Do your customers see the value of your products and services?
I haven't blogged in a while - call it lack of being inspired. That all changed this morning when my car displayed an alert that the tire pressure was low and maintenance was needed. All I could think of was flying out later in the day on a business trip and coming home to a flat tire late Wednesday night at Logan airport. After contemplating a couple of different options on what to do (ignore the warning, call my husband and let him handle it), I decided to give AAA a call.
My last customer experience with AAA was awful - it was a couple of years ago where I came out of a restaurant welcomed by a flat tire (seeing a trend?). I called AAA, and it took them over 2 hours to arrive troubleshoot our call. During the time we were waiting, I call the 800# several times to make sure we weren't forgotten because it was taking so long (I could have sworn that there was a AAA site right in the same town). When the driver finally arrived, well, he was less than pleasant.
Needless to say, I was reluctant to reach out to AAA today. To reduce my time until help arrived, I called AAA while on my way into the office (nothing like getting a head start). The 800# number batched me right into an Interactive Voice Response system (IVR) where I only waited for a few minutes until a live agent was available to help. The agent took all my information and let me know that a driver would be at my office building within 30 minutes (I won't hold my breath, I thought). The agent also gave me a reference number (#95 - easy to remember since I couldn't jot down the number while driving). The reference number could be used if I needed to call back for any reason.
Within 5 minutes, I was called by another live agent letting me know that the driver had been dispatched and should arrive my office building within 20 minutes. Now I'm getting nervous because they might beat me to the office! In the next 5 minutes, I received an outbound voice message (IVR) letting me know that the driver was 2 miles away and would be there in 5 minutes (thank goodness I had just arrived work). Sure enough, the driver arrived within 5 minutes from the last touch, was a very pleasant person and resolved my tire pressure issue.
What a difference from my last experience! Everyone was pleasant; I talked to two live agents (inbound and outbound) and one IVR (outbound) and the driver was on-time - all within a span of 30 minutes. Talk about a great multi-channel, concerted customer experience. The only thing that I can think of that AAA missed is that they did not survey me afterwards asking about the experience and my level of satisfaction. Should I get a survey in the next few days, I'll still give them glowing reviews, but with that kind of customer interaction, I would have expected them to close the loop sooner (or at all).
That said, I walked away knowing that I would definitely renew my membership when the renewal offer comes through and it makes me wonder if companies out there can say the same or have a great touch model like AAA does. Your comments are welcomed!
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