Clive Simpkins

Bathroom Bizarre's bizarre customer service

Little annoys me more than experiencing a 'disconnect' between how a company advertises itself and the actual so-called 'service experience'.

Story: Domestic worker accident with ceramic double-bowl kitchen sink. Cracked. Decide on less vulnerable stainless steel derivative to avoid future repeat performance. Builders Warehouse Rivonia have truly marvellous black female plumbing advisors - 'Comfort' (appropriately named) is one of them, Rosina is another. They're not matched however, by the Builders Warehouse computer inventory system which shows stock of 10 of the sinks I need, but in fact none are to be found.

I think: Remember hearing Bathroom Bizarre advertised and heavily punted on Talk Radio 702. I schlep to Randburg. They have the sink I need.

Sunday, I open the box on the back of the sink unit, expecting it to contain the plug fittings. Nada. I call Bathroom Bizarre Monday morning. There's an immediate and defensive reaction; 'We told you we didn't supply waste units with this sink. That they're separately charged and that you can get them at Builders Warehouse.' Utter and complete pack of lies. I didn't even know the darned things were called 'waste' outlets. Secondly, I would never knowingly have bought an 'incomplete' unit. That's a no-brainer. So a discussion may have occurred between salespeople backstage at Bathroom Bizarre, but not, as claimed, in front of me.

I schlep the unit back to Bathroom Bizarre to be told by Vanessa that she's now found me two waste connections. I told her: 'I don't want to do business with you.' I got my charge credited and used another supplier who was efficiency itself. And cheaper than Bathroom Bizarre. So the only thing Bathroom Bizarre has pulled the plug on, in my opinion, is their relationship with me.

As Jan Carlzon, erstwhile CEO of Scandinavian Airlines knew, it's all down to just one 'Moment of Truth'. That moment proved too much for me. I hate lies, liars and coverups. You'll always keep a customer by acknowledging a cock-up and doing something to fix it. Why, oh why, is the South African default and norm, an attempt to blame the customer? I'm one of the reasons you have jobs people! Sabe? Capish?
Posted by Clive Simpkins

A rose by any other name....

In the UK they have legislation that protects children from crazed and thoughtless parents who want to give them laughing-stock names.

Clearly we need something along the same lines in South Africa. If ever you needed proof that Afrocentric culture has lost the plot, this is it. I checked. The date isn't 1st April. This is a travesty and a tragedy. Sies!

Exerpted from Financial Mail 24th May 2007

Posted by Clive Simpkins

 
  

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma hits a (high) fashion note

H'ray! There is a fashion god. Our sartorially challenged Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has finally gotten rid of that 'Mopani worms crawling out of the skull' hairdo. [below on right] Hallelujah!

And the dress? A big improvement on the Kaftans that do nothing for her diminutive stockiness.

Keep it up Ma'am!  Just goes to show what an influence those danged Chinese have! ;-)
Posted by Clive Simpkins

 

And here's another sartorial triumph! [below] Whoever's persuaded her that she can look great, is doing an excellent job! Brava! One wonders whether this is a pre-grooming to a Presidency?

Dem Kaftans..... jes' gotta go! [see below]

Brits get in on the food contamination act

Horrible how even the legends in the food business can get caught cuttin' corners. Mars have just made a right-royal screw up. Read the accompanying article-let.

This is hot on the heels of Cadbury in the UK being slapped with a humongous fine because they knowingly kept Salmonella-contaminated chocolate products on retail outlet shelves instead of notifying the public, the authorities and withdrawing the darned stuff.

Now they've created a crisis of confidence. Worse, they and folks like Mars are contributing to a legitimate global paranoia about what's lurking deep inside our formerly tried'n trusted foodstuffs.

I know of a toothpaste manufacturer who years ago ran out of glycerine and their production manager suggested substituting an animal ingredient to produce 'the same effect'. Being a vegetarian, I was furious and asked him how, if he kept Kosher or Halaal, he'd feel about finding unspecified animal ingredients in his mouth, without his knowledge or choice. Yuck! If I were on the board of that company, I'd have fired him on the spot. His approach is called, 'How to kill a brand overnight.' A marketing and PR case-study of note.
Posted by Clive Simpkins

Nokia Vodaworld needs service software upgrade - the saga continues.......

6th June..... got a call from the local Nokia people asking for 'further details'. Turns out the Nokia shop in Vodaworld is in fact a Vodacare outlet. Misnomer if ever there was one. So Nokia themselves don't have my phone and can't do anything about it at this point. Thumbs down to Vodacare. Isn't that a great way to stuff up your reputation Nokia? Your name, someone else's dis-service! Eish!

30th May: 24 hours later, still no response, so I've e-mailed Nokia Finland. I've had an automated reply. Let's see what happens next...

31st May - sweet bugger all response - from anyone! Nice one Nokia....

See regular Nokia updates further down on this original article......

Being a totally disenchanted user of the hopelessly underperforming i-Mate products and their reincarnated HTC brethren, I've gone 'interim' on a Nokia N73 (pictured). An OK instrument (no stylus), but recently very prone to 'hanging' at the most inconvenient times. So, sequence of events:

1) Phone Nokia - suggest software upgrade. Eastern European-accented call centre agent is almost incomprehensible. Constantly says 'Yes, sir!' or 'No,sir!' like other people would use conjunctions in speech.
2) I'm damn fool enough to download the software update to my laptop.
3) Installs on phone, and phone then has to do a re-start. That's where the paw-paw hits the fan. It goes into cardiac arrest and flatlines.
4) No matter where you are, you gotta go to Nokia in Vodaworld, Midrand to get it sorted.
5) They check it in - and spell my name wrongly and 'Jan Smuts Avenue' as 'Yarn a mart' Avenue (no kiddin') on the job sheet. Illiterati is the term I'd use. Dan Brown beware.
6) I'm told it will take 24 hours to sort. I have to call to see when its ready. Thought: Why the hell can't they use simple SMS technology to message, 'Scusi dear client, come get your reincarnated instrument?' Beats me. So I have to do the finger work.
7) Round about 22 hours I start making calls. Five of them. Each time I get stonewalled. At hour 23 plus 5 minutes to close of Nokia Vodaworld I finally get the tech manager, an embarrassed and helpful Johan, who tells me it's had to go to 'another level of repair' as they can't resuscitate the phone. Nice if someone had told me that in an earlier call. I wouldn't have put my Saturday afternoon on hold... It's now going to be away for 'between 7 and 14 working days.'

Is this what I'd expect from a Finnish-owned service network? Nah. Never ceases to amaze me how the wheels come off the best companies when they hit Africa. There's a multi-ethnic dis-service ethic that frankly doesn't give a damn. Yeah, Brenner at Nokia Vodaworld - you number among them.

So, Nokia Vodaworld, please ascend the podium and take top position for truly crappy service. Enjoy the fragrance of the Onion of the Week Award. You really deserve it.
Posted by Clive Simpkins

Wasting money on professional speakers?

The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and slightly drunk.

Alben W. Barkley

The main reason you may be wasting money on a speaker, professional or otherwise, is that conference organisers often don’t quite know what they want to achieve through that speaker. Mercifully the conference speaking community has been forced to mature and shape-up largely through the influence of the National Speakers Association of Southern Africa (NSASA). The stringent membership criteria ensure that if you’re booking an NSASA member or accredited speaker, you get someone who has earned their stripes.

An excellent starting point when considering a speaker, should be to ask, ‘What’s our purpose or objective in having a speaker at the conference?’ Your answer might be any of the following, in no particular order: a) We want to be entertained b) We want an outsider’s perspective on the issue c) We’ve heard so-and-so is a good speaker d) We need someone to fill the ‘graveyard’ shift e) The speaker is a subject-matter expert f) We want someone to motivate our team g) We need to start the conference off with a keynote talk g) It’s professional to have outside speakers h) Leading organizations always have speakers at their conferences. There will undoubtedly be other reasons.

The speaker fee, even for a top-end one, is usually a small percentage of the overall conference budget. Unless you’re doing a non-residential, one-day event, in which case the budget might be small and if numbers are low, the cost per head investment in the speaker can appear steep. But if that speaker is going to positively influence people into some new thinking or change process, ask yourself whether that same investment per head could be achieved as cost-efficiently, any other way. Probably not.

There’s nothing wrong with having an entertaining speaker. Indeed all good speakers should be entertaining to some or other extent, or they’re simply not packaging their material attractively enough. But if it’s pure entertainment you’re wanting, why go with a speaker, unless that person is an utterly hilarious after-dinner raconteur? There are cross-over entertainers – people who primarily entertain but also embed a message of some sort, but they’re in the minority. So think carefully: If you want entertainment only, then hire an entertainer.

I recall having been given my speaker brief by the FD of an organization with an upcoming annual conference. It was packed with legit strategic objectives and requests and I was pleased that they’d so carefully thought it through. The day we finally got to meet with the CEO in order to agree pre-conference finishing touches, I asked him the question I ask all clients: ‘What do you want to happen in the minds of your people when I leave the room?’ The CEO’s answer was ‘I want them to have fun’. That response, which was totally out of whack with what the financial and marketing teams had envisaged, had us back at the drawing board, revisiting the actual reason for the conference in the first place!

There’s a caveat built into this anecdote. You’d better be darned sure that the person booking or briefing a speaker understands what the key players in the organisation want from your conference speaker. I’ve had briefs (of the non lingerie kind!) from PR ‘poppies’ as I call them, with one and half brain cells. On getting to meet with the actual client, I find that said poppie has the proverbial bull by the udder. There’s nothing more dreadful than the hapless speaker revising talk or presentation material overnight before a conference, because they’ve sat the previous evening at the Chairperson’s table and she or he has a very different concept of what they’re all expecting from the keynote speaker!

There are a good number of speaker bureaus in South Africa. Most run by ethical, service-orientated people. They will listen to your need and try to match you with the best person for the task. Listen to them at least. If you simply demand an individual, they’ll try to get you that person. But sometimes that speaker isn’t necessarily the best available for the task. The good bureaus will know who is. So let them earn their speaker-fee commission by recommending and then justifying that recommendation! You don’t have to accept who they suggest, but you might be pleasantly surprised to find that you have options.

Next time you want to book a speaker, remind yourself that you’re about to make an investment. Make sure you know why you want to make that investment and what exactly you want from it in terms of both return and deliverables.

Posted by Clive Simpkins http://www.imbizo.com

 

Lower stress and raise your energy with Emotional Intelligence

 There’s absolutely no doubt that you can grow or develop your emotional intelligence (EI or EQ) significantly. It’s an issue of choice – not of aptitude. It’s often written about from an academic perspective, or in a way that makes it sound like a mission to acquire or develop. This is not so. EI is actually quite easy to enhance and the resulting mental balance, stress-reduction and energy-improvement benefits are substantial.

 
Whilst IQ tests are a largely discredited and culture-specific measure of development potential, someone with the same cognitive ability but good emotional intelligence is almost certain to more successful – even if only in the social and relationships arena. Well-developed EI is a characteristic of good counsellors, mediators, negotiators, communicators, educators, leaders, mentors and coaches – among others.

The prefix ‘inter’ means ‘between’. So interpersonal communication means communication between people. ‘Intra’ means ‘inside of’. So intrapersonal communication means you communicating with yourself. Talking to yourself, understanding yourself, nurturing yourself, being in touch and in tune with who and what you are. In a nutshell, self-understanding, self-communication and therefore better mood and impulse management. This is the heart of emotional intelligence – ‘self-regulation’. It’s a combination of self-awareness and a skills-set that allow us to respond effectively to a wide variety of situations.

If you complete an American-designed emotional intelligence assessment on the Internet or elsewhere in the world, you might well emerge with a skewed profile. Social sophistication, tradition and culture-specific norms all have an impact on whether you are perceived to enjoy EI. So context becomes important. Emotionally intelligent behaviour in one cluster, culture or country, might well be considered unassertive or inappropriate in another. So be cautious of taking some simplistic ‘answer the following 10 questions’ quickie route.

Not that you need an assessment to know whether you’re emotionally intelligent or not. Because you and others will be able easily to observe it in your daily interactions and relationships. But if you would like to explore growth areas within EI, then consider the Reuven BarOn assessment.

Stress or trauma will reduce anyone’s ability to behave in a resourceful and mature way. When we’re running on emotional empty, it’s not easy to behave as diplomatically and calmly as former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan. If your emotional cookie jar is almost empty, you’re unable to function well in the cookie distribution business. In times of emotional famine, you need to be receiving emotional support – not trying to give it away.

One of the simplest measures of emotional intelligence is impulse control. At the opposite and equally inappropriate end of the impulsiveness continuum is indecisiveness or risk-aversion. Where you’re afraid to make decisions or take risks. However, let’s focus on impulsiveness. That’s our inability to manage responses and delay self-gratification.

Examples: 1) You see something in a shop and you simply have to have it, regardless of the over-spend on your credit card, or the fact that you don’t really need it. 2) You’re battling to shed a few unwanted kilos but make two trips to the dessert trolley at a business luncheon. If, added to this, your moods fluctuate a great deal and others are easily able to ‘wind you up’ or ‘get you going’, there’s an EI development opportunity awaiting you.

Don’t cave in to every demand from your children. It will help them to build a solid foundation of EI. Encourage them to share, be generous, have empathy, and treat others with kindness. Don’t give them everything on a platter. Make them work for it. Reward, when it’s immediate and without personal effort or ‘sweat equity’ is the enemy of EI and its development. ‘Spoiling’ children, means just that. They grow up as obnoxious, egocentric individuals suffering from a severe dose of what I call the IMM syndrome – I, Me and Mine. That will be their focus and indeed their locus of ‘non-control’ and poor self-management.

A common manifestation of low EI is chronic anger. Anger is generally a symptom of frustrated desire. So you’ll be quick to fly off the handle when things don’t go your way. You’ll experience road rage. You’ll spend valuable time apologising, repairing fractured friendships and damaged self-esteem in your colleagues and you may also experience high levels of guilt.

I’ve developed a simple model (see above) for developing EI whilst moderating and modulating how we behave. 1) Become more aware of your thinking process. 2) When something happens to disturb your equilibrium, or someone says something irritating, observe both your rational (thoughts) and your emotional (feelings) response to it. 3) Then (clearly only with the more important issues and not everyday trivia), make a conscious choice as to how you’ll respond. 4) Then and then only, make the response.

That way, you choose the action and the outcome. That puts you in charge of the process. Animals have little or no choice. We have an intellect with which to discern and discriminate. Use it. You’ll experience lower levels of conflict that will reduce stress and dramatically enhance your energy levels as a consequence.

http://www.imbizo.com

Call Centre Chaos

You wouldn’t wittingly imperil your brand or corporate reputation or image, would you? Your board of directors wouldn’t consciously devalue your share price. Your marketing and sales people wouldn’t intentionally drive clients into the arms of your competitors, would they? But maybe you’re all doing just that.

The scenario: The company or organization’s been around for a long time. It’s grown to the point where managing the number of customers and service requests is a real challenge. Your switchboard operators are no longer coping. You’re the key decision-maker on how to resolve the problem and move the company into a new dispensation. An organization presents to you.

The suggestion is that they’ll ‘take the calls off your hands’. Every call will be answered in a maximum of seven rings. They already handle calls for many other companies in your league and this is the way of the future. Their intelligent, motivated, dedicated staff will treat your business like their own. So you fall for it and outsource your hard-won corporate and brand reputation to a call centre. Poor you!

Call centre quality in South Africa has become like military intelligence. An oxymoron of note. Although the RSA has been identified as a call centre growth market, the industry generally delivers unacceptable dis-service via incompetent, uncaring, ill-educated and socially unsophisticated people. (So don't get excited at the picture with this posting!) Once upon a time, if you were a real loser, you left school and joined a bank. Today, call centres are the magnet for directionless and unthinking people. This needs to change.

Most call centre staff earn peanuts. They wouldn’t understand what you meant if you offered to send them on a conflict-resolution training program. They don’t read, they can’t think creatively or independently enough to respond to an ‘off-script’ enquiry or situation. Judging by the background cacophony of chatter that invades the average call, the ergonomics under which these people work are equally appalling. I’ve actually heard social or romantic dates being organised in the background, so it’s questionable whether they’re actually listening to you with any degree of attentiveness at all. This is despite the call being recorded ‘for your protection’. Other than with direct insurance providers, I seriously doubt whether those calls are indeed recorded, and if the prevailing administrative chaos in call centres is anything to go by, I doubt whether anyone would subsequently be able to track or trace a specific verbal undertaking or agreement.

The very call centre agent dealing with your car problem can be the same person taking a call a moment later about a medical emergency or a variety of other topics. It just depends on which line rings as to how they answer.

The only way you can run a call centre that will do genuine justice to your business is by in-sourcing it, and rigorously supervising it. With union and agent permission you have to be able to ‘eavesdrop’ on calls – live. You need a regular review process where a sample of calls over a period are played back and you discuss with the person concerned how they might more effectively handle such a call in the future. The call centre staff should be seen as vital cogs in the marketing machine of your operation. So they should have both in-house and off-site coaching and development.

Encourage agents to read. Start a development program or book club, where one person reads a book and chats about or presents a synopsis of that book to the others. That way, everyone’s ‘reading’ several books a month. Get them on creativity enhancement processes. Send an individual showing potential, on a listening and empathy skills awareness course and ask them to come back and share what they learned. That does two things – it grows the individual and it also makes sure they pay attention on the course because they’re going to have to present to and discuss their new-found knowledge with colleagues.

Ensure that they have a life outside of their call centre job. Do what many businesses do today. Have a ‘get a life’ program. So you pay something towards their gym, their horse-riding, their computer or flower arranging course, or whatever it is that’s going to grow them outside of working hours.

When you invest in people at this level, you’ll create loyalty and commitment which will lead to them delivering better than average service to customers. My mantra: The caller’s voice is the sound of their salary cheque speaking. Help them recognise from a voice stress or irritation pattern when that call needs to be escalated or handed over to someone else.

If you wonder why your research is showing a fall-off in customer satisfaction, perhaps look no further than your call centre if you have one. And let the corporate healing start there!

Posted by Clive Simpkins http://www.imbizo.com

Shark Tale from Dreamworks Animation

If you want some really enjoyable entertainment for the little people, but which has huge value for the 'big people' as well - go get Shark Tale from Dreamworks Animation. The genuine article from a good store is a mere R 100. Great value and at least the artistes get their royalties. DON'T BUY COUNTERFEIT OFF THE STREET, DAMMIT.

With character voices like Will Smith in the lead, partnered with Renée Zellweger, Martin Scorsese as the Pufferfish (what a character!) and Robert De Niro as 'Lenny' the Don of the Great White Sharks, this is an absolute 'must watch.'

I've been dragooned by an under-five into watching it three times already. It has marvellous moral and ethical lessons in it. The animation, coming from Dreamworks, gets 10/10.

If you're a Shrek or Happy Feet fan, you're gonna love this. With cold Wintery days here, Hazelnut lattes, a warm duvet and this DVD will make for a seriously chilled 90 minutes! Enjoy.
http://www.imbizo.com

Getting to the linguistic molecule

I remain intrigued by what I believe will be the long-term impact on written English, of the 'Thumbs Generation' and their inventive distillation of language for mobile phone and instant messaging text purposes.

Here's a delightful example taken from the print version of today's Financial Mail.

http://www.imbizo.com