Great Customer Service: If Not Now, When?

I fell in love with a dress in Monsoon and pair of shoes in Office. My dilemma...did the hues of cobalt blue match? The Office shop assistant accompanied me, shoes in hand, to Monsoon to find out. I have now told everyone how wonderful Office customer service is and how much they impressed me.

Contrast this with my bank, NatWest. Despite credit crunch and bail out headlines I've heard nothing. Just the usual statements. Oh, and a TV ad saying they could save me money if I cancelled my gym membership. We have just experienced the biggest stock market crash in living memory. Trust in financial brands is at an all time low. Why are they sticking with the old model?
What would it take for them to change the way they communicate with me? Why didn't they call me with personally tailored advice? They have my contact details; income; regular outgoings - information most companies would pay handsomely for. Meanwhile Martin Lewis, “the money saving expert”, is getting lots of media exposure, positioning himself in exactly this space. A space left by financial brands that didn't respond when and how customers needed them to.

As long as brands transmit messages which conflict with actual customer experiences, marketing budgets will deliver low returns. People will tell their stories to friends, family and 50 million people on the web....and people believe people more than they believe TV ads. Brands sticking with the old way of doing things, even now, as everything changes around them, risk being left behind. Customers will see that if great customer service isn't forthcoming under these conditions, then it never will be. They won't tell you, they will tell each other...and no brand promise can recover from that.

So tomorrow, or some time this week, take the journey that your customer takes. Take it anonymously and experience it as your customer experiences it. What did you find? I hope it is an experience that you would willingly share, one that you are proud of.