Personal Advancement
Customer service improves more than the bottom lineLate last week VIA Rail vowed to continue focusing on “the total customer experience” as its core business strategy. |
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 [ 2007-05-16 ] |
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Addressing a Board of Trade meeting in Montreal, VIA’s chief executive, Paul Cote, said customers gave VIA a 98% satisfaction rating in its most recent surveys.
“Not only have we achieved exceptionally high levels of customer satisfaction, 40% of customers say that VIA exceeded their expectations,” he said.
The strategy has already produced tangible results for VIA.
In the 2006 Commerce-Leger Marketing Survey, respondents ranked VIA as the most admired transportation company and one of the top 30 most admired companies overall. Also last year, VIA’s revenues increased, for the third straight year, to close to $300 million.
Is it a coincidence that VIA’s revenues increased when it adopted superior customer service practices as its core business strategy?
TD Canada Trust doesn’t think so.
It also had a little something to say about customer service last week.
In its customer loyalty poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid, 84% of respondents agreed that one experience can make or break their relationship with a particular brand or company.
As well, 94% said they have shared their stories for both good and bad customer service with friends and family, while 80% claimed that their customer service stories have influenced the purchasing habits of others.
“Canadians passion for the topic of customer service is astonishing,” says Tim Hockey, group head of personal banking with TD Canada Trust. “We talk to about 400,000 customers every year in our research, and I personally meet with hundreds of them, and our findings are highly consistent with those of this survey. People really do remember every great experience and they never forget a bad one. Listening to their stories helps us constantly improve our customer service.”
Here are some other poll findings:
When asked which service attributes are the most important to them, Quebecers are most likely to choose respect, Atlantic Canadians prefer friendliness and the rest of Canada prefers “knowledgeable.”
Don’t mess with Atlantic Canadians and the Albertans. At 97% and 96% respectively, they are the most likely to share service stories — good or bad — with friends and relatives.
B.C. and Ontario residents are most likely to write a complaint letter; Albertans are least likely to do the same.
“Respect, friendliness, knowledge, all of these attributes come together to create a positive experience for our clients,” says Bill Hatanaka, TD’s group head of wealth management. “Every interaction is an opportunity to deliver a superior client experience. Our relationships with clients may last a lifetime, but we know that each time we assist them, we make a lasting impression.”
Perhaps some American company officials should have been listening when those Canadian executives were talking.
A new U.S. study says companies there are spending millions of dollars each year to record customer calls — the ones that start with the message: “Your call may be recorded to ensure quality service” — and then ignoring what they hear.
More than 25% of 438 companies surveyed, including many members of the Fortune 500, admitted that their call monitoring services did not lead to better customer satisfaction. About half rated their own efforts as mediocre. And 21% admitted they didn’t even have a recording system.
“They are not getting a lot out of their investment,” said industrial psychologist Miriam Nelson, who conducted the study for Aon Corporation and Verint Systems.
Seems like the difference between many of these companies and VIA and TD Canada Trust is related to that adage of walking the walk versus talking the talk. And we all know that talk is cheap.
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P.J. Harston is Sun Media’s National Business Editor. Reach him by e-mail at pjharston@lfpres.com, Read more of his columns on Canoe’s Money website or on his blog at blog.canoe.ca/funbiz
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