A big mea culpa to anyone I might have offended on the title of my last article. But the saga continues…and I had another taste of it yesterday at my local bank….
All of the tellers actually had ribbons pinned to their name badges that said, “Can You Rate Me a 10 Today?”
As a customer service strategy, this is flawed in so many ways. And here again is why customer efforts so often crash and burn. Why?
1. Because we attach all of the ills of the corporations’ poor conceived policies, procedures and rules on the frontline. And…
2. Because we then put them in a position to beg for a morsel of recognition that then gets tied to their bonus or compensation.
And in this case asking the dreaded and filled with all kinds of innuendo question of…
“Am I a 10?”
What I want to know is if they don’t get ranked a “10″ what do they have to do? Hit the floor and give their manager 20 push ups?
ENOUGH with the fake customer satisfaction score brigade! Let’s get out there and take some real action!
Jeanne,
It would be nice if your bank talked to your customers before launching a “button” campaign. I suspect most would say, “don’t show me a button, give me great customer service.”
Seems simple enough. On the other hand, purchasing buttons is a lot easier than hiring and training for a culture that always provides excellent customer service.
Back to the first hand, doing customer service well pays dividends, while those of us who purchase buttons just pay promotional marketers.
Lewis,
You hit the nail on the head. As you know only too well, the buttons seem like a silver bullet- that people will magically change their behavior because they have a button on. Or, how about the one where you give every call center operator a mirror so they can make sure they are smiling into it when they’re on a call? Every company should do a line item tally of all of the ‘chatchkes’ they are paying for – anything with their logo on it – and redirect that funding to training, tools and support for the front line!