Insomnia
Sometimes I lie awake at night, troubled by the apathy of so many of the companies I interact with.
Whether it be something innocuous like the lack of a smile (it costs nothing to be friendly!), an ignored email or a slightly stale croissant, I can’t help thinking that in this 2024 world, great customer service is the exception, rather than the rule…
The customer is always right might be an old-fashioned notion, but I feel the concept of customer care is too far removed from where it should be – right at the top of an organization’s priority list.
And there’s one particular behavior that never fails to leave a nasty taste in my mouth…
Keep ‘em coming…
Better deals for new customers!
Now’s not the time to explore the nuances of customer acquisition strategy, but the headline is fundamentally very simple - organizations that operate in crowded, commoditized marketplaces need to adopt aggressive acquisition tactics to grow their client base.
Hence the prevalence of introductory deals, essentially offering new customers better prices than existing customers (think: insurance, telecoms, broadband, Pay TV etc…)
So, instead of rewarding a customer’s loyalty, organizations instead penalize it, relying on customer inertia (consumers that fail to renew contracts are likely to over-pay due to missed opportunities for negotiation, hidden fees, price increases etc) to fund discounted services for new customers.
This is a tactic I wholeheartedly disagree with from an ethical perspective, but it also strikes me as being commercially questionable, smelling of short-termism and the need to appease shareholders, rather than protect the long-term interests of the business.
Depending on which study you read (there are hundreds!), acquiring a new customer is between 5 and 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one (Bain & Company’s research, here, is particularly interesting).
I’m perplexed that this intelligence doesn’t underpin every organization’s customer care strategy….
But it did get me thinking…
Don’t Worry, be Happy
I can’t address the various customer care failings of the insurance or telecoms powerhouses, but I can make a little bit of a difference in my own world of hospitality technology.
I like to think that ROOMNET’s client base would speak well of our customer care (if you’re reading this and disagree, I urge you to contact me to discuss!). I won’t pretend we’re perfect, but we do try our best to be honest, transparent and reliable.
We do this because we’re nice people! But to demonstrate the transparency I just told you about, we also recognise the importance of customer retention. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to grow our business – perhaps we wouldn’t have a business at all…
So, with all this in mind we’ve decided to raise the bar a little bit…
The ROOMIE Service
I take great pleasure in introducing our brand-new ROOMIE service, implemented across our global client base from March 1st 2024.
In simple terms, each ROOMNET customer will receive a ‘ROOMIE’ – an individual point of contact (with two additional points of contact to cover holidays or extenuating circumstances) providing a quick response, help and support service as and when needed. (CLARIFY: not for technical support)
Essentially, ROOMIES will act as super-charged post-sales account managers, available to answer questions, talk about tech or simply to help with the minutiae of life in the hospitality industry.
Our ROOMIES will proactively contact each and every customer (size irrelevant), periodically, even if it’s just to say “hi.”
This is a completely free of charge service, complementing existing service level agreements and / or technical support helplines. We view it as an extra peace of mind for our customers, and an unwritten sentiment saying “you’re important to us.”
We don’t anticipate the ROOMIE service to be a customer-care game-changer, but we do hope this additional touchpoint makes us a better company to work with.
And most importantly, we hope it acts as even the smallest catalyst for better customer care!
Time for me to go, I need to change my broadband provider…
Darren
