Reputation to Revenue

Rite Aid impresses with active customer service

Little things really do add up.

Like many people, I have several prescriptions with Rite Aid Pharmacy. Refills are easy; you just call the number on the bottle a few days before a prescription runs out, tap your way through the automated voice prompts, and pick it up the next day. Nothing earth-shattering, but it's convenient and a good, simple use of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology.

Today, though, I caught the next wave. Coming home and finding a voicemail on my home phone, I listened to an automated message from Rite Aid asking me to call an 800 number about my prescription. When I did, it took me through a several minute IVR session which proceeded by reminding me that my prescription was about to run out, asking me if I wanted to refill it, and then asking if I wanted to sign up for a free service that would automatically refill my prescriptions every month and let me know when they were ready for pickup. No more effort on my part, and I get to save an extra few minutes every month. 

Again, it's nothing earth-shattering. The technology has been around for a while. But how many companies are reaching out and touching their customers in a a true service-oriented fashion, not to sell new products or services but simply to improve the customer experience?  

Yes, the better companies bend over backwards to respond to problems (although most companies still don't). And yes, it's obvious that Rite Aid is trying to sell me more stuff, prescriptions and otherwise. Most likely they will, too. So it's definitely good marketing. 

What's different here is the basic approach: Service matters as much or more than the products themselves, promotion is less important than service delivery, and good things come to those who continually improve the customer experience.

What free services are you adding or changing to improve customer experience and build customer loyalty?

Photo credit: Seattle Municipal Archives

The power of video: Outsourcing reality show illuminates the buying process

About a month ago, the good folks at the Outsourcing Institute asked me to contribute some  "lessons" for services marketers based on their web-based reality show, The Transaction. No cash involved, but it sounded like an quick PR hit for me while helping out a great organization. 

When I checked out the series, however, I realized this was a much bigger deal. Endless "experts" (including, at times, me!) pontificate about what companies need to do to market and sell high-stakes services. Some of the advice is even good. But capturing the real feel for such a complex process is extremely difficult.

The Transaction documents on video the real-life effort of a buyer team from Kodak in its effort to find and hire an outside firm to handle all of Kodak's recruitment, hiring, and on-boarding of new employees. A marketing and sales reality show, no less.

The brainchild of Outsourcing Institute CEO Frank Casale, the video series (each episode is under 15 minutes) documents critical moments throughout the buying process, from initial conception to signing the deal. 

Kodak begins with a list of some 50 providers to consider, narrows the list through research and due diligence, creates a finalist pool, and moves to a final decision (spoiler alert: although the final episode is not yet posted, the actual deal went down last year when Kodak signed a three-year contract with HR outsourcer Pinstripe). 

Episode 7, the one for which I provided some lessons learned, shows the team debriefing its recent site visits to two finalist candidates. 

Overall, it's a wonderful way to provide real insight into the buying process, something that all marketers struggle to understand -- and that the vast majority of case studies, white papers, conference presentations and the like do little to illuminate. 

And make no mistake, it's a buying process, not a sales process. The Kodak team is anxious to decide (the whole process in this case was less than two months), but they are firmly in control. Marketers (and sales people) would do well to keep this basic reality at the forefront of their thinking.

So kudos to the Outsourcing Institute for creating the series and to Kodak for being brave enough to allow their buying team to work on camera. A definite thumbs up from this satisfied viewer.

Bad service blowback - United Breaks Guitars

Lots of companies are still nervous about participating in social media; they fear negative comments, among other things. The reality, of course, is that if you're providing lousy products or service, the bad comments are coming anyway, and with an ever larger megaphone.

Example 8 million is singer/songwriter Dave Carroll's tuneful blast at United Airlines for breaking his guitar -- and then stonewalling Dave for a year against apologizing and paying damages. 

Four days after posting the video, and 1.3 million views later, United is rushing to make amends and even saying they'll use Dave's video for internal customer service training. Obviously the damage is done. And the main lesson here is not actually about social media, it's about customer service. If you're not doing the right thing, expect people to give you grief. Engaging more directly in social media might help, as Comcast is finding out, but the real answer is fix your service and don't give people reasons to shout -- or sing! 

Thanks to Marketing Pilgrim for the pointer.