Blackberry’s customer service misfortunes

December 21, 2011

With my flight hours away, and my departure gate in sight, I decided to move off the main pathway of Atlanta’s airport and into one of its many retail stores.

Moving past smoothie factories, cheery sports bars and bustling departure gates, I ventured into a Blackberry store.

Blackberry's in-store experience was extremely underwhelming.

The young man glared at me as if I were the first visitor in hours. No greeting. No welcome. He stared straight ahead as if his job were torture.

Being a former Blackberry customer and ‘in the market’ for a new phone, I had an interest in the past, present and future on this once proud leader of mobile devices.

After browsing the many phones available in the store, I thought the staffer would inquire about my needs, yet the silence continued.

I took the first step and asked:

“Do you have any specials today?”
“No,” the worker responded, quickly retreating to his comfort of silence.

“Are all of the recent outages affecting Blackberry resolved.”
“Yes,” he muttered.

“Do you have any Sprint phones?”
He then pointed to a row of Sprint-enabled phones against the wall.

I tipped and tapped a few keyboards, touched some screens, read some feature descriptions and then it happened as I prepared to exit the store.

“Are there any questions I can answer for you?” the Blackberry representative asked meekly. Amazingly, he finally woke up to his role as customer advocate.

I turned and shook my head from side to side as I stepped back into the main artery of the airport.

Blackberry’s problems are much more fundamental and far-reaching than this dispirited exchange, yet this is clearly are a microcosm of this floundering mobile machine.

Years ago, Blackberry lost the touch of the customer. Apple brought products to market that inspired and energized the masses. Now, Blackberry’s doing its finest to ignore customers on their doorstep.

Until next time,

Dan Naden

3 Comments | advertising, Communication, Customer Service, experience, knowing your customers, marketing, merchandising, shopping, simplicity, Uncategorized, user experience | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Dan Naden

@ Best Buy, it’s the stuff that brings them in….

September 19, 2011

Since when have we become so ‘accessorized’?

Recently, I visited a Best Buy and expected to find wall after wall of big screen TVs, computers, electronics, stereos. I am not much of a gadget guy, so I don’t frequent these places very much. Well, I wasn’t disappointed. My preconceived notions were fulfilled.

The store’s perimeter is an electronic festival with flashes of light, color, images and sound.  A bank of TVs allure with stunningly picturesque pictures of bears swatting salmon in angry rapids, two children frolicking in a meadow of wildflowers, a fearsome linebacker delivering a knockout blow to the opposing team’s quarterback. I couldn’t help but look at every one, despite the fact that they were all streaming the same picture.

You could hear a pin drop in this aisle.

The store’s interior, however, pulses to a different beat. Let’s call it stuff (accessories): game cartridges, DVDs, CDs, gift cards, wires, cables, camera cases, Ipod skins. I am fairly tech-savvy, yet I almost felt compelled to ask for a translation guide. This accessory goes with what product? And why would I need this?

I used to think of Best Buy as the store of ‘Big Things’: TV, appliances, stereos.  It’s where I went with a friend’s truck because I knew my car wouldn’t hold my loot.

Now, it’s the land of small things. Five years ago, you walked out of Best Buy with something on a dolly for $500 pushed by a pimply-faced high-schooler. Now, you pack your cart full of ‘things’ and wonder how all of it cost $300. During my recent visit, the traffic condensed around the peripherals, add-ons, and accessories, not the big-ticket items.

The world’s become bigger. Its products, however, are becoming smaller.

Sure, we still buy the big things, but the ‘little stuff’ seems to be the locomotive in today’s economy train.

Until next time,

Dan Naden

1 Comment | advertising, Communication, communications, customer experience, Customer Service, knowing your customers, marketing, shopping, store design, Uncategorized, user experience | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dan Naden

Play a game of Hide and Go Seek with your customers

June 20, 2011

Ready or not here I come.

The moment this phrase is written or heard, you know its context: Hide and Go Seek.

When I have some free time, there’s nothing better than playing a game of hide and go seek with my children.

The wonders of Hide and Seek can be introduced to your customers.

I'll deliver a great customer surprise in 10, 9, 8, 7...

My daughter’s on a mission to find the best hiding spot in the house. She’s hid under the bed, in the closet, behind the chair – all without making a whisper of noise. My son still hasn’t mastered the concept. He proudly announces his location after hiding.

It’s a great and treasured moment when you finally find the ‘hider’. You scour every corner and crevice before opening that secret door, and saying, “There you are!”

Can you surprise your customers in a lucky and memorable fashion? Can you have them open an e-mail, pick up the phone, read a blog post, and think, “Wow, this company really cares about me. I can’t believe it.”

How about trying these tips when you want to transition your customers from ‘ho-hum’ to ‘fiercely loyal’?

  1. Upgrade them at no extra charge: I know the economics don’t make sense to do this for everyone, all the time. Pick a long-time customer and move him up to your next level of product and service.
  2. Fix their problems: Surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, customers have problems that need solving. If a customer calls your support line, don’t shuffle him around on the phone tree. Fix the issue right there, right then.
  3. Ask your customers how they are doing: If the only time you call your customers is for renewal, you are missing a golden opportunity. Pick up the phone and ask them how business is going. Thank them for their business and ask if there’s anything you can do to help.

The joy of ‘hide and seek’ doesn’t need to only be a part of childish fun time; your customers are ‘craving’ some spontaneity, some respite from the mundane. Deliver it today without even counting to 20. ;)

My next quest: find a spot in the house that’s hidden from even the most curious and eager eyes. “Ready or not here I come.”

Until next time,

Dan Naden

Leave a Comment » | Atmosphere. Customer Service, Communication, communications, community, Conversation, customer experience, Customer Service, enthusiasm, experience, Ideas, knowing your customers, marketing, work/life balance | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dan Naden

Chuck E. Cheese’s childhood magic leads to adult dullness

January 24, 2011

If there’s a children’s birthday party frequent flier club, I am approaching medallion status. When I walk into the Castle Jumpy Gym place, they know me by name and immediately upgrade me. “Naden, let’s get you to the JUMBO jumpy gym.”

A recent dreary weekend, my son and I visited a local Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate the birthday party of one of his school classmates. I vaguely recall many halcyon visits when I was a youngster in the 70s to the colorful Showbiz Pizza, the predecessor to Chuck E. Cheese. Halcyon isn’t exactly how I’d describe my visit as a parent; how about hectic, harried, and helter-skelter? Chaos thrives in this brightly-colored, noisy celebration destination.

I adored the place as a youngster. When an invite came in the mail for a Showbiz Pizza birthday party, I’d sleep with the invite, bring it to breakfast, and talk about it until my parents got a pounding headache.

Inflatable castle

To an adult, this means torn ACL.

As a discerning adult, I now find myself evaluating the establishment while keeping an eye on my energetic, active son. I attempt to let go and guide my son to experience the young magic of the place.

Call me a tough sell, but, for an adult, everything about Chuck E. Cheese is average. The games are dull. The food is flavorless. The prizes are cheap. The din is deafening. The place is a bit untidy.

The company must be doing something right; they just celebrated their 30th anniversary and have 542 locations across the world with nearly $250M in quarterly revenues, but with their growth, scale, success is there opportunity?

What if Chuck E. Cheese improved the quality of their food, the entertainment, the prizes, the experience? Perhaps I am in the minority, but I am far from a raving, viral, walking advertisement for Chuck E. Cheese. The kids aren’t certainly complaining; my son would gladly venture back into the bells and whistles of Chuck E. Cheese tomorrow if he had the opportunity.

I ‘might’ cave if my son wants his next birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, yet I’d become an brand evangelist and sign up NOW  for my son’s Chuck E. Cheese birthday party if the experience started to approach outstanding. There’s pizzazz and memories galore for adults AND kids if Chuck E. Cheese put QUALITY on center stage.

What is your business doing to put quality in all that you do? Don’t get lackadaisical with your approach to products, markets, the experience. You may have one segment of your market supremely satisfied while another group begins to look elsewhere.

I’ll meet you at the jumpy gym.

Until next time,

Dan Naden

1 Comment | customer experience, Customer Service, Kid-friendly, knowing your customers, marketing, marketing to kids, personal, personal connection, Remarkable, restaurants | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dan Naden

Want to be a leader? Hold onto your self-esteem

January 17, 2011

Read on: Guest post from Edward Caulfield from Serious About Service.
Thank you Edward for your contribution.

If you were to make a short list of the most significant business and political leaders of your life, who would it include?  Would it be something like – Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Jack Welch, Ronald Reagan, George Patton?

Each of these individuals is unique in his own right.   What runs common through them is best illustrated by the title of a book by Mike Wilson – “The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn’t Think He’s Larry Ellison”.

Leaders must have a strong sense of self and others

In any culture, self esteem is the singularly most consistently present personal attribute of individuals of achievement and leadership.  While self esteem alone is not what makes people successful, it is the most essential of all ingredients that make everything else possible.

Why is self esteem so critical?  The answer is quite simple.  Leadership can be summarized to getting others to execute on your vision.  If you don’t have sufficient belief in yourself and your vision, you’ll be challenged to get anybody else to jump on your bandwagon.

What does this have to do with Customer Service?

Let me suggest that you do the following.  Create a list of 50 business or political leaders who you feel have made a significant difference in their environment.  Once you have that list, put a check mark by those who rose to their position through a career in Customer Service.  If you are like most people, there won’t be many check marks on that list.  That means that almost nobody of any significance has come from a strong Customer Service background.  Ouch!! If you’re in Customer Service, that really hurts!!

Am I saying that a career in Customer Service will never lead to a CEO title?  “Never” is a bit too strong of a word.  Let’s just say “seldom” and leave it at that.  And considering that the majority of the individuals who have strong backgrounds in Customer Service don’t really fancy the title of a CEO anyway, this really doesn’t matter.

What does matter, however, are the personal consequences to low self esteem.  Aside from a simply bad feeling about one’s self, our mental health community has catalogued a small list of negative side effects:

  • crime and delinquency
  • racial prejudice
  • abuse of illegal drugs
  • alcohol abuse
  • child maltreatment
  • educational underachievement
  • chronic dependency on state support
  • eating disorders
  • suicide and suicide attempts

taken from “Self-esteem, The costs and causes of low self-worth”

While any individual may be hit by any number of negative aspects, to whatever degree, a low self esteem is destructive to long term personal happiness.

The good news is that there are so many people who have to deal with low self esteem as one of their life’s issues, and the result is a plethora of resources to address the situation.  Type “self esteem test” into your favorite search engine and you’ll find page after page of tests that you can take immediately to get a general barometer of your self esteem.  Type “dangers of low self esteem” and you’ll see numerous sites that will be happy to tell you how low self esteem can damage you and your children.  Type “Combating low self esteem”, or any variation thereof, and you will find web sites, books and communities dedicated to helping you overcome a low self esteem.

So – if you are in Customer Service and have been there for more than 5 years, you owe it to yourself to, at the very least, take a 10 minute test and contemplate the results.  Worst case is that you’ll find that you have no issue to deal with and consider this article to be a stream of nonsense.  Best case is that you’ll discover you’ve got some work to do and get on with it.  For those who experience the latter, I wish you luck and say with confidence and experience that life can be better!  The most painful thing about dealing with low self esteem is to look back after years of effort and see how much you needlessly suffered and how easy it really is to change your life for good.

Edward Caulfield
Serious About Service

Leave a Comment » | Achievement, attitude, customer experience, Customer Service, Leadership | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dan Naden

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