As you probably know, I do a lot of work on customer experience with my clients. It is not rocket science and the benefits are obvious: customers for life and word of mouth referrals. I have been really lucky in my business to have got pretty much all my clients through referral. Growth is really easy when you don’t have to be chasing new business – you just need to concentrate on converting the lead, rather than generating the lead in the first place. (Speaking of which, if you have referred business to Business Changing, hopefully we have shown great manners and said a big thank you and if not (?), then thank you very very much! You’re awesome and we appreciate it!) So we all know good customer service is beyond good for you. Which brings me to the worst service I have received possibly in my entire life…
Before I begin, I want to say a really big thank you to Contact Energy (and Genesis Energy) for giving me a fantastic real life story on customer experience that I will be able to talk about, enthusiastically, for the rest of my life, with thousands of people each year, shared through my blogs and social media and business presentations and talks. I love good example fodder to make my business coaching points!
Right, a bit of history. I’ve generally only used Contact Energy for power since I can remember, for no particular reason, until I used Power Shop a few years back (who I found to be fantastic and very value adding, ahead of their time even)… So I perhaps had a slight brand loyalty to Contact Energy. When I had to choose a power and gas company for a house I recently purchased, I rang up Contact Energy. Here begins the true story of the worse service I have perhaps ever received, a great “what not to do” if you want to be successful in business…
On Thursday night at around 8:15pm, I ring up Contact Energy to get my power connected. The lady on the phone is friendly enough and whilst the whole sign up process seems like an absolute rigmarole (it takes at least 20 minutes, if not 30), I know that it is a necessary evil. The whole time I am looking at my watch thinking tick, tick, tick, I should be working or doing something else other than sitting stuck on a landline. I’m finally told it’s going to cost $150 to have it connected on Saturday or $115 to have it done on Friday. I make the obvious choice of Friday. I say that the power metre is on the outside of the house and that I am unable to be there on Friday, but give authority to Contact Energy to turn on the power without me in the house. They even get me to agree that I understand the risks that if I leave appliances on, there is the possibility that the house might burn down. I also say that I will leave the back door unlocked so if they want to go in the (currently unfurnished) house, they can and feel free to do whatever they need to. So we very clearly establish that I am 110% unable to be on the property. I did say that if they could ring half an hour beforehand, I could possibly meet them there on the Friday, but no guarantees. I could even organise for someone else to meet them. Contact Energy gave me a 4.5 hour window of when they might drop in but couldn’t be more precise – and I wasn’t willing to hang around on site for that long waiting for someone! The lady on the phone told me that it wasn’t possible for someone to ring me in advance with a precise time, so I just went with the option of leaving the door unlocked and giving them the authority to do the job with no one onsite… I was also told that I would need to ensure that every power switch in the house was turned off (I sent both my mother and girlfriend to confirm that everywhere was switched off). Ok, so eventually we said goodbye and I felt assured that my power would be on on Friday.
Fast forward about 23 hours. I go to the house with my girlfriend and we start turning on the light switches to admire the fact that I would now have power… Ummm, why are no lights turning on? I experiment with various switches, including the power box, and no, there is definitely no power. I am thinking, this is weird, how can there be no power when I had organised for the power to be switched on today? I ring Contact Energy and get a lady on the phone who isn’t quite as good as the previous night’s customer service lady but who is passable. It takes what feels like several minutes for her to bring up my file (which I find odd in the world of instant gratification – with good IT systems, it should take a mere seconds to bring up my file). We discuss how I have no power, which is confusing because someone came to turn the power on that day. She replied, “Yes, someone turned up to turn the power on today, but because no one was home, they were uncomfortable turning it on”. Hmmm. That’s strange, I said (truth be known, I might have said different words in a very frustrated manner) – how can that happen when I told the lady who set up the job that nobody was going to be home and that I had left the door open for them to go inside and check the house if they wanted to? And that I had also guaranteed that every single power switch would be turned off? And that yes, I understood the risk of my stove being left on at 260 degrees and posibly burning down my house. She said the contractor was uncomfortable turning on the power. I repeated myself, adding, “there is no way that I am paying any bill for this, as I told you that nobody would be home, so why would someone turn up at my house, knowing I was not there, to turn on the power, to then decide that they would not turn on the power because I was not there, when they knew full well that I was not going to be home?!?” Put simply, why would they turn up to do a job that they knew they could not do, supposedly. The lady said that some contractors won’t turn the power on without the owner there but others will. So why did Contact Energy not send my job to a contractor who would turn on the power at a house without the owner’s presence? She replied that they (the call centre) sent requests to Dispatch and then Dispatch sent them out to the contractors. So why did Dispatch not send my job (a job where the owner was not going to be on site and was comfy with the risks and had left the house unlocked for Contact Energy, if they wanted to go inside for any reason) to a contractor who would do the jobs where the owner was not present? Well, the call centre lady said, Dispatch just sent jobs to anywhere. Like a machine gun, I can imagine, with no brain attached…
Ok, so to recap, my “no owner present” job did not get sent to a contractor who would do the job, but instead to a contractor who would not do the job. And that contractor turned up to do the job, knowing full well that they would not be able to do the job as they do not do the sorts of jobs that I wanted done (owner not present, turn the power on!). I am pretty frustrated by this stage, thinking holy moly, no wonder Contact Energy is not a good share investment, with stupid systems like this. No wonder they are (hopefully) losing customers, with their terrible, stupid systems and ridiculously bad customer experience. I am stewing and thinking that I should be investing in whatever power company is listing next, as they are going to be winning a lot of customers from Contact Energy.
People who know me know that I am really placid, low key, don’t get angry or upset over much. Zac “stay in the middle, nothing rankles him” de Silva is how I have been described. But now I am VERY frustrated, knowing quite a bit about how easy it is to give a great customer experience and receiving first-hand a terrible, worst-ever customer experience. I tell the lady (in a frustrated, curt tone) to “cancel the whole thing, I am going with Genesis Energy!”. And as the conversation ends, I say (quite loudly, not even under my breath) “F*^% off” which is so out of character for me! (I do apologise for that, Contact Energy call centre lady – I was just so darn frustrated!)
Immediately I call Genesis Energy. I get a lady who is nice enough and efficient on the phone. Short story: she tells me she’ll try to remotely connect the power and if not, then someone will need to visit the site. She rings back 10 minutes later to say they are having some issues with remote connections but that someone can be out there in the next 4-5 hours. It is about 8pm at night, but it’s fine with me if they turn up at 1am, even – I just want power! I say that I can leave a door open for them as I will probably not be onsite and she says that is fine but can they ring me if any issues? Yes, I reply. I then offer to actually meet them onsite if they just give me half an hour’s notice. That would be great, she says. So, they will do it on the same day, they will even ring me in advance – holy moly, what a great experience! (Compared to the rigmarole of Contact Energy, anyhow.)
An electrician rings and we meet half an hour later. He’s polite, he goes out the back, he does his business efficiently and very shortly, I have power! And just like that, in the space of 1.5-odd hours, I’ve had my faith restored that someone in the electricity industry understands how to make customers happy and can over-deliver to create raving fans. With that service, they’ve got a customer for life and a source of new customers via referral.
Contact Energy, you might be big but, man, your systems need a major overhaul. Feel free to “contact” (love a good pun!) me and I will sort you out and help your customers be happy… No pressure. Genesis Energy, feel equally free to contact me and we can together create the most unimaginably awesome power customer experience that the world has literally ever seen. I am up for the excitement and challenge. Contact, I’m sorry to have to tell this story but perhaps some good might come out of it for you, especially with having so many shareholders now. Companies who focus on customer experience traditionally (on the stock exchange) out-perform “just normal customer satisfaction companies” by more two to three times – that makes for a fantastic potential share investment in companies that truly ooze and live and breathe customer experience…
The key learning for anybody in business: Where do you frustrate your customers? Do something about it… And if you don’t know how to fix it, call me for some business coaching: zac@businesschanging.com
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