When it comes to customer service, brands that are 100% ‘digital natives’ seem to do it so much better that the older ones. There’s really no excuse for this. We’re many years into the digital communications revolution now. The mantra of being conversational, honest and accessible to customers really ain’t that new.
Over recent weeks I’ve had 2 very different customer service experiences. Admittedly pitting the boutique online printers Moo against electronics behemoth Sony isn’t really a fair match. But online, every brand should be ticking these essential boxes in the same way, or risk rapid damage to their reputation – whatever their size.
Moo: Good
We use Moo for our business cards, and the latest batch came back with a slight cutting error. Finding out how to contact customer service was stupidly easy. Every step of the transaction had already been reported by automatic email. The box contained re-order codes, a helpful returns sticky label and the website is clear from clutter, making navigation a breeze.
I sent an email, got a response and the reprints we on my desk at no cost – financial or emotional – to me, the customer. (Makes you want to write a positive blog post by way of a thank you, really).
Sony: Not Very Good
Meanwhile, the door on my Sony camcorder suddenly wouldn’t close, with or without a Mini DV cassette in it. Seeking assistance for this was the polar opposite experience. Googling the error code produced reams of forum posts slagging off Sony, this apparently common fault and their inability to communicate with customers on it other than charging them a lot of money to fix it.
Trying to find Sony’s own customer services for any official info was painful. Searches under a number of different terms pulled up variously unhelpful results: North American only help centres, drop down ‘help’ menus that didn’t list my particular camera model, vast FAQ pages.
Digital Content Strategy
A proper digital content strategy would see Sony not only simplifying and promoting the path to reach them direct, but also managing and reacting to the user comments about their products on other sites. It’s ridiculous that no representative from the company has contributed to those forums. Their reputation is being raked through the mud on there unchecked. The commercial missed opportunity is there for all to see.
Ok, so Moo may have a little too much Innocent Smoothiesque folksiness about them for some tastes, but all that chumminess is just a presentation style that works well for their type of business. The same principle of effective and rapid customer service can be handled in a totally corporate way with equally good results.
Help Them ‘Get It’
It all goes to show the huge culture shift that is going to have to take place very rapidly at ‘old’ companies as the general public increasingly seek answers to their issues online. It’s unfortunate but unsurprising that the brands that really ‘get it’ are those built for the new digital space.
At least helping all the others catch up presents a wealth of opportunity for a new breed of media companies. As ever, seeing it unfold around us is a very interesting process. Even though I still haven’t worked out how to get my camcorder to close.
Can I disconcur ever so slightly?
Whilst it is not a brand working in the same field as Sony and Moo, and just one off the top of my head, but the BBC have an absolutely fantastic online presence. They are a company as old as they come, and they have a diverse, content driven, innovative site (the iPlayer is right up there with the wheel in terms of modern invention), with strong efforts to drive user engagement through embedded discussion and so on.
I do agree that so many companies do it horribly, due to having to completely go against everything they know and understand, but it takes balls to really go for it and long term gains are seen as too risky. A certain former employer of mine changed their digital strategy every five minutes, as a few months into a long-term digital redevelopment strategy they would get nervous about seeing their money spent without any short term remuneration coming back at them. Acquisition takes time, engagement takes time, SEO takes time… You can’t just put up a website and expect this stuff to magically happen. It basically just went against everything that had made the business a success over the fifteen years previous.
I think the challenge for media developers is in ascertaining the right balance between the low hanging fruit required to keep the money men at the top happy, whilst moving towards a gradual shift towards more modern web methods. Some of what you outlined would be quick fixes, but the problem goes far deeper than that (which you well acknowledge) and it’s a very scary bridge for many established companies to cross.
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It’s a huge generalisation of course. The BBC does a fine job, but as a public broadcaster it really should. I’m more interested in why a company like Sony, that makes electronics for the web, has such a bad online customer service policy. But I imagine the answer is that – at present – it pays better to have people frustrated and angry on a few forums then to invest in a complete global policy of 2-way conversation. It’s a situation that will change as the culture changes, and some companies will suffer for sitting on their hands at this stage. I hope Sony are paying better attention than they did over the Walkman brand…
And yes your, ahem, certain employer is quite typical of a company panicking at spending money on an unproven web policy. It’s still the Wild West out there, but hopefully this presents some exciting new opportunities borne out of the current frustrations.
(Apparently if I tape 2 bits of wire to an AA battery, touch them to either end of the motor in the door of my MiniDV Handycam, the casette mechanism will start to work again. I don’t think I’d get that advice from any customer service rep anyway, but it would be nice to see them on the forums regardless.)
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