it relates to him in some way.

And I keep moving on, and keep planting and growing. As you can see from the picture the garden peas are ready to be picked and eaten, seconds later. We’ve already had raspberries, rocket, and the garlic bulbs are drying as we speak. And there’s so much more to come through the summer, into autumn and beyond.

I recently became aware of a fantastic local community farm initiative, the Sutton Community Farm. 7.5 acres of opportunity just a few hundred yards from where I live. I hope this project is going to be a huge success and act as a beacon for community growing in and around London. As a business owner I think it’s right to help plant and grow in your local community and I sincerely hope that other companies are encouraged to join in and make a difference for the community, with the community, by the community. Engaging, purposeful stuff.

What local sustainability initiatives have caught your eye lately? And what kind of difference do you think a project like this can make?