Customer Service Satisfaction Research

I have come across many customer service hotlines where they ask my willingness to participate in a short research after the query is handled. Most organizations use an automated messaging system to play this message even before they answer my query. Imagine the situation… I’m calling because I have a problem or doubt or question or need help… so instead of answering my phone quickly they waste time asking me whether I will answer a survey. I always feel disappointed & say NO to such requests.

Yesterday I called up Starwood Preferred Guest hotline. They handled my booking request and a query on one of their properties in Bali. As always my experience was great and as I was about to end the call… the customer service executive requested me to take part in a short survey. I happily gave highest possible rating – took me 2-3 minutes but I didn’t grudge them as my queries were answered promptly.

I think a lot of organizations don’t really think about the ‘Human Experience’ on the other side of the telephone line. All they care about is getting their message out and in the process cause irritation.

Views from Jeffrey Cole

I’m at a P&G regional conference and just finished listening to Prof. Jeffrey Cole from the Center for the Digital Future. He presented learnings from his 8 years of research on digital & its integration into human life. He talked well and about quite a few things – nothing particularly new except for a thought on Media Companies/Content Owners. He predicted that in future Media/Content would be smaller business but will be more profitable. 

It is an interesting way of looking at things because today we go for Scale across all industries. May be there are certain industries where ’small is beautiful & profitable’. I would like to think that some of the intellectual property based businesses might go the small route because sometimes Consolidation & Scale bring compromises, reduces speed and create barriers.

What if Marketing & Advertising industry goes that route?

Facebook Status & Speed of Responses

As I interact with people, clients, colleagues, technologies, concepts etc… I end up developing thoughts – I end up developing ideas – I get inspired by other people – I sometimes also get desperate… and I reflect that on my status on Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin/IMs etc. Facebook status updates have always fascinated me and I learn a lot from them. They help me in knowing moods, morale, problems, excitement, opportunities, failures, success stories and even random thoughts. People intentionally or unintentionally send out a message to their network and the beauty is that network notices – and even reacts in some cases. 

I’m amazed to see how quickly people react. I came out of a discussion on Research & Consumer Insights and I updated my status “to steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research or insight….” – In no time (literally few mins) I had two responses – one from Indonesia and one from California – funny one from Ravi Bhaya (taking a pun on our friend Ranga – head of insights & analytics at Starcom MediaVest Group) and serious one questioning my thought (from my senior from b-school and good friend Purnima – all time Dumb C champion).

Thank you Network for your attention to my Random (often stupid) thoughts.