Recently I wrote about customer-centric processes. In early posts, I’ve discussed the idea of the “path of least resistance”. That is, if there is something that you want someone else to do, you need to make that action easier than doing something else. To many, path of least resistance and customer-centric processes are a no-brainer. At least, intellectually they are. But sometimes, our internal policies and processes get in the way.
Today, I was reviewing my Verizon Wireless bill and found a mistake. I was receiving an employee discount for a company for which I no longer worked. I called Verizon to let them know so that they could make the appropriate adjustment to their records (and unfortunately to my account).
After a few minutes, the customer service rep told me that I had to submit an email formally requesting that my discount be removed. He then gave me a very user-unfriendly email address and a list of information that I was supposed to include in the email:
Discount code
Corporate id number
Group id number
ECPD (which he never actually defined)
I explained that I didn’t know the values for any of those codes. They weren’t on the bill (In all fairness, he did tell me I could just give my discount amount rather than the code – that was on the bill). In the spirit of true service, he offered to look them up and give them to me.
I’m sure that if I asked people at Verizon if they were customer-centric and if they tried to make themselves easy to do business with, they’d say yes. Yet somehow through a set of small discrete decisions, they’ve create a situation which is just the opposite. They are asking me to jump through hoops to provide them with information that they already have (and I don’t) in order to do something that isn’t in my self interest (economically) and only benefits them.
It’s easy to nod your head and agree with being customer-centric and creating the path of least resistance. It’s another thing to actually do it.
This is similar to my contract with ATT. I left one organization, and they could not change the discount code until my contract terminated. So, even though they were losing money on me (a small amount, I’m sure), it was not a high priority for them to correct it.
We have run into that with one of our database systems – it creates a username, but if the user changes their name (gets married, divorced, et), we have to delete them from the system and re-enter them. All the information is the same except their last name. Path of least resistance definitely is not the most customer friendly!
Tell me, Chief: By your definition, isn’t Verizon being consumer-centric here? The company apparently is not invested in penalizing you for getting kicked to the street by the company you used to work for, no? : 🙂 Isn’t their system set up to benefit you, the customer?
Glad to see you’re back blogging! Your loyal fans were parched for your droplets of wisdom.
I think that you might be being overly generous (especially for you) to the company. My guess is that they aren’t purposely looking out for my interests.
If you ever looked at their pricing models or the way the present their bills, it is clear that they aren’t invested in helping the customer save money.
Chris – good example from ATT and your internal system. I do see this more often with internal corporate systems than with customer-facing systems. I think most companies have figured out that they need to be more accommodating. Although, having said that, I had another company that offered me a free trial of their on-line product. I signed up and then after submitting my information got a message that someone would contact me to finalize the details of my trial. They just guaranteed that I won’t be using their product. I want to use the free trial under my terms no theirs. I don’t want a hard sell, I don’t want their ‘pitch’. But, they are trying to control my process and in doing so, just lost my potential business.