LONG DATING, SHORT HONEYMOON

Mr. T is a loyal client of a famous luxury sport car brand, from Germany. He has bought two cars from the brand over the last 3 years. For weeks, he has searched for his new car, has visited their showroom many times, done a few test drives. Finally, after a lengthy dating and seduction period, the brand and the sales advisor of the local dealer have finally fully seduced and convinced Mr. T to spend his savings and break the bank.

At the purchase of his brand-new car, the sales advisor offered to Mr. T, as a gift for his loyalty, the first year of the Brand insurance, claiming it was “Better than Ferrari’s insurance,” and that he will be delighted with it. Mr. T He was deeply in love with his new car and with the brand, until…

A few weeks later, during holidays far away from home, he discovered, one morning, his beloved car with a flat tire. It is now impossible for him to drive his car, to continue his journey and his holidays.

After calling the insurance, giving his plate and insurance numbers, a mechanic arrives one hour later to inform him that he cannot repair the car! After many phone calls to the insurance, it is recommended that the mechanic brings the car to a nearby warehouse, for it to be stored for the day and the night, until the local brand showroom re-opens the next day.

After calling the insurance repeatedly, explaining his case again and again, each time speaking to a different person at the call center, giving his registration plate number and his file number, he is informed that a local and rather cheap hotel has been booked for him to stay overnight in the same city, for him to wait until his car is fixed.

Right after this news, Mr. T calls the 5 Stars hotel where he was supposed to be sleeping that night. The hotel refuses to cancel his registration fee for not showing up and because his cancellation is too late for any refund.

The following morning, after spending the night at the local cheap hotel that the Brand Insurance reserved for him, he enquires about his car and the status of the repair. He calls the insurance ten times, is finally told that his file has been lost….and that it has finally been found again after his 11^th phone call. By now, he knows his registration plate number and the ten digits of his file with the insurance by heart.

He finally understands that it will take 3 days for his flat tire to be replaced. A cheap car is arranged for him so that he can go back home. He goes back home. His vacations are ruined. His car is fixed and delivered to his house after a few days later. None of the expenses for him to go home nor the cost of the tire replacement are covered by the insurance.

The promise of a” better service than Ferrari” at the time of purchase echoes in his head, leaving him with a strong bitter feeling of disappointment and loneliness.

Having no direct contact with the brand, Mr. T decides to write to the president of the car company in France, to complain about the poor service he was offered and to share his disappointment vs the promise made a few months earlier. The president of the car company did not reply to him personally. Someone from the client relations wrote back to him to thank him for his comments, claiming that they will be considered for the improvement of their quality of service, bla bla bla…and to inform him that all the costs that occurred during this incident will not be covered by the brand and the insurance.

As Tom Hanks lost on his Island in the movie CAST AWAY, Mr. T feels left alone, abandoned, and deeply disappointed with the brand promise that was sold to him a few weeks earlier. Welcome to the reality of a brand not keeping its promise !

We are going to share a few tips with you that could be useful and interesting for brands and sales advisors to consider if they are aiming at delivering great services and keeping their existing clients.

OFFER SERVICES THAT MATCH THE VALUE OF THE PRODUCTS YOU SELL.

Should you sell a 20.000- or 150.000-Euro car, the service or the insurance offered should match with the client’s expectations. Expectations are fundamentally different for a € 20.000 car than for €150.000 sport car. Even if the client’s and their pain could be similar for both cars, the service expected is fundamentally different. The same tip applies to other luxury businesses where the customer service is the same, follows the same speed and manners whatever the value of the luxury creation acquired by the client. As Mr. T wrote himself to the president of the brand: “A cheap insurance for my daughter ‘s €10.000 car would have provided me a better service”.

The customer service is the brand. The Customer Service is not a secondary service treated as a low investment costs center. When clients buy luxury, impeccable customer service is part of their expectations. A poor service has a negative global impact on the whole brand. Here the pain is on the way the service was delivered and on the low standards offered to him related to his purchase, not on the product nor on the technical aspect of the intervention.

Developing the skills and the competence of the Customer Service team and their manners has always been a great investment for client’s satisfaction. Customer Service is the opportunity to recreate the initial love story, to increase and confirm the initial choice that the client has made. It should feel like falling in love again…

UNDER-PROMISE, OVERDELIVER.

During the sale, why claim that your service “is better than” if you are not 100% sure it is the case and and if it cannot be verified. You are at risk of creating false expectations that could often lead to even greater disappointments. The Service level should be aligned with the brand promise at least. It is in challenging and tough situations that you see what brands are made of and if they are keeping their promise in terms of service and quality. As Warren Buffet famously said:” It is when the tide goes down, that you see who was swimming naked.”

The real brand promise starts with the customer service and once the reality meets with the brand promise. The client has now to live an experience he never expected to live, has constraints in his agenda and must make efforts whereas it should have been the opposite. The brand has to keep its promise while the buyer doesn’t have to face all the problems by himself.

TAKE THE LEAD, SHOW EMPATHY DURING AND AFTER THE SERVICE.

It is not the client’s fault, nor his job to call the Customer Service or insurance to get some news. The brand and its Customer Service have to “serve,” win the heart of clients again and to keep its promise of excellence and quality. The challenge for this brand is on the human touch, where low investments nor people’s trainings are apparently offered. The Brand lacks a human touch, manners on how to handle luxury clients properly, on how to be problem solvers, take the lead and show full empathy.

There should be only one person taking care of you during the sales process. Why are there some many and never the same during the Customer Service process obliging clients to talk about their problems repeatedly, not been called by their name but by a number? All the efforts coming from the client are making the whole Customer Service experience cheap and painful for him. In this true story, we clearly understand that the Customer Service is process driven, not client or solution- oriented.

THE RULE OF HAVING ONE PERSON OF CONTACT ONLY SHOULD APPLY ACROSS THE WHOLE CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE

Besides, in this story, the sales advisor who sold the brand-new car to Mr. T is not even aware of the service he was provided. Mr. T is a loyal client that needs help. He is not treated as a new client but as a “Customer Service” client. The relationship with the brand gets colder, he is not called back. He realizes it was his money that the brand was after, not his loyalty…. nor his satisfaction.

Rename your “after sales service.” Call it “before next sales service” or “Customer Service” with the real objective to serve and create full satisfaction, as in a sale to a new client and not to tick boxes on a process. Different names would help to change the mindset associated with it inside your company and help for all employees to understand that you are always in sales.

In this true story, the top management seems to be unaware and disconnected from the real life or from the pain of their clients, from the value of the item they sell and what client’s expectations really are.

LEARN QUICKLY FROM IT.

In this story, unless Mr. T takes the time to complain and to write to the brand, there are no learnings of the client’s feeling nor experience. This happens to many brands who are not even aware of the poor service they offer to their clients. Does the brand understand that Mr T is deeply disappointed by the service provided? Does the brand understand that he will likely speak negatively about the brand and their service? The brand is not aware and sadly do not really care.

We strongly recommend follow up calls after a sale, and in the case after an intervention to measure client’s satisfaction. After a disappointing service, clients can say nothing about their disappointment, which is most of them. This is where brands could be often mistaken. It is not because the brand does not hear about his poor services, that all is going well.

Clients can also tell their friends, their social and professional networks, or complain on social media, which will likely reach more people. Why waiting for clients to voice their dissatisfaction and not pre-empt it by learning from it, by asking for detailed feedback on how was the experience, after a sale and also after a Customer Service?

As we often say, client satisfaction and happiness are just one satisfaction phone call away. Do it quickly and avoid creating a bad reputation. If the brand promise is not kept, the honeymoon with the brand will sadly not last long. After a short and disappointing honeymoon, Mr. T’s next car may be a Ferrari or another luxury sport car. He has several choices. His only hope is that they do not tell him that their service is better than the brand he just purchased….

The luxury world may need more people that love their clients a little bit more, and love selling pleasure and satisfaction at the moment of their purchase and forever, even when things go wrong.