On Saturday morning I was paying some bills online. As it was Saturday I set the date for the payment transfer for Monday (2 days later) as I thought that would be reasonable.
I couldn’t process the payment because, Barclays Bank told me, I had to set the date to “immediate”.
Was it easy to set the date to “immediate?” No. I was thrown out of the whole process and ended up at a log in page again. When I tried to log in I was told that online banking was not available!
Of course online banking was available: I had just been sent to some strange waiting room in cyberspace without even a cheerful receptionist. In the end I had to go through the whole process again and was able to make the transfer. But what a waste of my time and my goodwill. Barclays have been doing online banking for years now. You would think they would have got the bugs sorted.
Just as I finished there was a knock on the door and a delivery man was standing there with a parcel from Amazon. I was astonished. The order had been made online the previous afternoon and I had not paid for delivery. My expectation was that the books would arrive in three days time.
So Amazon exceeded my expectation of their standard of customer service, and overdelivered, and Barclays failed to reach the standard I expected.
I don’t know how Amazon is faring in the recession but their customer service impressed me. They have cut 40% off many paperback costs, and obviously are hot on delivery. Good for them.
Barclays on the other hand have been doing online banking for a few years, and don’t seem to have the basics right. As they have chosen middle eastern, rather than taxpayer, money to bail them out, perhaps some new sharp shooter on the board will ask sharp questions about customer service. Sort that out, and they are more likely to keep existing customers.. and without the expense of expensive celebrity television advertising.
Good customer service is the foundation of good marketing… and is essential in the recession even more than at other times.
What are the standards that your customers expect? What are you telling them about what to expect?
Under promise and over deliver.
We have all heard it. It is a good policy to overdeliver against their expectations to get your customers talking about your business in the right way.