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Customer Relationship Management Assignment 1 The Customers Revenge The cases of Jessica and Tom In both cases there is a problem with the Andromeda XL. Jessica had problems all over the place. From a failing air-conditioning to a jammed CD-player. In the case of Jessica she even got a new Andromeda XL. After 3 months the problems happened again. Tom’s failing Andromeda almost ended up in a deadly accident. It begins to be very clear that we are simply dealing with a very faulty product. Off course when having a product that simply doesn’t function well, you will be getting a lot of complaints.
I believe a company should always deliver a quality product. The money they save on production will always come back to haunt them in the end through a lot of complains and followed by repair costs. Another big issue in both cases is the bad way they feel treated by the customer service in general. It looks like the employees that work at the customer service of Atida don’t have the slightest clue as to “how to deal with complaints”. One of the main rules is to always show respect and understanding towards the customer. With Tom this also clearly isn’t the case.
The quote from the article that points this out is where the customer service employee says “Sorry for the inconvenience”. In the case of Tom, he was very close to having a serious accident, which perhaps could have been deadly. The term inconvenience is really inappropriate in this case. Jessica is very unhappy about the way the customer service works. She was put on hold for a very long time. When someone finally was able to answer her call, he barely spoke English. She has been given the runaround. As a final nail in the coffin Atida also refuses to reimburse her for the costs she made for taking the car to a mechanic instead of to them.
How Atida should deal with it’s unhappy customers: Having a bachelor degree in Commercial economics and a minor in sales & account management, I am no stranger in how to deal with complaints. I recall one of my sales and account management teachers saying something very peculiar. He said that having only satisfied customers is a bad thing, then you never get to speak one of them. By actually having an unsatisfied customer, you finally have an opportunity to engage with one them. This way you could get more first hand information about your product and service.
So, having complaints about your product isn’t a problem, but an opportunity to improve. Off course I know you shouldn’t take this all to literal, but I hope you understand the point I am trying to make. So in this case, Jessica and Tom are actually doing the company a favor, by providing essential feedback about the product and it’s problems. I will formulate a list of things Atida should start doing to try and avoid or at least correctly solve the types of situations Tom and Jessica are in. Get better Customer service training Get better employee training on how to deal with complains.
Making sure they all show s respect and understanding towards the customer. With Tom, who could have had a deadly accident, it clearly is an understatement to call it “an inconvenience”. Jessica simply was given the runaround. Better training in how to talk to the customer could have prevented a lot of frustration with both of them. Provide a quality product The main problem of these complaints is simply the lack of quality in the Andromeda XL. There should be better testing before actually putting the product on the market. By having done so, it might have been more costly, but they could have avoided a lot of costs later on.
A shift in Policy In the case you get the feeling Lisa believes “getting the customer off the line” means they have provided him or her with a solution. This clearly is not the case. This does not at all mean we have satisfied the customer. In order to build a stronger customer service reputation you need to adopt an attentive and individualized customer policy. Having a good CRM system will help provide this. Having a Customer Relationship System In order to be able to act accordingly, it’s a good idea to have a CRM system. In this way they could create a history of each customer. Then you can keep track of a lot of things.
Is it a returning customer? How much complaints or problems has he or she had. What were the costs of solving those problems. In this system you could then eventually track these problems and link them. You should be able to see if there is either 1 or multiple problems that keeps a curing with a lot of customers. This way Atida could act before hand and help create that more individualized customer policy. Atida could send a letter to all the people who purchased that type of car explaining what the problem is and doing a free of charge call back to check and perhaps repair the problem prematurely.
This last part has happened to my father and his car. The company discovered there was something faulty in this line and he was able to bring his car in free of charge in order to get it fixed. Again for a company, by doing this they could prevent further costs. Perhaps more things could have broken down because of the fault and it would have been more expensive. This customer also should get a more positive view of the type of service of this company. I recall my dad being very happy with the way the car company was so attentive and quick to act. Consider Customer Lifetime Value
I believe there is some truth in what Lisa says “We can’t afford to coddle people……. “. It’s true that a company shouldn’t want to keep all customers. Some customers simply are more costly then you may realize. Again the CRM system plays an important role. They could check the history of each complaining customer. Then in the case of Tom, they should know he has been a returning customer. He has a lot of future value in him, because he has been so loyal in the past years. They should reimburse his expenses and perhaps give him free roadside assistance for the remaining time he drives his Andromeda XL.
Jessica on the other hand might be a different story. She doesn’t seem to have a high CLV. She already got a completely new car. In my minor of Sales and account management I was always told that it is always more expensive to get a new customer, then to hold on to a current customer. I’m not sure that we will be able to turn her perception around about Atida. If the company helps her out in a fantastic way, will this guarantee us that when she will buy a new car, it will be an Atida? I wouldn’t be to sure about that. Internet-related customer created Communications:
I believe you could minimize these types of negative communications by doing the things stated above. Off course there is always a chance on something happening. These day’s it’s easy to make a video and post it on Youtube. If for any reason there is something negative going around, then be sure to try and counter it by perhaps releasing a press release. A good example would be the Urban legends about McDonalds. It was claimed that they put earthworms in there hamburgers. Even though it should sound ridiculous, McDonalds did see a negative impact on sales.
They then released a statement saying that it was illogical to use earthworms instead of beef, simply because the price of a pound of earthworms was much higher then beef. It wouldn’t make good business sense. In other cases it could also help to admit your mistake. In the case of BP, they released a video of there CEO Tony Hayward apologizing for the oil spill in the golf of Mexico and taking full responsibility in cleaning up this oil spill. So admitting your mistake is not only important on an individual level towards one customer, but also towards an entire community. At times it really is the only thing left to do.