Prison Break

Have you ever been stuck at home waiting for the engineer to arrive? Did you feel like a prisoner in your own home? Too scared to pop out down to the shops for even ten minutes for fear of coming home to that dreaded note that reads something like this:

‘How dare you leave the house to run a quick errand? You knew that I could arrive at some point between 8am and 12pm. You have wasted my time and meant that I will miss my personal target for the day

P.S .Good luck getting through to our call centre to reschedule your appointment.’

Okay, so I exaggerate. The note actually read ‘Sorry we missed you. Please call our call centre to book a new appointment.’ It is so frustrating (to put it mildly) when this happens. It is even more frustrating when I know that technology exists today that can make this experience a thing of the past. Service businesses need to start leveraging this technology for “day of service” expectation management. Expectation Management is all about continuous communication between the service provider and the customer regarding the expected arrival time of the field engineer.

Research shows that skilled expectation management is critical for achieving customer satisfaction, and close communication is an inseparable part of managing expectations. Service businesses can take advantage of the wide spectrum of today’s anytime/anywhere communications technologies (email, text messaging, voice messaging and Internet-based service appointment booking) to ensure they stay in control of the appointment lifecycle no matter what happens out in the field.

To paraphrase the script of the Norwich Union adverts of the 80s, when a crisis occurs it is important that a company doesn't allow it to turn into a drama. Clear, consistent and timely communication is critical when such events occur, in order to mitigate the potential impact the event will have on the business. Best-in-Class service businesses are starting to recognize the power of continuous communication. For these companies, the dreaded ‘sorry we missed you’ note is becoming a thing of the past. So they are also using less paper and helping the planet!

Once an appointment is scheduled, what communication channels does your company use to stay in touch with the customer?

Author: Simon Morris

20 years of change

Next week, my wife and I will celebrate being married for 20 years. This may to some who know us, seem like a remarkable achievement. However, it is natural at these times of anniversaries and birthdays to look back and try to imagine life as it was.
So what was life like in 1989?

I think that ‘interesting’ is the word. It was the age before the internet, but what else was happening?
Protests in China in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Who can forget the tanks that were halted by a lone protester?

Other news included Poland electing first non-communist Prime Minister and Russian troops leaving Afghanistan after 9 years of occupation.

All these events were significant and marked the start of change, but for me, looking back, the biggest difference was that there was no internet. This meant that customers wanting to request any type of service, only had 2 choices of communicating with the service provider, either by telephone or by letter. It may be hard to imagine for adults, and impossible for children to imagine life without the internet. This allows us access and the ability to communicate with anybody or any company at any time. So the implication is that, instead of our letter reaching the supplier and them responding by letter, we expect an immediate response from our supplier.
Along with this has come increasing customer choice. If their supplier is not able to meet their request, then there is always the option of choosing a different supplier. Excellent customer service is the key to success as this is the contact between customer and employee. The ability to meet or exceed customer expectations is a key requirement.

Another key factor is employee satisfaction. A friend of mine recently purchased a new washing machine which then developed a problem. He called the manufacturer (who had outsourced the service to a 3rd party). He was given a service appointment which was a 4 hour window. The engineer arrived late, very stressed from having to drive far longer than the allocated 30 minutes. He was not a happy employee as he had this stress on a daily basis. Also late appointments meant that he did not get home until after 7pm at night. The result of this was an unhappy customer and an unhappy employee.

It seems that best-in-class service organizations try to eliminate this kind of a problem through better travel routing and more accurate appointment times and engineer skills. This in-turn helps reduce customer and employee churn as well as providing ‘green’ benefits through lower travel.

Did we talk about ‘green’ benefits 20 years ago? Probably not, but I am sure that we will certainly still be talking about them in 20 years time……

Author: Hugh Thomas-Davies

Service Not Included…

Some might call it sheer luck, but I have experienced good levels of service in the UK. I like to think it’s more down to the fact that I’m a selective consumer and that I’m a good customer – I have expectations but they are not unrealistic, I’ll pay for a good service, and if the service provider exceeds my expectations I reward them with my loyalty and recommendations to friends.

Let me give you some examples:


·When Sky first released their SkyHD set top box, I was one of the first on the list to receive installation. As the date of the visit approached, my excitement was squashed with word from Sky that they had underestimated the demand and had to push back my visit. But, to sweeten the blow, they gave me a voucher for free movies for 3 months and the service installation would now be free, albeit 3 weeks late. I was happy with that, especially as they then gave us another 3 months free HD movies after the box was installed.

·My beloved Mini decided one day out- of- the- blue that reverse was not a direction she wanted to drive in and I had a Mini engineer on my doorstep the next day. The engineer called me on the day of service to warn me that he was going to be early and he arrived onsite before I did. He waited for me patiently and then got to work. He completed the job 20 minutes later and gave me a full brief of the problem and how he fixed it. Brilliant! When the Customer Services centre called me the next day to follow up, I gave them full marks for an excellent visit.


Anyway, 7 months ago I packed my things (along with my history of good service) and moved to Israel to live with my boyfriend.

A new law (part of the Consumer Protection Act, amendment 24, 2008 ) has been passed in Israel, which states that a service organization has to provide the customer with a maximum time window of 2 hours for a service visit. If the Service is delayed by 2 hours beyond the 2 hour slot provided, the customer can claim up to 300 NIS ($75USD) in compensation. In case of a 3 hour delay, the customer can claim up to 600 NIS ($150USD).

So why, despite this law being passed, can I now describe just 2 examples of my poor service history here in Israel?

·We had a problem with our new oven and called for an engineer. The customer service operator told us that we could have an appointment window of either 8am – 1pm or 1pm – 5pm. When my boyfriend reminded her of the new law, she quickly offered us a slot between 9-11am, 11am to 1pm and so on. We selected the time and then my boyfriend asked that the engineer call us 30 minutes before arrival. No, not possible we were told because we were taking a two hour slot. After much persuading, she finally agreed that the engineer would call us. On the day of service, the engineer did call but to tell us he had arrived and to ask where we were. Well, we were 20 minutes away at the office! Apparently he couldn’t wait and we would just have to re-book another visit.

·My boyfriend renewed the annual contract with YES, our satellite TV provider, on the premise that they would provide English subtitles to Hebrew programs. We then discovered the option one day in the system menu.

“Great!” my boyfriend roared when he discovered it, “I can watch my favourite programs and you can improve your Hebrew”. Everyone’s a winner! Well, not so. We called YES, because the English subtitles weren’t working on any channel and yet the Russian and Arabic subtitles were. The lady in the call centre told us that the subtitles don’t yet work on every channel, but she wasn’t able to tell us which channels they do work on and merely said that it worked for her in the call centre when she tested it. My boyfriend persisted and told her that this needed to be fixed – a contract renewal depended on it! She finally admitted that the subtitles weren’t working for her either and that it could be that they added the option to the menu because it’s a planned feature due in a future software release. Despite putting in a request for a call back, so far YES has not contacted us about this.


With mounting frustration, I had to ask my boyfriend whether this was another part of the culture that I would need to adjust to, or was it just that you can’t get good service in Israel?
His answer was simple: Service is not Included, it’s Expected.

If a consumer buys a TV and needs it serviced for some reason, the service is expected at no additional cost because you already paid for the TV. The product and service are not considered as two separate things and the majority of people are not willing to pay for service.

Little did I realize, that culture impacts on every aspect of life imaginable, even the service experience. Simply put, some cultures value service more highly than others so why should I expect people to behave the same here as in the UK?


The question remains, as I have found myself adjusting to many elements of the new culture I am surrounded by, will I come to expect service too?

Author: Erica Fortune