What's Happened to Customer Care Part 2

Last week I blogged (ranted) about Customer Care and how we don't know what has happened to it. That was the Customer Care we receive when dealing face to face with small local businesses like the green grocers et al.

But what about Customer Care on the telephone? Mostly, we experience this through Big Business; your mobile phone service provider; your land line phone service provider (this one could be Big Trouble, if you get my drift); your utilities provider; your bank/building Society and any other financial institution like your car insurance company or your pensions firm. And of course government organisations like the people you pay your Council Tax to - not forgetting Revenue and Customs.

Dealing with complex  'Call Centres'
has  become a huge frustration
for  most customers these days

Have you ever tried getting through to your mobile phone service provider? The first thing you notice is that nobody but nobody wants to speak directly with you. There are recorded voices all over the Big Business industry to stop you speaking to real people. I ask you, is that Customer Care? "Welcome to blah, blah, blah company. If you're calling about blah, press 1; if you're calling about blah press 2. And so it goes on. You can spend 30 minutes or more just pressing buttons or listening to music to kill yourself by and nobody gives a monkey's. To add insult to injury, the system tells you that your call is being recorded for security and training purposes, which means that if you stuff up in any way they have a record of it to be used against you later. Is this Customer Care? Not likely.

Why is Customer Care so poor, these days? Well you will have your own ideas but I feel that a partial answer is the creation of Call Centres. They are the bane of our lives. At their inception, training companies were falling over themselves to write courses for Call Centre Training; most, if not all of those courses have ended up on the shelf because it doesn't take long to train people on which buttons and icons to click on and to say "I'm sorry, the system won't allow me to do that". Luckily for me, I decided early on that I would have nothing to do with these latter-day sweat shops.

Well Big Business require a BIG rant, so see you next time for some of the rest!

Customer Care means Just That

Why is a top-flight European business school devoting its considerable resources to teaching French railway staff how to improve customer service?

Thierry Grange, dean of Grenoble Ecole de Management, answers the question with passion. “It is about cultural change,” he says. “It’s about changing from being a public service to serving the public.”

Prof Grange and his colleagues are not just trying to give rail passengers a nice ride: they see their role as helping transform France from a producer-led economy to one that is customer-led.

It is a project that many French citizens would argue has defeated their governments for decades. Yet, as Prof Grange points out, the evidence of successful cultural reform of state institutions is all around.

France Télécom, for example, another former state monopoly and Grenoble client, is now a privatised and competitive international phone operator.

For 20 years, Grenoble EM has been building an executive education practice specialising in helping the staff of state institutions embrace change – to the benefit of those they serve.

The five-year, €1m ($1.3m, £880,000) contract with SNCF, France’s biggest train operator, to run the Majélan training programme to equip customer-facing managers with the right skills is just the latest among many. For, in spite of the appearance of immobility, European Union directives and French state legislation have transformed the structure of French railways, along with those of other state institutions.

French rail tracks are now owned by a separate state company, Réseau Ferré de France; many SNCF trains are operated by private sub-contractors; and next year, SNCF will face competition from other European train operators.

As Prof Grange remarks, SNCF has become a travel brand. With increasing numbers of tickets bought online, the ticket inspector may be the only staff member customers meet. Dealing successfully with travellers’ problems and service delays is a tough job. Yet good service has become critical to SNCF’s success.

Teaching methods

The first one-year programme for SNCF “service management agents” of every kind, now running on the Grenoble campus and at SNCF’s in-house Université du Service in Paris, has therefore prompted much thinking about teaching methods as well as messages and education.

Among the first challenges, Prof Grange says, is the need to convince SNCF staff that change will benefit them and the institution they work for.

Some of the solutions have been developed in the school’s Académie du Service (a joint project with the hotels group Accor).

One approach to build confidence and demolish barriers is the use of theatre. “Everyone can tell a story,” Prof Grange says. “Soon other participants will laugh in sympathy at your mistakes. It is a way of reducing stress and pressure.”

Once a learning atmosphere has been created, participants are taught skills ranging from practical tools, such as English and law, to marketing and strategic management. Candidates for the courses, which open the door to management grades for participants, were chosen through a competitive process within SNCF.

The 26 participants alternate between classes and the workplace, where they must complete a service-related project for assessment.

Valerie Cléry-Bernard, of the SNCF Académie du Service, says management schools were invited to tender to run a course designed as a management fast-track that would also equip participants for a more commercial business climate.

Innovative teaching methods, strength in service management and experience in developing comparable programmes were the criteria that led to the selection of Grenoble EM, she says.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009