Tag: Ian Livingston

Poor Customer Service? Time for a Song!

BT Broadband Song Tombstone
BT Broadband Song Tombstone

As many of you know, I was recently inspired to write a song about the lamentable customer service BT was providing to Darren, one of their broadband customers. The song proved to be a big hit, attracting much more attention than I anticipated. According to the BT customer service team, it also helped Darren in his quest to get his service restored (though he had to endure nine days without service first). The good people at BT Care got in touch – firstly to say:

Just posted a comment on your video about your friend’s broadband problem. We would love to get this sorted for him, could you ask him to drop @BTCare a tweet or send btcare@bt.com an email with details of the problem and we will get on to it ASAP. If you ask him to put YouTube in the title of the email I will know it is him.

I would really like to get this sorted for him. Thanks

Then after they had been in touch with their customer and started to sort things out they contacted me again:

It looks like we have been in touch with your friend and are getting things sorted for him. Thanks so much for your help with this.

I really appreciated the way BT Care engaged with me – good work.

Their reaction was a marked contrast to Ian Livingston, BT group CEO. He saw the video and called me three times in one day to remonstrate with me about the song. He was aggressive towards me and made veiled threats of legal action. The song was tongue in cheek – and I don’t think there was anything in it that warranted BT taking legal action. I discussed the matter with friends and the general agreement was ‘the song served its purpose – maybe you should take it down?’

Judging by the way Ian Livingston had reacted I had clearly caused offence, albeit unintentionally. As my friends said, the purpose of the song was to help Darren, so to that extent, mission accomplished. I removed the video from Youtube.

Ian Livingston contacted me again the following day asking

Can you let me know what you decided to do about it all as I can¹t see anything?

I replied confirming I’d already taken the video down. He responded again – here are some of his final words to me (and though I clearly wound him up I was at the time a BT customer and shareholder):

Doug

Your song had nothing to do with Darren getting sorted.  It was picked up before we saw your song. I had got it from his email to me which as I dealt with almost immediately as I do with all customer emails despite the assertions in your song….Customer complaints have reduced by 50% over the last 18 months so perhaps we are making some progress and the RFT (edit – right first time) programme is delivering although we have more to do….For someone who prides themselves in engagement skills, you clearly struggle.

Ian

 

Bored with the Board?

I struggled to stay awake as the BT board bored us with the cost cutting blah @ the AGM this week. It may well be necessary but boy is it dull, haven’t they got any other tricks up their sleeve?

I recall the CEO of Global Services showing us all the downward trend in mobile spend and expenses on a recent webcast and pointing to this as a success. We all know that these costs can be very easily and quickly driven to zero. I can’t believe he really sees these things as sustainable success, as a shareholder I sincerely hope not.

Rather than just squeeze until the pips squeak, what else might you do to get people fired up and enthused in these difficult times? Before I left BT I posed a few questions to the Global Services leadership team, they were:

How are you going to motivate your people?
How are you going to get them to give the discretionary effort that’s so vital in delivering a great customer experience?
How are you going to get your people to trust you, and each other?

Referencing the first question specifically, Roy Saunderson drew my attention to the following interesting analysis from the USA and Canada. It would be convenient to dismiss it just because it’s not from our own backyard, but I think it’s worth a look, and a think, and a do. My experience in BT Global showed me that simple basic recognition is poorly executed. Less than 3 out of 10 could strongly agree with the statement “In the last 7 days I’ve received praise or recognition for good work”. That’s despite the fact this statement is widely acknowledged as a critical key in the link between managers and staff. BT is not alone as the data below suggests and as I said to Ian Livingston (BT Group CEO) before I left, just think how powerful BT could be if it could get just one step ahead of the herd in these vital areas?

Have a read, have a think and do. The sad news is I saw little evidence of action when on the inside, and if the board are to be believed, that attitude persists. The great news is this can be easily fixed, in any company. I hope you enjoy changing it and I wish you every success in doing so.

Recognition definitely needs leadership at the helm, so lead on!!

Check out this latest study from Ipsos Reid which is highlighting that recognition or the lack of recognition maybe impacting lowered engagement scores in Canadian workplaces.

Apparently Canadian employees are becoming less loyal to their employers. According to these recent findings from Ipsos Reid’s Build a Better Workplace syndicated study, 22% of Canadian employees are expressing decreased loyalty to their employer.

“Loyalty to one’s employer is very dependant on recognition,” says JB Aloy, Ipsos’ resident expert on employee engagement and author of the study. “Staff who feel their involvement is not acknowledged are more likely to become disloyal.”

Interestingly, Recognition Professionals International, has “Management Responsibility” as its second Best Practice Standard for recognition practices and programs.

A few years back Roy Saunderson asked managers in the public sector across the United States and Canada how important it was for them to have senior leader involvement in recognition.

How important is it to managers to have Senior Leader involvement with Employee Recognition?
* 93 percent of managers indicate Senior Leader involvement is very or extremely important
* 75 percent of those managers stated Senior Leader participation was extremely important

Now consider the harsh reality when they asked what percentage were REALLY involved:

Actual level of Senior Leader involvement
* 21 percent of Senior Leaders are very involved
* Another 58 percent are somewhat involved

*(Source: Roy Saunderson, “Survey on the Effectiveness of Employee Recognition In the Public Sector”, Public Personnel Management , Vol. 33, no. 3 (2004): 255-275)