SuperGuarantees and Angie's List Are Changing How Consumers Make "Perfect" Choices

At its core, Perfect Service is based on delighting customers through guaranteed offerings. These customers will then stay with you, buy more from you, and help attract others to you. A formula for success and growth.

One of the most important elements for establishing a "Perfect Service" program is to establish and boldly promote a "Perfect Guarantee." This one act sends a message to potential customers, as well as current clients, that your company is serious about providing satisfaction.

Another element is for your customers to promote their happiness with your services. Companies need to get creative in how they get the word out.

I am seeing a lot of work being done in both of these areas, and while I believe they are not fully developed, the trend is a good one:

SuperGuarantee Designation

Consider the Phone Directory....in recent years, these businesses have been a major victim of technology advancements with online and mobile data replacing the hefty phone book. When I need a phone number, I no longer even think about using the book or even the Phone Directory's website. I can go direct to the provider's website or query my search engine for a listing of providers. If most people this this way, why would businesses advertise in Phone Directories any more?

Lately, I have begun seeing advertisements from the Yellow Pages about a new program called the "SuperGuarantee." In short, if a consumer registers with the SuperGuarantee service and selects a service provider from the Yellow Pages listings that has a "SuperGuarantee Shield" designation, the work is guaranteed. If work is not completed satisfactorily, the service will mediate the conflict and, if still not satisfied, will pay the consumer $500 for the trouble. (Obviously lots of terms and conditions apply, but the concept is clear.)

For businesses, the SuperGuarantee "Shield" is given to companies who meet advertisement criteria of the Yellow Pages. There is no review of services, no adhering to specific business practices, etc. You pay for the advertisement, and you get the Shield at no extra charge. The Shield means that the SuperGuarantee company will guarantee the work, not the service company.

Collecting Service Reviews

Another service that is also growing is one called "Angie's List," where members can access "thousands of unbiased reports and reviews abouth service companies in your area." Again, the concept is simple: consumers report their experiences and members can review these experiences before buying a service. Should there be a problem with the service, Angie's List members also have access to a "conflict resolution team" that will try to settle the dispute.

The only way for a company to be listed is to have performed a service, and have that service experience reported and rated by a member. Companies, however, are permitted to advertise discounts to members, but only if they have an A or B rating.

While there are no guarantees offered, the collection of unbiased reports assist consumers in making the right choices.

My View

When selecting service providers, consumers are constantly looking for ways to sift through all of the information available to pick the right provider. Horror stories abound about the impact of bad decisions.

Both the Yellow Pages SuperGuarantee and the unbiased reporting from
Angie's List attempt to help the consumer with this selection. Both are unique
in their approach, trying to add value to what is perceived as a high risk
transaction.

SuperGuarantee spotlights service providers with its "Shield," offers provider conflict resolution services, and offers a financial guarantee if the experience fails. But service providers get listed if they advertise in the directory, not if they provide premier service--this lack of screening is a problem.

Angie's List delivers user-generated reviews on service providers, offers provider conflict resolution services, and has some membership benefits like discounts to services reviewed. But the consumer is powerless should the provider not perform, other than the power of a bad review in Angie's List. I am not sure this is enough of a deterrent.

I believe, however, that both services are on the right track. Consumers need help to wade through the potential providers of service, and both get partially the way there. Perhaps, each company can take their service a step further:

• SuperGuarantee needs to establish a filtering mechanism so that only companies that provide excellent service be permitted to advertise a Shield. The right to advertise the Shield is a premium and should be earned.
• Angie's List should consider awarding its top companies its own version of the "Shield" to designate top providers according to its members. Then perhaps if members select companies with the "Angie Shield," Angie's List will guarantee or insure satisfaction with the work. That would make the user feedback a meaningful metric rather than just anecdotes.

I like the number of ways this area is evolving. The spotlight needs to shine brightly on companies providing top service. Keep going!

Hampton Inn Gets Its Guarantee Right, And Customers And Staff Know It!

The Hampton Inn, a mid-priced, value national chain of hotels, is obviously trying to be thought of as a "satisfaction leader." When you stay at one of their locations, they are going out of their way to make you feel comfortable, with free hot breakfast, or even a breakfast bag for those who don't have the time to sit down and eat, free high-speed internet service, and comfy, fluffy pillows, mattresses and blankets. It is clear from all of the signage and messaging, they want you to enjoy your experience.

But it is the guarantee that separates Hampton from the pack:

100% Hampton Guarantee

Read Our Lips:

100% satisfaction or you don't pay. When it comes to guaranteeing your satisfaction, we're much more than lip service. Since 1989 we've offering the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee to each of our guests: Friendly service, clean rooms, friendly service, every time. If you are not satisfied, we don't expect you to pay. Real value from your friends at Hampton.

Think about this. This is not about the cheapest room or the plushest amenities. This is about pure satisfaction, against a presumed Perfect Hotel Service model. One can only imagine the satisfaction categories that are being measured: clean comfortable room, convenient breakfast, basics like breakfast and internet included in price, friendly desk people.

Also think about this. The employees at each Hampton Inn know what is important, and knows the consequence of failing to perform. It is as clear as can be for staff and customers.

My View

My parents and their friends are from the car-trip generation where everyone piles in the vehicles and drive to vacation spots or to family who live out-of-state. They have recommended Hampton Inn to me for years, mostly because it is a good room at a good value and you get free breakfast. It is not a resort or a destination hotel, but they feel it is a good one or two-day transit experience.

I took a look at TripAdvisor (http://www.tripadvisor.com/) to see how travelers write about their experiences. It is one thing to say you want to service customers, it is another to deliver it in a way that customers want to talk about it.

Bartlesville, Oklahoma:
I like Hampton Inns, because you know what to expect, and almost all of them adhere to at least a certain minimum standard of cleanliness and comfort. The Hampton Inn in Bartlesville, however, is one of the best Hamptons I've ever stayed in. I think it is a fairly new facility - maybe 4 or 5 years old, but it has been very well maintained. The pool, breakfast room and common areas are all very clean and neat. The rooms are spotless and the staff are very friendly and helpful. I rate this one as excellent, because they deliver in every category of what this type of hotel strives to deliver. Like all Hamptons, it is not a luxurious, full-amenity hotel, but is a nice, reasonably-priced road hotel, that delivers great value for the price paid. It wouldn't stack up favorably against a well-run luxury hotel (in any category except price), but then it doesn't try to, so I give them an "excellent" rating, for being very good at what they are trying to be.

Quite simply, Hampton Inn is an example of a company that has figured out the path to excellence. Can your company be as clear in its mission, its priorities, and its commitment?

Lessons In Service: Strive For Perfection, Don't Screw Your Customers

Yesterday, I had two experiences that triggered some thoughts about what companies have in mind when they act.
--------------------------------
First--

Watching television with my wife and a commercial appears for "Simply Orange" orange juice. The advertisement was clearly emphasizing the freshness and goodness of the product, features of a typical "product focused" sale. What caught my eye was the "Orange Back Guarantee."

According to the product's website:

"If, after tasting, you don’t agree that Simply Orange orange juice tastes as fresh as biting into a juicy orange, you may make a claim under the Orange Back Guarantee.....On a 3”x 5” card, state why you think Simply Orange orange juice does not taste as fresh as biting into a juicy orange in 50 characters or less.."

What do you get back? A free bag of the competition.....ORANGES!

I have been focusing a lot recently on guarantees, and how they make a market statement as well as focus an organization to deliver. So what does this guarantee do for the product? Well, it clearly caught our attention, more for being unique than anything else. Second, without tasting the product, my mind assumes it is a premium offering....why else would they guarantee such a thing. Third, it was not a true comparative offer, such as "we are guaranteed better than the other brands," yet it tried to position itself that way by comparing its taste to the ultimate competitor...the orange itself...against "the perfect competitor!"

My View:

The commercial worked for us. If you asked consumers to describe the "perfect orange juice," they would likely say that it should taste like freshly squeezed oranges. So Simply Orange guarantees its product is the "perfect orange juice," not that it tastes better than its competitors. I like that.

When trying to differentiate based on a premium offering, companies should look ahead toward perfection rather than simply staying ahead of competitors. Perhaps that's one of the reasons the Health Insurance industry, with its low service reputation, lacks a breakout service competitor...in their minds, it is okay to just beat competitors; they feel they don't have to strive for perfection.

Wrong.

------------------------
Second--

Poland Springs delivers bottled water to our house. Each month, we get a bill in the mail for about $40, which I am usually diligent in paying. A year ago, I noticed that a "Fuel Surcharge" had been added to the bill for about $2.50. I didn't pay too much attention to that since the cost of fuel had been going up dramatically. But I did notice that when the price of fuel went down, the surcharge remained. Well, unfortunately, last month I was two days late in paying my now $42.50 bill, and I see an additional $15 late payment fee. Now my bill is $57.50.

I was furious. So I called Poland Springs to cancel my delivery service. Between a Fuel Surcharge and now Financial Penalties, getting water to our home was getting expensive and complicated. Not worth it....

The Call Center representative transferred my call to a trained specialist who obviously handled all discontinuances. Noting my long tenure with with Delivery Service, she immediately offered to waive the Financial Penalty. As well, when I queried about the Fuel Surcharge, she said she couldn't remove the surcharge, but would discount my water 50% this month which would be the equivalent of about 9 months of fuel surcharge. So my bill goes from $57.50 to about $25.

Mission accomplished. I stayed. But I am not happy.

My View

There is an ugly business practice out there that I refer to as "The Appeal Process":

---Squeeze and underserve your customers and hope customers don't notice;
---Focus on recovery for those customers who do notice.

Like many companies, Poland Springs has set up a game of pushing the revenue envelope as far as it can (adding fees and penalties) to supplement its commodity product offering. For some companies, the money made on penalties, interest, and other charges can rival that of the product or service itself. (One has to question at this point what business these companies are in...is Poland Springs a bottled water company or a financial company?)

But Poland Springs understands that it can only push the envelope so far, and it tries to catch fall out during a recovery process. In the time of a 5 minute phone call and without my asking, the discontinuance specialist waived the penalty and discounted my water 50%. I am staying with the service, but am now wary of the company.

A company that wants to distinguish itself in service must not put its customers in such a predicament. By offering deals only to those who complain, or who know how to play the game, a company is creating a trust gap. I am not going to feel good about a service provider if I have to read and understand all of the small print just to not be taken advantage. Examples abound:

Health Care Insurers--deny coverage or prescription at first, but will accept if appeals are made. Model hopes insured people will not appeal.

Banks/Credit Companies--charge fees for everything but are willing to drop them if challenged or if accounts are threatened to be closed.

Everything Travel--the guy next to me on a vacation flight has paid half for his seat and hotel room because he knew how to work the process.

The true premier service provider would not have forced me to go through the humiliating process of threatening to stop my service before offering me the discount. If I was truly valued for my tenure, the discount or penalty waiving should have been automatic. Now that would have been impressive. I would have felt special rather than cheap.

Good Lessons here!

How Do You Know If You Are Truly Satisfying Your Customers?

How do you tell if you are truly satisfying your customers? It is a very difficult question, one that many companies struggle to answer. In his excellent blog "Buzz Tank" http://www.buzz-tank.com/ John Oswald describes the dilemma:

A lot of the companies that I work with measure their customer experience by measures that wouldn’t really make sense to a customer. Things like First Call Resolution, Right First Time, Cycle Time and so on. Great measures (sometimes) but not terribly meaningful from a customer point of view.

If these common measurements are not the right measurements, then what should we measure?

It could be as simple as what Frederick F. Reichheld suggests in his book "Ultimate Question." Here he believes the answer to one question is a key measure: Would you recommend this company to a friend? The question has interesting implications, but ultimately requires additional queries to find out "Why" or Why Not?" to make the responses actionable.

But is it okay to be directionally correct with your questions? I think that companies that strive to be service leaders must be more precise in their satisfaction measurements. The data that is gathered is not just for "scoreboard" purposes, but also to drive analysis and improvement. Not having good fuel for this entire process is like saying that your car will be okay as long as you put liquid in the gas tank. The better the fuel/data, the better the car/organization will run!

My View

I took the time to comment on the Buzz-Tank blog about measurements, and the quest for "Perfect Knowledge." In that response, I state that I believe that by establishing the "Perfect Guarantee," companies are forced to get to the core of what satisifies customers. One technique of doing that is for customers to describe the "Perfect Service Provider." All efforts--measurement and improvement--can be geared toward that goal.

The response is below:

John--

In my own design, called “Perfect Service,” I believe that discovering what is really important to the customer is so critical that it must almost be forced on the company delivering the service.

Therefore, I advocate using a very strong and material guarantee of customer satisfaction as the rallying point for customer and delivery alike. No sense answering the phone quickly if the conversation is not satisfying, even if you have complied with the letter of a service agreement.

Once you have established the “metric” of customer satisfaction, then the company must discover what is meaningful for that client. Another technique I use is to survey potential and current clients and ask them to describe the “perfect” provider. They will use characteristics that are meaningful to them, not production metrics that are meaningful to the service operation.

By setting up measurement systems and continual improvement processes, you are prioritizing based on a customer satisfaction target. Of course, if you don’t get it right, you end up paying on the guarantee.

Good stuff.

Building Blocks For "Perfect Service"

To satisfy your customer, you can't just hope it will happen...you have to do something differently! I love the title of the best-selling sales book "Hope Is Not A Strategy." The same holds true for customer service. Companies often say customers are important, and then try to incent employees to make it happen. Motivation is just part of the equation. The key point here is that a company must be designed to deliver superior service and not just to lean on employees to perform extraordinarily.

"Perfect Service" has three main building blocks:

1. Perfect Knowledge--It is critical to know how your customers are feeling about each contact or transaction performed on their behalf. By collecting information on the actionable details, you receive early warning signals when things are not going right. This data becomes the lifeblood of your organization, driving most decisions and evaluations within the company.

2. Perfect Improvement--The data is received and reviewed by several teams: client teams, operations teams, and "key success teams." The company's success is driven by improvement in these metrics, so when a poor review is received, action is swift by fixing the client situations (short-term) while you are solving systemic problems (long-term). Accountability for improvement is clear. Prioritization for service improvement is based on a "return on satisfaction" metric.

3. Perfect Guarantee--The ultimate statement of commitment is the 100% Unconditional Guarantee. What can you say to a guarantee that states: If you are unhappy with our services for any reason, you pay what you think the services are worth. To invoke the guarantee, simply call the president of the company. It doesn't get any clearer than that.

These building blocks are powerful tools designed to change how a company does business. An organization that uses these tools cannot help but pay attention to things that matter to the client.

Next posts will drive into details for each building block.