Customer Experience can make money!

Bruce Temkin of Forrester Research has just released a report entitled "The Business Impact Of Customer Experience -Poor Experiences Can Cost Large Firms More Than $180 Million Per Year", which he discusses in his blog, Customer Experience Matters.

The bottom line is that he validates the argument that Customer Experience provides economic value to companies. We've all known intuitively that this had to be true, but it's great to have a legitimate source make the case.

A great Customer Service Story!

Once in awhile, someone does something really, really right. Here’s a great story about a customer service victory.

A friend of mine has been an American Express customer for a very long time. In 1995, he had about 500,000 membership rewards from the use of his personal card. His company shifted to corporate cards at about that time, and when his account was transferred from his personal card to the corporate card, his points vanished! He called them up and was told that nothing could be done, the points were gone. He elevated the issue up the chain, he wrote letters, nothing worked. He was a very grumpy customer.

Fast forward 12 years later to 2007. He calls American Express customer service to get a small issue resolved, and at the conclusion of the call, the Call Center Representative asked if there was anything else that she could do for him. Out of the blue and as a joke he told her that he had lost 500,000 points in 1995 and he’d like to get them back. She asked him to hold, and in a couple of minutes, she was back on the line, and his 500,000 points had been re-instated on his account plus a 100,000 point bonus for the aggravation! Amazing!

There are so many great lessons here.

1) It’s not good to take points away for arbitrary reasons
2) If you have a good, loyal customer, it might be a good idea to break policy now and again to keep them good loyal customers
3) Call Center Representatives can be the key to your company’s customer experience
4) Call Center Representatives can create fiercely loyal customers

My friend is now a fiercely loyal American Express customer. It’s the first card that he uses and he will never leave them.

Unless they take his points away again.