Would the telecoms industry benefit from establishing a
standardised benchmark for measuring customer service across the
sector? If customer service needs to be improved, is this the best
way to do it?writes Chris Stening, managing director at
Easynet Connect.
Fundamentally, the real question is whether or not businesses
have enough information to make informed choices about who to
choose as their internet service provider (ISP). If they don't, is
a customer service benchmark what they need? If so, shouldn't we,
as an industry, look into providing it?
Consumers and businesses can already get fairly detailed
technical data when choosing an ISP, but information about service
levels can be patchy.
Key factors in the decision-making process will generally be the
quoted download speed, and where appropriate, the upload speed,
whether this is guaranteed or not, and whether there are any volume
limits or caps. More sophisticated business users will also
investigate contention ratios and latency.
But how can they measure a company's customer service, which is
just as important? They certainly should not rely solely on what
the ISP says. They can consult forums, colleagues and friends for
their anecdotal feedback on working with a particular ISP, and of
course, gathering feedback from real customers should be central to
making an informed decision.
Friends and forums can give you advice as to what connection
your business needs and what speed you can realistically expect to
get, but other customers are the only way to know what it is really
like to rely on a suppliers' service, day in, day out.
But what would a benchmark look like?
A good place to start is to follow the principle on which the
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is built, and which is in fact the
ultimate question: "Would you recommend us?" From here other
measurements such as overall satisfaction, value for money, network
reliability, sales and communications would flow naturally.
NPS is used by companies around the world in all industries. The
most successful growth brands, such as Amazon, eBay, Costco and
Dell boast NPSs of 50-80%. Not perfect, but considering most
companies actually have negative NPS, this is quite an
achievement.
Perhaps more surprisingly (but not when you really think about
it), the Harley Davidson Motor Company, a brand more commonly
associated with the Hell's Angels, Easy Rider and bar fights,
actually boasts one of the best Net Promoter Scores in the world,
81%.
If we really want to please our customers shouldn't we adopt the
Harley Davidson standard? Well, what's in it for us?
- It is fair. By measuring everyone the same way, we put everyone
on an even footing.
- It is more representative and reliable than anecdotal feedback.
Since one person's bad experience can have a disproportionately
negative impact on a company's overall reputation, a benchmark of
all customers' combined experiences could help put such cases into
perspective.
- It keeps the regulators at bay. The regulators don't want to
intervene in how we interact with our customers. This level of
proactivity reassures them that they have no reason to.
Customers win too.
- If the benchmark is public it allows them to make more informed
decisions.
- If it's not public, it will at least encourage the industry to
investigate and improve its customer service.
- It gives customers a voice, allowing them to voice their
concerns more regularly.
Clearly this is quite an undertaking, and not one we are
necessarily endorsing at this stage. However, customer service is a
key delivery of all ISPs. It is essentially what we all live and
die by.
So does a benchmark help?
We have been running a system based on the NPS standard
internally for over a year now, and can vouch from experience for
the benefits that such transparency of our own service has had for
our business.
But do we really want a standard benchmark across the whole
industry? What do my colleagues in the industry, and indeed
internet users, think?
Share your thoughts. with Chris at
chris.stening@easynetconnect.net
or on Twitter at @easynetconnect.