Watching The Wheels

My beloved and very supportive wife called this site recently “your whining blog”, and I guess it was for a good reason. I usually talk about the bad experience rather than the good experience. So for a change, this post is full with good words about people we usually complain about…

A few weeks ago I filed a claim to National Insurance Institute (Social security, ביטוח לאומי). I was surprised to find out I do not have to wait in line, I don’t have to meet any clerk. Just fill the forms and put the forms in a box outside the office (they even put a mail box on the sidewalk close to the road, so you do not have to look for parking. Well done NII – first time.

I waited a few days, assuming I will get some written confirmation that the forms are accepted, but I got nothing for 3 weeks. Tuesday morning I found an envelope in my mailbox. The envelope was sent from my last working place,  with three letters sent from the NII inside. From some reason, the NII sent the mail to an old and wrong address (This is a topic for a separate post, but simplify put – the ministry of interior affairs changed my address in their records by mistake to the place I worked in. This mistake was fixed 8 months ago).

So I was happy to get these letters (the claim was approved, and the phrasing in the letter was very cheerful…), but was concerned about the address issue, so I decided to call them and ask.

Now, as we all know, NII is a governmental organization – one would expect them to answer phone calls in very limited hours, and the calls are always answered by impolite, impatient and incompetent people. Well – I WAS WRONG.

The letters included a phone number I can call, stating the answering times are 8:00-17:00 Sunday to Thursday. Do you get it ? I can practically call any time ! Second “Well done” to NII.

Pessimistic Arie… I called and after hearing some recorded messages with some privacy warnings, the voice said “you should have a PIN Code in order to get service”. Fearful that I will have to go physically to the offices to get a PIN Code, I waited on the line and in less than a minute (including all recordings) – a friendly female voice answered. I explained the problem and she asked “do you have a PIN Code?”. I said “no”, waiting to be asked not to call again. She answered ” ok – I will ask you a few questions to verify you are who you claim you are, and I will send you by mail a PIN Code for the next calls” . What’s going on here ? She understands that she can simplify the treatment for the next calls, so she walks the extra mile to send  me a new PIN Code. Third and fourth “Well Done” to NII.

Then she checks the address and it seems they have the correct address (very odd), so she says “This is odd, but I will send you a form for address change, and you can fax it to us. I will write you the fax number on the page”. I bet this is the first time she faces this situation, but she was resourceful and provided a painless and simple solution for me. Fifth “Well Done” to NII.

The National Insurance Institute is a governmental organization, they do not have (almost) any business incentive to improve their service and the customer experience. They do not have competition, people do not have any other alternative. And yet – they provide an excellent service (also an excellent web site).

I suspect that besides the fact the change was driven by people who care about NII image in the eyes of the public,  the people who are managing the institute understand that by providing good service, they actually reduce costs – simplify processes, minimize the number of clerks who are serving customers face to face  – turning the NII into more efficient organization.

Well done NII! Can’t wait to need you again !

By the way, in the past months I had some other interactions with governmental organizations – the Ministry of Interior, Firearms licensing, the Rabbinate  etc. – and surprisingly these were very positive interactions.

On the other hand, I got very bad service and attitude from IKEA call center on the same day.

Maybe we live in an upside down world – commercial companies do not give a damn about their customers, but the government does ?

I am subscribed to the Israeli Satellite company “YES” for too many years. They have great promos and commercials, all end with a person asking questions like “Do you want to see good movies?”,”Do you want to watch the best series in the world”, and a chorus of people saying “YES! YES! YES!”.

Lately I have a feeling they are asking themselves (or maybe they already produced the corresponding TV commercial) – “Can we treat the viewers badly and they will still be loyal to us?” and they envision the chorus of people like me saying “YES!, YES!, YES!”.

I wonder what it takes someone to decide to leave his provider. I guess that high charges, lack of content, bad service (no reception during storms) are the usual suspects. I guess they are proactively handling these issues, but are they also doing everything they can not to hurt my experience as a viewer, or they just say to themselves “Naaahhh, no one will care about it, no one will complain and no one will abandon the service just because of these glitches, so let’s not spend any cent on fixing these things“.

I do not want to put myself in YES CEO’s shoes. The fact is that so many things irritate me – but it might be me. I just think they do not care about me.

This week, I felt the last straw on my back.

So I already got used to (mostly on Discovery channel, which is my favorite):

• The fact they have different translators for the Electronic Programs Guide, the promos and the shows themselves – so the same show has three different names ! (Try to look for a series you just saw its promo in the EPG – you just don’t know under which name it will be found).  Not to mention the very low level of translation work in some of the shows…
• The fact that the translation subtitles are  sometimes out of sync (sometimes 30 seconds), or missing lines (mainly in BBC). Even if you do not read it, your brain reads it and  you (I) cannot really concentrate.
• Promos to shows that are aired on channels that YES did not buy. Promos to shows with the time in other countries, not including Israel.
• Commercials in Romanian !  yes… a few weeks ago it looked like they just took a Romanian discovery channel – as is, with the commercials and put it on air in Israel (with translation of the shows).
• The fact that they put nature and tech shows on History Channel, moved a history series to Biography channel etc. You know why? because then you will have to pay for other channels.

But this week, they really made me angry. Almost 6 month ago YES launched a new channel – YES sci-fi, with a lot of publicity and commercials. They especially promoted something that looked like their flagship series – The Event. I got hooked to it –  it is fast-paced, high tension, conspiracy  sci-fi series –  a combination of LOST, The X-Files and 24.  There are few series I watch, this is one of them. For the last 21 weeks, I was waiting every Saturday night for the next episode and watched it (I know I can download everything from the Internet, but I do not).

It was all fine until this week. Last Saturday they aired episode 21.  From the level of tension, it felt like the season is going to end soon. This is THE event (pun intended) every cable/satellite provider or TV channel is waiting for – the flagship seasons’ finale.   This is the time to ring all bells, and make a huge noise – promos, specials, promos and more promos.

Did they do it? NO, they just did the opposite. The worst thing they could do.

While checking what’s on TV, I browsed through the EPG to see the future programs on the sci-fi channel for Tuesday (Shavuot holiday). Then I saw that they are airing a rerun of all episodes in a row from episode one.  I thought to myself “Well, they usually do it for people who want to catch up – after all it is a holiday – a great way to prepare people to the final episode.”  BUT THEN I SAW IT –  as I was scrolling through the EPG, I saw it – Episode 22, the season’s finale,  is aired right after episode 21. The first time the loyal series viewers can enjoy the last episode is at around 01:30 AM.  Not on the usual day, not in a normal hour, without any notice.

So do they really care about me ? NO !, NO !, NO !

Will someone leave YES because of such experience? I guess no. And if he will, they will never know, not to mention will not care.

By the way, Episode 22 was good. Can’t wait for the next season.

You might have noticed that the rate of my posting is declining. It is because I started doing some things besides watching the wheels. You can say that I am selectively hopping on the merry-go-round from time to time, to feel it again.

However, my Customer Experience sensors are still active and so they caught  someone say the sentence in the title “Sorry, we do not want your money“. Well not in these words, but practically this was the meaning.

While we were walking out of Max Brenner in Herzliah,  we heard a conversation between the restaurant host and a group of 4-5 people who came in.

Prospect customers: “Do you have business lunch?”
Host: “Yes, but only from 12 pm”
The time was 11:50am !!!
Prospect customers: “It is only 10 minutes from now”
Host: “I know, there is nothing I can do”
We could not hear the rest of the conversation, but we saw the prospect customers leaving.

Let’s analyze it for a second. 4 or 5 people just wanted to pay for lunch and you sent them away to another place. I am certain that tomorrow they will not even consider going there (there are so many good restaurants around), and I suspect that they will tell other people about the pettiness of this restaurant.  Max Brenner not only lost a few Shekels in this case, they lost much more.

“There is nothing I can do?”
If the problem is human hardheadedness of the host then there is really nothing we can do. But assuming there is a technical reason (for example, the computer does not accept business lunch orders before 12pm), let’s consider a few alternatives:

“Sorry, the computer does not accept business lunch orders before 12:00 but…

1) … please come inside and choose your meal – by the time you will know what you want it will be time”.
2) ….  we will manage.”
3) … come inside, we will offer  you some coffee on the house while we wait for the time to pass.”

I guess we can think about many other ideas which are by far better than the experience they got.  If you want your customers to return  and also tell others about your place – do not tell them “we do not want your money”.

All great examples of good customer experience are where the service giver went the extra mile to satisfy the customer – especially when there is a limitation that prevents him from giving the “normal” service. When there is difficulty, turn it into an advantage. Don’t throw your customers away.

And having that in mind, here is a great Dilbert from last week: