By Ian, on May 24th, 2008 If you need the history — I had a big problem with the company (blogged here), which was resolved the day after I wrote a post about it on this site (blogged here). A lot of people might see this as a victory for blogs and bloggers. I’d agree, sure. But, on reflection, I think it’s more of a victory for Carphone Warehouse. It’s easy for anyone to set up a blog, and give themselves a platform on which to rant and rave about whoever is annoying them this week. OK, it takes a bit longer to establish any readership and authority, and being a decent-ish writer helps, as well. However, any old fool, given some determination, has the chance to do that, on a purely hobbyist basis. As I think I have sufficiently proven. What’s harder than setting up a blog, is for big organisations with established systems, hierarchies and hide-bound tradition to change. To move from a position where “it’s not this department”, “you need to speak to X about that” and “sorry, there’s no one available right now.” To get to the position where an individual within that organisation can say, “I can see what you’re saying. I’ll sort it out now.” Not only that, but they’re polling for your opinions and ready to intervene where they can be helpful. That would be an enormous culture shock for most large organisations. My negative experience using the traditional lines of communication, which I persisted with due to a misguided sense of moral decency, versus the guerilla efforts that eventually achieved results, speaks volumes. When the latter worked, it saved portions of C/W’s reputation in some ways, not to mention my relationship with the company. But again, it was the company’s response, not my rudeness (as my nana might have perceived it — and she still oversees my conscience), that got the result. Technology and social media, in particular, are allowing these transitions to happen within even the largest organisations. But it’s happening on uneven levels and with unequal levels of satisfaction when it comes to people’s experience. The future is spead unevenly, like William Gibson said. The overall movement is positive, though. Sometimes that’s because it’s on an outlaw level, outside the traditional hierarchies, and the bosses don’t even know about it. Often, it’s on a project basis or through an external agency. Sometimes, it’s individual champions injecting change into organisations, because they actually care about the company or organisation they work for. Less commonly, it’s established by enlightened managers. When the instigators (I still have the C/W hold music in my head) — whatever their methods — achieve real results for the company and create more trust, faith and humanity, the message will spread, inside and outside the company. When they get it right, the impact on the bottom line can be enormous. Many of us end up hating the large organisations we’re forced to deal with; creating mechanisms to rehabilitate those relationships is crucial. Personal publishing platforms and individuals empowered to engage with them are the way to take this forward. That organisations as large as C/W are allowing that to happen is extremely heartening. Facilitating that, of course, requires organisations to allow for extreme trust, 20% time or flexible working hours, mobile technology, and a realisation that your reputation belongs with your customers, not the marketing department. 
By Ian, on May 24th, 2008 This post is a follow-up to the last, rather less complimentary one, Goodbye, Carphone Warehouse, You Lied and Cheated… At 10am this morning — and it’s Saturday on a bank holiday weekend, you’ll note, I got a call from Sarah, a customer services manager at Carphone Warehouse. She gets Google Alerts for mentions of the company’s name on her Blackberry, and had picked up on last night’s post. Less than 14 hours after I published it. Shocked at my tale of woe, she’d called into the office from home to retrieve my records. After confirming the details of my story, she agreed that a mistake had been made and apologised for the company’s failure to act this week. Two hours later, I received this email (slightly abridged): Dear Mr Delaney Further to our conversation this morning, I am writing to confirm that I have just credited your account with £473.46 which is the amount that is showing due to data charges. […] Should you have any concerns about anything […] please feel free to call me on my mobile number at any time. […] I hope that our conversation this morning and these subsequent actions have gone some way to restoring your faith in CPW and that you will remain a customer for many more years to come. I also hope that you can now get on with the important job of enjoying your N95 and the bank holiday weekend. Please call me or email me on this address should you have any more questions or should you need any more help. Kind regards
Sarah
I am still pretty stunned at this turn of affairs, I have to admit, and my fingers are trembling. And I am frankly delighted at the company’s willingness to listen and respond using these channels. It leads me to several observations: - The Internet makes everything really fast. I achieved more in 14 hours (none of which were during the work week, or even daylight) than a whole week of phone calls. I guess that’s bad news for organisations in some ways, because they have to be considerably more agile than they often are in order to keep up.
- Writing a blog is a good thing to do. I am not an especially noted person, even in the very narrow circles in which I move. But the blog and other social media allowed me to get a message out to the right people in a way that traditional forms of communication did not.
- Without the Internet, corporations are not likely to be very good at dealing with individual cases that don’t fit the standard pattern. I don’t blame Carphone Warehouse, in particular. I think it’s just the nature of modern corporations.
- However, Sarah at Carphone Warehouse — and people like her — are using technology to rehumanise their organisations. Give an empowered person Google Alerts and a Blackberry (and the willingness to look at those alerts on a Saturday morning) and you can totally change people’s perceptions, stem a potential PR disaster and restore faith and humanity in your organisation’s relationships with customers.
Anyway, I am also honour-bound to say that I have changed my mind since yesterday. Carphone Warehouse are actually rather good eggs and you should all go and buy some phones from them straight away. Many thanks, too, to Huw, David, Helen, and Jana among others for your messages of support, posts and advice. The world is beautiful again. [I agreed to keep Sarah’s surname private, but if any of her managers at Carphone Warehouse pick up on this story, please reward her bountifully]. By Ian, on May 23rd, 2008 NB: This story has a happy ending! Dear Carphone Warehouse, We used to have it so good. I’ve been a customer for about four years, and you’ve never put a foot wrong until now. You found me good deals and gave me good advice on tariffs and handsets. But I’m not sure our relationship can recover after this week. Having memorised all your hold music over the period, might I suggest ‘we have got to get it together, now’? The StoryI was phoned on May 12th by Gareth Whittle from your outbound O2 sales team to tell me I was due an upgrade. Splendid, I said, what have you got? After much wrangling, we agreed on a Nokia N95 8GB, albeit for five pounds more a month than the price you published on your own website (I see you’ve fixed that now). The £35-a-month deal would get me a free handset, more minutes and texts each month than I’d use all year, and most importantly, unlimited data. You promised to send it the next day and I’d have 14 days to try it out. “What if I have any problems, Gareth?” “Oh you can call me on extension 4443220″. Lo and behold, it arrived the next day — modern logistics can be so wonderful — and I eagerly starting testing all the new functions — it’s a lovely piece of kit. I’d have liked a qwerty keyboard, but figured I could get a bluetooth job from you later. The camera is excellent and using 3G for the first time was a rush. The StingIt’s now seven days later and I phone my wife — but who’s this on the line? “This number cannot be dialled — please hold while we put you through to customer services”. I hold — and it actually turns out to be your finance department. “Mr Delaney — you have an outstanding bill for (circa) £500. Would you like to pay by credit card?” “What!!! But I’m on unlimited data — the guy told me.” “Ah, that doesn’t actually start till the 26th May.” “But I didn’t know that? How would I know that? You sent me the phone — why would I imagine I couldn’t use it yet?” Gareth did tell me that the contract ‘rolled over on the 26th of each month’ (his exact words, as I recall — whatever that means). But he didn’t tell me that meant unlimited data didn’t start till May 26. He certainly didn’t warn me about using the Internet before May 26. I had assumed (oh, silly me) that it was the previous 26th, if I agreed to the deal — this was an upgrade, after all. And how would I be able to test the phone in the 14-day cooldown period otherwise? It seemed like common sense that the upgrade began when I received the phone. I’d made a horrendous mistake. But there’s also been some big communication errors on your part. Of course, you’ll understand and rectify that, won’t you? We’re all human beings, aren’t we? And it’s not as though back-dating the contract by two weeks will cost you any money. Turns out the lady I’m speaking to can’t actually do anything. I am put through to customer services. They tell me that the sales department concerned has to investigate the problem: their hands are tied. I ask them to put me through to Gareth on extension 4443220, but it turns out he lied to me about that — no-one I am allowed to speak to can make that call. Outbound sales don’t have any accessible phone numbers. I get put back through to customer services. I ask to speak to a manager. I am put through to a manager at customer services. Turns out he can’t actually call anyone more senior — or Gareth — they are only allowed to send emails. This fact makes me wonder about how seriously you take customer services? Not to worry, though. I’m assured my incident has been escalated and I will receive a call from your sales department within the next 72 hours to resolve the problem. 72 Hours Pass…And there’s no phone call from your sales department. More lies, then. I call my new friends Craig, and then John, at your Warrington customer service call centre. They both re-escalate my case. I am at three levels of escalation now. I need oxygen, I am so escalated, but evidently not sufficiently so to get anyone from sales to call me. And no, they really can’t put me through to anyone more senior, they assure me that more ‘VERY URGENT’ notes have been added to my case. (Craig and John are nice guys, by the way, being Manchester lads like myself. Useless, in this case, but nice). Apparently, I’ll get a call within another 72 hours. But hang on. My 14-days’ grace period will expire by then. Walking away from the contract is the only thing I’ve got to trade with, if your people don’t agree that I wasn’t properly informed on the terms of the deal. I talk to Craig and John again and they — very kindly — answer my requests about doing this and tell me I can walk into a shop tomorrow and explain the situation and hand back the phone. And that’s what I’m planning to do — I have to, because the rest of your company might understand the science bit, then. The Science Bit- Current disputed bill = ~£500, which I intend to resist paying, and I think I have a reasonable case.
- Value of the contract we’d agreed = 18 x £35 = £630, which I agreed to happily pay. But now I won’t be doing that. You are down £130, at best. Nice move, slick.
- Value of the next ten 18 month contracts after that which I would have signed up for = £6300, or so. You’re down another £5800.
- By the way — value of positive word-of-mouth recommendations from me (which I have given in the past) = at least two or three other customers, maybe more = £12,000+.
- Adverse recommendations word-of-mouth from me (which I will definitely give) = at least -£18,000, since I’ll be very vigorous about that.
- Adverse value of this blog post/facebook/twitter/etc. and the others I’ll publish to your reputation and your bottom line = unknown, potentially enormous.
The Sequel?I genuinely hope that my next blog post will be entitled ‘How Carphone Warehouse Regained My Trust’. But that really is up to you. You are a communications company — surely you are a listening brand, as well? Oh yes, one more thing — the ‘Feedback and Complaints’ button on your site doesn’t work at all. Shame, that. Best, Ian Delaney [Readers — want to help? This account combines several more phone calls to make it less boring. As well as the phone exchanges above, I emailed the text of this post to the chairman, press office and enquiries addresses at Carphone Warehouse in order to give them a chance to do something. No response, obviously, from any of them. If you have been similarly disgruntled, cheated and trodden upon by telecoms giants, and Carphone Warehouse in particular, you might like to link to this post (or digg and delicious it) and help damage the company’s bottom line by spreading the word. Make a stand, people! You’re welcome to take the text as well, providing you attribute it. This is not about popularising this blog: my post rate should show that isn’t a factor here. Legal advice is also very welcome, as are recommendations of UK mobile suppliers who care about their customers. Most welcome of all, though, would be a response from the company itself.] By Ian, on May 3rd, 2008 Fortieth anniversary of MLK’s death tomorrow. This is from one year before he died. A transcript is available here. By Ian, on March 27th, 2008 TechCrunch UK » Blog Archive » Roll up, get your Olympic Torch Facebook app Annotated tags: facebook, olympics, techcrunch We are boycotting this Olympics, right? Web 2.0 tie-ins for the Games are *so* not cool. TechCrunch UK » Blog Archive » Brits go online while watching TV. Duh. tags: media, socialnetworking, tv The research showed that nearly 70 percent of online British adults who watch television go online while doing so, with 21 percent of 16–24 year olds always using the Internet while watching TV. By Ian, on March 26th, 2008 | About this BlogSocial tools, devices and web evolution are creating epochal change in media, society and business. The plan is to hide under the floorboards till it’s all over document some of the interesting parts of that change. More….
|
Recent Comments