When mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and put me in charge, I turned to technology for help instead of people.  People are time consuming, expensive, and, well, they just complicate things.  Technology is fast, efficient, and easy.

I had everything in control.  Or so I thought.  Software, interfaces, and online tools gave me the illusion of control.   Online banking let me pay her bills.  Social media helped me investigate assisted living centers.  Email let me communicate with family.  Zillow told me what her house was worth.  I could sell her house without a pesky realtor.  I could manage her limited funds with financial apps.  Medicare and Social Security and the Veterans Administration offered online tools to help me (yea, right).  Who needs people when we have technology?

And then it all blew up.  I was in over my head.  Failing to realize the complexity, I had failed to reach out to people, people who navigated these waters for a living and could help me choose the right lines through the big rapids.  By itself, technology had given me false confidence that all was under control.

You know, I had learned this lesson before.  Haven’t we all?  The time I chose a discount broker to sell a house, only to fire him and turn to a full-service professional.  The time I hired that college painter and ended up turning to a full-service pro to make it right.  The time I used a do-it-yourself financial tool and ended up running back to a full-service trusted advisor who has now been with me for twenty years, helping guide me through major life transitions.  The time I…. well, you get the point. Unfortunately, it took me awhile to get it.

So I learned my lesson yet again and turned back to people.  Trusted advisors with expertise to guide me in assisted living, elderly law, cleaning out houses and estate sales, selling houses, finances, and a whole host of disciplines I didn’t even know existed.

Technology is important, but technology alone didn’t get me where I needed to be.  I needed expert people — trusted advisors — across a wide range of disciplines.  What made the difference was the combination of technology plus people.

This applies to many services we all seek today.  A cool interface.  Flashy software. A cool dashboard.  They lull us into thinking we have it under control, that our problems are not so complex after all, that we don’t need people.

Nowhere is this truer than in my own field – customer experience management.  Technology is critical, but technology alone doesn’t get our clients where they need to be.  The magic sauce is always in the people. And that’s why the company I work for invests in technology, of course, but not at the expense of continually investing in good people, experts from diverse disciplines, trusted advisors that our clients look to everyday.

Last week we all flew home to celebrate mom’s 80th birthday.  She held her first great-grandchild.  She’s in a good place.  Thanks to my trusted advisors.

My wife loves domaine de canton, a ginger flavored liqueur.  Last Christmas I tried to track it down for her but couldn’t find it anywhere.   I located the distributor who told me  there was none for sale in stores since they couldn’t get their supply out of Europe.

However, he said they had a couple of bottles in their office and would I like one.   I said yes and asked how much.   He said not to worry about it and asked for my address.   They also paid for shipping.

That in itself was a true surprise and delight experience….but there was more.

This week I got an email out of the blue from the same guy.  He wanted to let me know they had started to receive some shipments and he included a link to the stores that had some.

As it relates to the automotive industry I found this experience fascinating.    This was a $60 bottle of liqueur. Not that expensive.  The guy didn’t have to give it to me for free and he certainly didn’t have to follow up a full six months later to let me know it was available again.

I wonder how many car dealers would track down a customer after such a time for a potential purchase which is much, much more expensive.    The good ones would but I think this example serves as a great example of outstanding customer service.   An idea worth sharing.

Until next time

@christravell

He changed the world.

After two years of development the Quadricycle cruised along at a blistering 32 km/h and even though it broke down on its maiden voyage, it paved the way to the ultimate introduction of the Model T and the world-changing production techniques that would transform life as we know it.

Thanks Henry for making it possible for so many of us to work in an industry that, I believe, is one of the most fascinating, interesting, and fun places to work.  Thanks for giving us an excellent standard of living because of the revolutionary production techniques you employed.   And thanks for building a global industry that has the largest collection of exciting, colorful, and beguiling characters.

You made it possible and on behalf of the automotive industry, I thank you.

Until next time

@christravell

For those of us involved in understanding and measuring the customer experience, the highlight of the Autostadt has to be the vehicle delivery towers.

After buying a car from their local VW dealer, customers from all over Europe have the option of picking up their car directly at the Autostadt and 400 to 500 customers per day take VW up on it.  The vehicles are manufactured at nearby plants and transported via underground tunnels to the delivery towers.   They’re stacked, vending-machine style, awaiting their new owners.

Customers arrive, tour the Autostadt, sit in a special amusement park style people-carrier, and are whisked to the very top of the delivery towers for a panoramic view overlooking the park.  They watch as their new car is delicately picked up by a specialized hoist where it is brought down to the ground floor, ready to be driven away.  There are two towers, each 20 stories high with each level holding 20 cars.

It truly makes the experience special.  A German colleague told me how he personally witnessed a family weeping with tears of joy as they took delivery of their new Golf.   Really?

From work we have done, I can tell you statistically how important the delivery experience is in boosting customer satisfaction and with it, increased positive word of mouth and recommendation.   The delivery towers at the Autostadt make it real.

If you’re a dealer reading this, or someone at head office responsible for the customer experience, you may not be able to afford the hundreds of millions of euros it took to make this happen.   But look at your own operation or your dealer network and see how this concept can work in your context.

Working in the industry we get jaded.  We forget that for the average customer, picking up a new car is something they will remember forever.   What happens at the Autostadt may be an extreme example but the concept can be applied at every dealership where a customer buys a car.   Make it special.   It’s in your best interest.

Until next time.

@christravell

PS.  Some asked how the conference went.   It was an interesting time with various papers being presented on everything from the research process behind the latest Range Rover, which automotive brands were most valuable (Toyota was on top), to the use of neuro-science in assessing how customers react to vehicle styling at a car clinic.    Pretty cool stuff.

My talk on Friday morning focused on Make or Break Customer Satisfaction – what do dealers have to do to improve the customer experience and equally important, what do they do to avoid making it horrible.   Why is this important?  More satisfied customers buy more.  That’s good for business.   I am extremely gratefully to Steve Kelleher, Mark Orlando, and Pat O’Donnell of Hyundai Auto Canada for allowing us to share the results of the case study.   The audience appeared to enjoy it and judging from the feedback, it was well received.  Thank you.

The talk will focus on a new technique that we developed that looks at how various factors in the sales and service experience are so important, that if you don’t do them well, the customer will severely punish you, even if everything else is exemplary.

For example, if a customer buys a car at a good price from a salesperson who was extremely helpful and professional, and from a dealership that has a good reputation for treating customers well, and yet when the customer comes to pick up the car it has a dent in it – that one thing outweighs everything else.   The result?  Extreme customer dissatisfaction.    It may seem intuitive but we figured out a way to quantify it.

The research nerds out there will recognize this as a non-compensatory effect.   The rest of us refer to it as Make or Break Customer Satisfaction.

The top three areas we found to drive satisfaction on the sales side in the case study we did were :

1. Professionalism and courtesy toward the customer
2. Ease of agreement in making the deal
3. Disclosure of charges and fees

For service it was:

1. Thoroughness of work performed
2. Correct diagnosis of problem
3. Time to complete the service

The results represent a challenge for dealers.  Even though these were the top three for sales and service, in five of the six (Professionalism and courtesy for sales being the exception) you don’t get a lot of lift in your customer satisfaction score by doing them well.

You get some but the greater learning is that if you don’t do them well, the customer tends to punish the dealer severely.  In other words the downside of not doing them well is considerably larger than the upside.

Therein lies the rub.

What are the implications for manufacturers and dealers?   All of the component parts of the sales and service experience need to be analyzed on a brand-specific basis to understand what drives customer satisfaction and perhaps more important, dissatisfaction.   This gives dealers a road map they can follow to ensure all of their sales and service people are aligned for what the customer values.

The areas of dissatisfaction need to be determined to establish hot alert criteria so that when these areas are flagged as part of a manufacturer’s customer experience program, the dealers will know to act immediately.

There’s more to next week’s presentation but hopefully this gives you a sense of what will happen.  I left out the part about the dancing bears and the ponies.  That will have to wait.

Until next week.

@christravell

PS  If you’re bored this weekend, The Economist had a good piece in the April 20^th to 26^th edition on the future of the car.  It’s called ‘Clean, safe, and it drives itself’.   After reading the ‘Look, no hands’ article you actually get a sense that this stuff may actually happen within our lifetime.

I couldn’t agree more.

I used to moderate a lot of focus groups and many of the sessions dealt with the sales and service experience.  I was constantly amazed how customers would cite ‘the little things’ that so impressed them.   And they told everybody about it

1.  It was the woman taking her car in for service who was missing a gas cap and was utterly amazed when the service advisor took it upon himself to replace it without asking – free of charge.

2. It was the man who upon picking up his car after service being told that it would be another 20 minutes, but being given a $5 gift certificate to the sandwich place across the street so he could grab a bite while they finished up the repair.

3. There was the guy who was driven home by the service manager after dropping off his car since the courtesy shuttle had stopped running for the night.

4.  The woman who told the story of how the dealership had a bouquet of flowers delivered to her office after she bought a car, and how she felt walking back through all of the cubicles to her desk with people asking ‘where did those come from?’

5.  There was the  man who upon picking up his new car, had his picture taken with his wife, his  young daughter, and the entire sales team from the dealership.  However, the salespeople were stacked up upon one another in a 3 high pyramid as if they were the cheerleading squad at the local football game.  He still has the picture.

In each of these instances, the customer couldn’t wait to tell people about it.  As dealerships and brands, isn’t that what we want?

Yes, processes need to be in place at the dealership to ensure things get done in an efficient and effective matter.   But after 25+ years in this business the more I believe it’s ‘the little things’ that can differentiate an experience for a customer – and we need to do more of that.

Until next week.

@christravell

PS   For those who are interested, I have to give a talk at the ESOMAR Automotive Research Forum on May 23 & 24th in Wolfsburg, Germany. The event is sold out but I understand that live streaming is available. Looks like a very interesting program.  Here’s the link if you want to check it out.

http://www.esomar.org/events-and-awards/events/global-and-regional/automotive-forum-2013/150_automotive-forum-2013.overview.php

#ESOMAR

#esoAUTO

If you haven’t seen it, take a look.   It uses an augmented reality app to demonstrate the styling and design of the McLaren P1.   I can’t do it justice in words.   You need to see it.  The actual app shows airflow over the vehicle as well as the technical workings i.e., engine, suspension, etc, which is not shown in the demo.

The applications for the car industry are obvious.

1.  Providing this tool on an OEM website would get the customer more engaged in the vehicle they are considering.  Engagement leads to consideration; consideration leads to a potential sale.

2.  Likewise on the showroom floor.   Have the customers download the app, provide them with the hardcopy diagram of the car they’re looking at (interior,  exterior, engine, etc.), and prepare to have the customer amazed.

3   The same could be done for each individual dealership to demonstrate where everything is located.  If a customer is going to several dealerships on a Saturday, it certainly would make this one standout.

4.  Hand out your floor plan of the Detroit Auto Show or Geneva Auto Show  and let the customer relive the experience they had at the booth.

5.  Listen to your kids.   They have some great ideas.

Thanks and let me know what you think.

Chris

@christravell

Let me know what you think.

Chris

@christravell

Thanks for your comments and let me know what you think.

Chris

@christravell

As always, let me know what you think.

Chris

@christravell