Re: UKNM: Re : Customer retention.

[Fiona Campbell-Howes]

Kevin, I don't think it's down to the technology in itself - I buy a lot of

stuff and register for a lot of things online and the thing that puts me off

the most is bad usability and design, without a doubt. The way registration

forms are set out for example, is irritating in 90% of cases. Especially the

ones that say zip code, make you put in a county when you live in London,

only offer you "Mr, Mrs or Ms" as titles, make you scroll down to U for

United Kingdom etc. etc. Little niggly things by themselves but really

annoying when you have to sit through it all at once. I find that alienating

for sure - it's like "we don't care who, what or where you are, we don't

even know what country you live in, but give us your details so we can send

you loads of spam."


Then on the other hand you get things like Amazon's one-click buying, which

is great.


Satan's own technology, however, is IVR.  There's no excuse for IVR at all,

it must be the greatest technological source of customer rage in existence.


And the final thing is companies that have totally separate call centre and

e-commerce operations. [warning: long whingeing anecdote ensues] I tried to

register with Next Directory on the Web, keyed in all my details etc etc,

only to be told at the end that for some reason they couldn't perform a

credit check on my address.  So I phoned up the call centre and explained,

was told I had to register again, so gave them all my details again and

ordered some stuff.  The stuff didn't turn up, so I phoned them again and

found they had no record of me existing. Turned out that this was because

they'd spelled my name wrong when registering me the second time. So I had

to register my details a third time. All this despite the fact that they

should have had all my details, spelled correctly, from where I registered

myself initially on the Web. Now that *is* crap, customer-alienating use of

technology.


Rant over.


----- Original Message -----

From: Kevin Lelland <

klellandlighthousepr [dot] com

>

To: <

uknmchinwag [dot] com

>

Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 10:36 AM

Subject: UKNM: Re : Customer retention.



> Hi,

>

> I've been reading the stuff on customer retention with interest. From

research I have been involved with it would seem that often technology is

coming between the company and its customer, rather than enhancing the

customer expereince. From research - Half the companies we surveyed agreed

with the hypothetical notion that technology COULD have a negative effect.

On the other side 46% of consumers said that companies' use of technlogy IS

actually making them feel more remote, with a further 31% sitting on the

fence. Add to this the 40% of consumers who believe that doing business with

these companies is getting too complicated and the picture for customer

relationships could be seen to be quite gloomy. This obviously doesn't bode

well for customer retention - what I am wondering is - does the group think

that a high percentage of web companies are really implementing technology

that makes things easier for customers?

>

> Kev.

> Kevin Lelland

> Lighthouse

> http://www.lighthousepr.com

> 35-37 Ludgate Hill

> London

> EC4M 7JN

> Tel:  +44 020 7236 0960

> Fax: +44 020 7236 0970

> ddi:  +44 020 7236 0966

> Mobile: 0794 129 4626



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