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Archive for the ‘Customer Service’ Category

Aramex; Delivering Customer Satisfaction

06 Oct
Image from: aramex.com

It is good to read about companies that are making spectacular customer service, and about customers who are receiving these services. But do you know what is even better than reading these stories? It is being at the receiving end … of course!

That what exactly happened to my friend Mohsen who was at the receiving end of a superb customer service from Aramex, the transportation and logistics company. Before going on with this story, I should emphasize  here that this story has not been influenced by Aramex or any of its staff in any way. The only influence that you may want to consider is their sincere efforts in making one customer, a happy one!

Believe it or not, the story that in some point witnessed the involvement of the company headquarter started because of an online chat between Mohsen and a customer service representative. Mohsen started the chat asking about his shipment that was already in Jeddah but never reached him. The online customer rep. gave a weird reply stating that the shipment has been already delivered and it was received by someone called “Tahlia Branch” … I am sure you can guess that Tahlia Branch is … you know … a branch of Aramex on Al Tahlia street!!

Of course Mohsen was not impressed, he clarified the situation to the customer rep., then filled an online complain about the service, and decided to tweet about the story while hashtaging Aramex.

Nothing abnormal about the story so far; we have been there, done that! Now prepare for the delightful customer service surprise!

After a couple of hours, Mohsen received an international phone call. Identifying himself as the COO of operations in the Middle East, the gentleman on the other side of the phone called to apologize to Mohsen about of the misgiven information in the chat, and that he will make sure it will never happen again! You may want to ask how the COO knew about the story! Yes, he is on Twitter, he read Mohsen’s tweet!

You can imagine the kind the impression such experience had left on Mohsen, or any customer in his position. The COO of an international company is actually calling you to apologize for an online incident that he noticed because of a tweet!

The story is not over yet; in a couple of days, Mohsen received another call from Aramex, this time from a quality assurance representative calling him because of the online complain he had left after the chat! And guess what, Mohsen told the representative about the call he received from the COO and she was not aware of it, she was just calling to help with misfortunate customer expereince he had had while receivng the service!

So why this is a superb customer experience:

  • It clearly shows that the company, Aramex in this story, has the customer experience at the heart of its culture. You do not usually get a call from the COO and get follow up calls from a company that did not thoroughly thought about customer satisfaction!
  • The story does not suggest in any way that Aramex is a perfect customer provider and there is no chance of receiving some unfortunate experience with them, but it certainly shows that they are willing to learn from their mistakes, they care, they understand what customer service is (read the previous point again).
  • Finally, this is an example of the power of social media. An evidence of what Jeff Jravis* calls the lost control of timing. On social media you ‘no longer decide when to put your story out or when to answer critics.’ That’s why companies like Aramex cares about their reputation on the social network. That’s why they are closely monitoring what is said about their services. Deciding to have a Twitter, Facebook, and a website is not a luxury anymore. Online presence is important to have, more important to use well. To interact with customers and to engage them. To understand them.
* Read Jeff Jarvis book, “What Would Google Do?”

 
3 Comments

Posted in Branding, Customer Service, Marketing, Social Media

 

To Hell with Customers

12 Aug

If you are familiar with ‘That Jeddah Podcast,’ then you should have listened to a small part of her story in one of the recent podcasts, but in her blog, the lovely co-host Sally, spilled the story all out, and let me tell you … it sounds and looks … painful!

It is another story of an exemplary-lousy-customer service!

It is really sad to state the the principles of customer service is not an original part of the Saudi business’s culture. Yes, they are all talking about it, they are all claiming to have it, but for any independent observer, it is not there, it is just an illusion!

Honestly, it is a complicated issue. Customers themselves do not know their rights, business owners and service providers have nothing to fear, in other words, they are not well regulated, if regulated at all, when it comes to customer services.

Take what happened to Sally as an example; the hair salon reacted as there is nothing significant took place, yeah, the girl just dropped the curling iron on Sally’s arm, you know, shit happens!! That’s a reaction of fearless business. Who is regulating hair salons anyway? Who is inspecting their locations for hygiene, prices, processes, etc? I personally do not know!

And on the same example, Sally herself did not know what to do although she stated ‘in a normal country I could sue a place over being effing depressed for starters’ She knew she has a right somewhere, but she did not know how to get it?? I wonder what she could have done! Call the police maybe? Although I am not sure how the police would’ve accessed the scene, it is a women’s area only?? And then what? Take the police report to a lawyer and sue the salon? I think she could have done that, not sure on what basis, or what she will get eventually, but at least she could’ve made some fuss!

On the other hand, let’s imagine what a hair salon with an original customer service culture  would do; first of all, they would take care of all the medical bills, right! then, of course, they won’t charge their in pain customer for that session! and I guess they would give their customer a free access to different services for no less than a year or something! Just imagine how loyal customers would be to such a place, imagine the rewards of the words of mouth generated because of such incident!

Yeah … imagination is allowed … only  :(

 
4 Comments

Posted in Culture, Customer Service, Marketing, Saudi business

 

Suing a Blog over a Review

04 Feb

Writing a review on your blog talking about your ‘personal’ experience with a company, or a restaurant could drag you to the court if that company or restaurant managers decided that they do not like your ‘personal’ opinions about them. If the lawsuit filed by the franchise restaurant “Benihana” in Kuwait against the blogger of ‘2:48 AM’ got through its course in the legal system, then this could be the first in the Arab world blogosphere, as far as I know at least!

The story started when Mark, the blogger of ‘2:48 AM,’ decided to visit the newly opened restaurant with his wife. Thereafter, he wrote this review on his blog about their experience at the restaurant. Although the management of ‘Benihana’ seem like they do not know a thing about social media and blogs, somehow they managed to reach that review and to them, that was a huge slap on the face. Go ahead and try to read the comments on that post, you will find that number of different people tried to attack Mark and counterattack his reviews. That until you realize through one of Marks replies that he found out that the different names are only one (same IP address) and it seems that it was a move from the management of ‘Benihana’ to shut him up. The story does not end here, when Mark pulled the cover of the multiple names, someone named Mike Servo came along indicating that he is the GM of the company and started harassing Mark by threatening with a legal action. You can find the comment of this so called GM on the same page under the name Mike Servo.

Now, Mark has announced that he was served with a court order (here); so it is official now that people running ‘Benihana’ Kuwait do not know a bit about marketing, customer service, PR, or social media marketing.

The story is now breaking out and it has been reported by many media outlets. Talking about bad publicity, this is what Benihana exactly got. From marketing perspective, I do not think there is a more dreadful mistake than reacting to an unsatisfied customer with an attack. Doing that you will not only lose the customer, but you will lose hundreds of customers who will hear or read about it. It is a bad word of mouth, and a bad social media marketing altogether.

The reaction of the Benihana really amazes me, not because all of the drama in the story, but because it is coming when everyone, on all levels, especially in the Arab world, is starting to realize the power of blogs and social media and how strong its arm could be. It is really a classical, old fashioned, unprofessional, and even a foolish managerial mistake.

Benihana restaurant exists in my city, Jeddah, as well. I am not a big fan of Japanese cuisine myself, but I will make sure to pass a note to all my friends and family members who are into Japanese food. It is unfriendly place, this the image I formed about Benihana, given that I’ve never been there!!

Lastly, the free spirit statement, I do not personally know any one running ‘2:48 AM’ or any one working in Benihana, none of them nor anyone else has influenced this post in anyway. It is all mine :)

p.s. Thanks to Darine Sabbagh, the Lebanese blogger; I found about this story through her post (here) :)

 
2 Comments

Posted in Communication, Customer Service, General Management, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media

 

The Customer ‘We Don’t’ Care Division

09 Jun

This is a true story; a true story of customer care … ohh sorry … I mean a true story of customer ‘we don’t’ care!!

While waiting for the customer care representative in one of the most popular bookstores (it is not only a bookstore!) in the Kingdom to help me with something that should not take more than 2 minuets (it actually took about 20 minuets!!), a couple of expatriates stood by with an item they just bought in one hand and the invoice in the other hand. As far as I can tell, they were Americans, at least from what I caught from the husband’s accent. I was standing right there, so I could not help but hearing this conversation:

“The price tag on ‘X’ is saying that it worths 55 SAR, but according to this invoice, the cashier just charged us 69 SAR!!” said Mr. Customer.

Mr. We-do-not-care responded after taking a quick look at the invoice without even care to have a look at the price tag “Yeah … yeah … the computer is correct.”

The couple looked into each other eyes and then the husband continued “but this is misleading, you should’ve changed the price tags”

Without even looking at them, Mr. We-do-not-care said “Yes, we should.”

The wife put her hand on her husband shoulder urging him to leave, and without words she said “Let’s go, let’s just not waste our time.”

If I am analyzing this situation correctly, the customer was expecting nothing but some respect. It is like saying “I am paying you money here, could you please respect me enough and stop telling me lies with your price tags.” Yes, 14 SAR difference is not that big of a deal, but there is the principle! Will this customer trust this place again? I doubt it! Will he tell his friends and his wife tell hers? I have no doubt they will!

There is no need to comment on the customer-do-not-care response. It is obvious that although there is something clearly wrong with their pricing system, they just do not care!! A simple apology and showing interest in the customer complain could’ve saved the whole situation and that customer could’ve left the place satisfied.

Small things matter and distinguish the elite brand from those who only care about money! Mistakenly convincing themselves that this could last forever. Once an alternative is available in the market; I can guarantee that this place will suffer … a lot!

 
10 Comments

Posted in Customer Service

 

Government but with Private Practices

15 Mar

Let me ask you something; what is the first thing that might form your first impression of a country that you visit for the first time? If you thought of those gentlemen, or ladies, sitting behind desks checking you up with sharp eyes while stamping your passport, then you are right; they are the immigration officers.

I am really glad to read this piece of news about the Saudi General Directorate of Passports (GDP). Its management is planning to provide its staff with intensive English and etiquette trainings. Now this is something really interesting.

Looking from unbiased eye, there is something that you should really respect and admire in these people, I mean the Saudi GDP officials. They want to develop and they are sweating over it. Compared to a number of government service agencies; I would choose them to be my favorite. For me, and I am writing this from Jeddah, they are the only government destination that I won’t worry so much about whenever I am obligated to visit. They have a process and everything there is clear and systematic. I am not saying everything is perfect, but it is somehow organized.

It is the only government agency, from where I see it at least, that adopted some customers service and branding principles from the private sector. They are the only government body that recognized its role as a service provider in addition to its main and official roles. They have gotten closer to their customers by being present in some of the finest malls in the country. They have run a powerful public awareness campaign introducing their new biometrics system. They have provided several and unprecedented electronic services such as Ishaar, Muqeem, and Passports Gate.

And as we are talking about marketing and branding, I really hope that they would change their location in jeddah. It is not that much when we talk ‘brand image.’ ‘Place’ is one of the 7 P’s of service marketing and creating a distinguished service experience, no matter how organized it is from the operational point of view, cannot be completed without a proper place, a proper environment.

Having said that, all the above mentioned services are still for citizens and those living within the country. But when we talk about the Saudi gates and how immigrations officials are dealing with visitors, mmm, the image is not that bright! So by recognizing the problem and working on solving it by providing the above mentioned trainings, I really hope the Directorate efforts will turn out to be a smashing success. After all, it is not only about their brand image, it is the whole country image.

Finally, my ‘free spirit’ statement; I do not know anybody working in the Saudi GDP, and this post has not been influenced by them in anyway :)

 
2 Comments

Posted in Branding, Customer Service, General Management, Human Resources, Saudi business

 

The Credit Card Machine

13 Feb

Although the country is going through tremendous telecom and communication networks developments, the waiting at any point of sale to get your ATM card or credit card processed is still suffering and way … waaaaaaaay behind many countries with less potentials than Saudi Arabia. The slow or even complete absence of service is the normal rather than the exception!

However, even with accepting that the repeated disruption of service is beyond the control of any retail products or service providers, to some extent at least, dealing with consequences, if the service is actually down, is certainly within their circle of influence.

I am not sure how a branded retails store where you could end up buying with 1 or 2 thousands riyal would simply tell you that the ‘credit card machine’ is not working the moment you reach the cashier; especially when you are shopping at 8 PM and the machine is actually down since the early morning! And restaurants are making it even worse; after going through the whole bunch of formalities; table for two, non smokers, let me show you the table, the soup of the day is such and such, there it comes; sir … I just would like you to know that we do not accept credits cards today!!!!! you could save yourself a lot of trouble by telling me that simple information at my first steps in your restaurant!

Showing respect to your customers’ time should be part of your whole service experience design. Choosing a proper reaction in such situations would emphasis your position as a customer service pioneer. There are many ways to absorb customers’ frustration in such incidents instead of that plain, matter-of-factly tone of ‘the credit card machine is down and you have to bring us cash’ … actually I do not have to bring you anything buddies!!

I would love to hear your perceptions of such incidents if you had been through any; for me, I gave up on two restaurants and a retail store because of their lousy response in these situations!!

 
11 Comments

Posted in Customer Service, Marketing

 

Stop Cursing Your Customers

23 Jan
Companies that have any kind of live interaction with customers are better to train their employees not to complain about the company itself or customers in front of other customers!! What kind of a message they would be delivering when you hear the sales agent behind the counter complaining about another customer and accusing him of being stupid because all what the customer did was asking him about different products and then bought nothing! or when you hear a customer service agent complaining about his/her own company policies and procedures.

This is all part of the service experience the customer is having by being present on your premises or talking to your staff on the phone. The way your company’s staffs interact with customers should be part of your holistic brand design. It is all about the image you would like to leave on your customers’ minds, the message you would like to deliver to build a loyalty ground so customers will come back again and again!

And just to let you know, I witnessed the above given examples in both a restaurant and a pharmacy!!

 
2 Comments

Posted in Branding, Customer Service, Marketing

 

Ignoring Your Customers

03 Jan

Here is an interesting question asked by Gill Corkindale in her HBR blog; does your company’s reputation really matter? She is arguing that some big companies in certain industries do not really care about customer services! Despite regular customers complains, such companies are keeping their lousy performances and customers are still coming back.

The blog post is filled with examples and cases supporting her point; and thinking about it, we do have our own fair share of examples: our beloved Saudi Airlines (I love Saudi Airlines so much; I already have two posts about them :) here and here), most of service industries and most, if not all, public services are bright examples of lousy performers.

Lack of competition is the most obvious reason comes to your mind in your desperate need to understand those companies’ mindsets. That could be true in a lot of cases and, furthermore, even with some minimum competition, the situation is not that different. Again, Saudi Airlines and its competitors are good examples. Saudia has the power and the support of the government while NAS and SAMA are struggling to get a small piece of the cake.

However, I would not accept this point as a justification, or at least as the only justification. There is another big problem in our own behavior and mindset; I am talking about us, customers!

I believe we mostly lack a certain understanding of our own rights. We acknowledge companies’ mistreating us, we get angry about it, may be shouting all the way and telling everybody about it, and … that’s it! We return to these companies and use their products/services again! If there is no alternative and the company is enjoying a monopoly state in the market; then it is really sad for you, you do not have a choice! Actually you still have the option of making official complains, talking to their managers, and even going and talk to regulatory bodies supervising their sector. The most important point, do not simply let it go!

Finally, those companies ignorant enough at the moment should always remember that they might face the moment of truth when the market is opened for real competition. Globalization is a trend; and one of the lessons coming with it is customer services philosophy as an essential aspect of companies’ differentiation strategies.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Branding, Culture, Customer Service, Marketing

 

Who Says Camels Can’t Dance?

20 Dec

In the title of this post, I am mimicking the title of the infamous business book ‘Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround’ by Louis Grestner. The author was the chairman of the board and CEO of the well known international giant IBM from 1993 up to 2002. In this book, he is telling the story of reviving ‘the elephant’ that was going through a near death experience.

Anyway, I won’t be talking about IBM. I already changed the title to camels, right! And by that I mean our big, boring, weak, slow and dull company; ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce the camels of the show, Saudi Airlines!!

Don’t you just love Saudi Airlines. They give you all the reasons to love hating them! I bet my last can of soda (it is getting expensive and I am starting a healthy program any way!) that you are bored to death of Saudi Airlines stories. But you better bear with me; I have another story for you; a story about how a company does not respect its customers. Whilst most companies work hard to make you fall in love with them; Saudi Airlines work harder to earn your hatred!  And if you are wondering why I chose this particular post title! Wait till the end …

For my trip to China last month; I made the mistake of using Saudi Airlines. Internationally, I used Cathay Pacific; from Riyadh to Hong Kong, but I made the mistake from Jeddah to Riyadh. On my way back from China, Jeddah flood had already taken place and the robustness of the Saudi Airline’s IT network had already been exposed. I am trying to suppress the engineer in me from taking over this post and describing how lousy a network would be without the A-B-C of  technical building designing and 101 of  network protection (wait a minute; it does not even take an engineer to figure out that there is something called back up.)

Anyway, when I landed in Riyadh, there were about 90 minutes before my next flight to Jeddah. I do not want to bother you with the details. I am sure you already been through some of them. Simply put, the terminal area was a mess. A lot of flights have been canceled (including my own) and some people were camping at the airport for more than 12 hours. The funny thing was that no one from Saudia staff was able to answer any inquiry from passengers. They kept repeating ‘I do not know’ and ‘this is not my problem.’ Even more, one of those managers with the nice Saudia suit and tie said, and this is a direct quote, ‘I do not know anything, I am just coming from home after being asleep for the whole day.’ Just to double confirm, this was a direct quote!

Interestingly, three flights to Jeddah have been canceled and surprise … surprise, they only have one airplane that can go to Jeddah. So Saudia came with a very innovative idea to solve the problem. They asked, do I have to say very rudely, everybody to stand in a line (I was one of the lucky people standing up front). Of course that took some time and when all passengers stood in line; the show began. Another Saudia manager stood there and started shouting ‘families … families … come here’ … >>> I will leave the mental image for you to draw your own conclusions!!

The end of the story that I was lucky enough to be among the few who found a seat after the airplane has been filled with families. And I won’t start talking about the 2 hours in the plane waiting for Saudia to load the baggage manually for each and every passenger!!

Should I comment on customer service, customer respect, brand image, brand values, service processes, etc … I won’t,  because I am sure you got the picture.

Now, why the title of this post has been influenced by the famous book about reviving a company? The answer is that I really wish that, someday, a book will be written by some Saudi Airlines executive describing how he/she/they managed to turnaround the miserable status of Saudi Airlines at the moment to a highly competitive airline!!

Don’t you wish to read such book?

 
17 Comments

Posted in Branding, Customer Service, Marketing, Saudi business

 

Al Baik; The Secret Recipes

12 Dec

Logo from: http://www.albaik.com/

It is time to talk about another local business success story; and how can we talk about successful organizations without talking about Al-Baik.

It is next to impossible that you are living in Jeddah or ever visited it without being to Al-Baik. The local fast food chain has been around since 1974. After 35 years by now, the restaurant is mainly operating in Jeddah with minimum number of branches in Makkah, Madinah, Yanbu and Taif. Arguably, Al-Baik possesses the highest market share and customer loyalty amongst its competitors especially in Jeddah; noting that when I say competitors, I mean international multibillion brands like McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut etc …

Let’s shed some lights on Al-Baik main success recipes :

-          The Quality & Price: for those of you familiar with the debate surrounding Porter’s Generic strategies, Al-Baik is a living proof that you could follow a strategy that combines both differentiation and cost leadership. Although there are a lot of restaurants serving fried chicken, the quality and taste of Al-Baik are certainly unique and its prices are way below the average.

-          The Trustworthy Brand: Al-Baik has a very strong brand equity whether we are measuring it by evaluating the restaurants’ products or by studying its brand impact on customers. Al-Baik brand communicates strong messages of quality, fast service, trust, affordability, convenience, and social responsibility. Its management has been very smart emphasizing these values into the brand using different methods of advertisements, public relations, or even by spreading stories about the brand. The entrepreneurial story of its founder and how he struggled to raise his community awareness about eating outside the home which was strange back then and how he has been working alone in the restaurant preparing the food, serving it, and then cleaning the small shop are all meant to build some kind of connection with its customers. Also, some suspense and mystery would not hurt either; the secret chicken formula that is only known by few individuals is one of the most preferred stories amongst such food and beverages organizations (didn’t you hear similar stories about Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and KFC?)

-           Superb Customer Service: whether we are talking about fast service, servicescape design, or cleanness of the restaurants environment; Al-Baik is providing exemplary services in all of that. Even more, Al-Baik is one of the few restaurants that introduced items to the menu based solely on customers’ suggestions.

-          Convenient Locations: Al-Baik marketers are masters in choosing locations for their restaurants; I have never seen a branch of Al-Baik without it being packed with customers. The huge expansions they carried out in Jeddah have been built on population distribution analysis. That is why wherever you live in Jeddah now; there must be Al-Baik branch within your easy reach.

-          Social Responsibility: Al-Baik has always been known for its socially related campaigns. They have a regular presence in Hajj seasons providing free meals to pilgrims and they are periodically campaigning for environmentally related causes like banning smoking in their restaurants or preserving the city clean image. Furthermore, their active participation in the aftermath of Jeddah floods by providing free meals to those devastated by the catastrophe is one shiny example of how organizations could be interacting with its society.

Nevertheless, staying on the top is not an easy job. Al-Baik management has to deal with many issues to facilitate its growth. One of these important issues is on the mind of every fan who happen to live outside Jeddah; how much should they expand? Should they consider opening new branches in other cities at the Kingdom? What about being multinational or even global?

Moreover, how Al-Baik should respond to the growing concerns raised by healthy and organic foods advocates (it is selling fried chicken, right!!)? And most importantly, how its managers are going to maintain its competitive advantages and how are they going to nurture its sustainability strategy?

Finally, the free spirit statement; this is to confirm that I do not know, or have any relation with anyone working at Al-Baik management or restaurants, and this post has not been influenced by Al-Baik or any of its partners in any way …

 
34 Comments

Posted in Branding, Customer Service, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Saudi business

 
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