Sorry, You Can’t Get the Discount
October 15, 2009
It’s good to encourage people to take action, but sometimes balance is important too. Back in July, our daughter had her tonsils out. And in case you’re conjuring up images of an adorable little child eating popsicles for a few days and then heading on back to kindergarten, let me clear this up for you quickly: our daughter is 18 years old, not five.
And let me assure you, a tonsillectemy is a much different experience when you’re 18. For starters, the pain level is much more intense, even more so when the patient has a low threshold of pain to begin with. Basically, two weeks of torture for everyone involved.
But she came through with flying colors, and the procedure was a success on all counts. I only wish I could say the same for the billing procedures of the surgery center.
Of course, our health insurance covered most of the costs for the ENT doctor, the anesthesiologist, and the day-surgery center, but, as usually is the case these days, we did have co-pays and deductibles to deal with.
We received the bill from the surgery center in September. (Apparently, it takes two months to get everything cleared through the insurance company – a separate problem all its own.) We put it in our stack of bills to be paid at the beginning of October, paid it as scheduled by check, and didn’t think about it again.
That is, until we got a second letter from the surgery center, informing us that if they received payment by October 15, they would give us a 20% early-payment discount. Mind you, they didn’t mention this in the original bill, nor was there any indication that you could pay by credit card, which, apparently, is allowed.
Thinking that this would be simple matter, Lorie called, explained how she had sent in the check, confirmed that they would have it by the 15th, and asked them to send us a check for the 20% early-payment amount.
No, they explained, they couldn’t do that. I won’t bore you with the complete details since you’ve almost certainly experienced the kind of bureaucratic incompetence that causes “customer service representatives” to adhere blindly to processes when pure common sense would dictate a different course of action.
Suffice it to say that Lorie held fast, spoke to not one, but two supervisors, and finally got it resolved. Not, by the way, that they would send us a check for the 20%, but that they would return the original check, and we would then resubmit the amount less the 20% payment, creating more work for both us and them!
I know, it didn’t make much sense to me either, but that’s kind of the point of this entire article: processes are good things. They make it easy to provide consistent service. They give you a starting point for improving procedures. But when the rules and guidelines people follow make things complicated for their customers or members, then it’s time to take another tack.
As difficult as it was to see our daughter suffer through the original recovery process, dealing with these people was almost as painful. Make sure you don’t do the same thing to your customers.
I’ll Take You There!
October 13, 2009
It only takes simple courtesy and a little extra effort to make a positive impact on a harried and busy traveler.
It’s reasonable to expect that companies will provide its customers with consistent information about the features, specifications, and prices of its various products and services. Unfortunately, this is frequently not the case.
Many years ago, I was managing a joint-development project between a software development group in the United States and a similar group in England. At that time, I was traveling overseas about four times per year.
The part of England I was in (Berkshire) was beautiful, and a great deal of fun to explore. As a result, I made a habit of renting a car during the weekends to sight see. It was fairly easy getting used to driving on the opposite side of the road; I had only one really close call in ten trips.
On my first trip, I called the rental car agency that my company was using at the time, and made a reservation for the week. I wrote down the confirmation number, the name of the reservations agent, and the rate.
A few days later, a scheduling conflict made it necessary for me to delay the trip for one week. When I called the rental agency to make the change, I had quite an interesting conversation with the agent.
He changed the dates, and confirmed the rate, which was $150 less than the rate I was originally quoted! When I asked if this was a promotion for the new dates of my trip, he said that it wasn’t a special rate; the first agent had simply not given me the best available rate.
That whole experience got me wondering, and I took the next 15 minutes to conduct an informal experiment. I called back three additional times and got three different prices for the same dates and the same class of car. Two of these were higher than the original quote I received; one was even lower than the second quote.
In all, I called a total of five times and got five different rates. The difference between the highest and the lowest rate was over $250. Of the ten trips I took to England during this period, I probably saved my company at least $2,000!
You might think that I was being somewhat manipulative, trying to exploit a weakness in their reservations system. But in each case, the lowest rate I received was, in fact, a legitimate rate that should have been offered to me in the first place. The only problem was that I had to call several times to get this rate because of a breakdown of some sort in the process used by the reservations agents of that particular company.
In case you were wondering, I did call several times to speak to the management of that company and express my concerns about the discrepancy in rates. But the situation never improved. To get the best rate – to act responsibly and help manage my company’s expenses – I had to call them several times.
Whether making purchases for yourself or for your company, you owe it to yourself to get the best value possible. And one important component of value is the price you pay. Companies should be able to offer consistent information irrespective of who answers the call. You may not always want to call several times to ensure the best price, but it pays to know you have that option.
We’ll Take Care of It
October 8, 2009
By speaking up at a restaurant when things weren’t right, the restaurant benefited by learning about a problem and we benefited with dollars off our bill and an additional dessert.
Most companies will do the right thing when presented with a legitimate problem. But you need to let them know that a problem exists before they can do anything about it.
My son is on spring break this week, so my wife and I took him out to lunch at a restaurant he especially likes. He ordered his favorite dish, “The Crab,” which includes pasta, crabmeat, pancetta ham, mushrooms, and a dill cream sauce. It’s really very good, but my son doesn’t care for mushrooms, so when he orders it, he asks to have them left out.
My wife ordered another pasta dish, and I ordered a pizza with chicken and some other ingredients.
After the meals arrived, we noticed some problems. Despite his request, my son’s crab dish had a healthy portion of mushrooms mixed in, and my chicken pizza was missing – you guessed it – the chicken.
Now this wasn’t a particularly big deal – my son took out the mushrooms and gave them to my wife, and I didn’t even notice the missing chicken until after I had eaten a few slices. And at that point, it wasn’t really worth taking the time to have the kitchen prepare two new dishes.
But when the waitress came by to ask if everything was okay, we mentioned that two of the dishes weren’t prepared quite as we had ordered them. She apologized and said, “We’ll take care of it.”
A few minutes later, a manager appeared, added his own apology, and said that we wouldn’t be charged for the two dishes. He also added that if we saw anything on the dessert menu that looked good, he would give it to us on the house as well. Of course, upon hearing that, my teenage son took charge and promptly placed his order.
All totaled, the manager credited us with around $25 worth of food. And he did this because we brought the problem to their attention.
Now, in the grand scheme of things, a few missing ingredients at lunchtime is not a major problem. But all too frequently we don’t even mention the more serious issues. What if it was a missed appointment for a cable TV installation that caused you to miss an afternoon of work? Or a late delivery of parts that caused you to slip a key deliverable? Or a call center operator who treated your customer rudely?
If you don’t let the company know about the problem, you don’t give it the chance to correct the problem. You don’t give it the opportunity to analyze and improve its processes. And ultimately, you don’t get what you paid for.
Any company worth doing business with, whether a restaurant or a large corporation, will welcome your feedback and thank you for taking the time to call. It will go out of its way to correct the situation and compensate you for your inconvenience. And it will make certain that you are happy with the outcome.
What Was Your Name?
October 6, 2009
The president of a software company shows he cares about his employees by remembering their names and specific information from his conversations with them.
Motivating employees is a complicated business. But people will generally work more diligently for a boss who seems to care about them as individuals.
Many years ago, in my first “real job” after college, I was working as a software engineer at a company in Rochester, New York. The company, Sykes Datatronics, was going through some difficult times, and they brought in a new president to try and get things back on track.
His name was Ken Tingley, and one of the first things he did was to meet with all 350 employees in small groups of 8-10 people. Since we were divided between two buildings, about 20 minutes apart, this took him a few weeks to complete.
I’m sure the meeting I was in was typical. He went around the table and asked each of us to introduce ourselves, talk a little about our background, and describe what we felt were the strengths and weaknesses of the company as we saw it.
Since I was relatively new to the company, I didn’t have any breakthrough insights to offer, but I dutifully shared my observations and some personal information when my turn came up. He concluded the meeting by thanking us for our time and describing some of the changes he thought would help us be successful in the future. I shook his hand on the way out and went back to work.
About three weeks later Ken happened to be in our building and approached me from the other end of the hallway. ”Hi, Ron! How are you doing? Are you testing for your black belt soon?” I was simultaneously impressed and panicked.
I was impressed because Ken had met literally hundreds of new people in a relatively short period of time, and he remembered not only my name, but also my karate training and the fact that I was rapidly approaching black belt.
I was panicked because I couldn’t remember his name! ”Uh, hi!” I managed. “Yeah, uh, I’m testing in a few weeks, thanks for asking.” It was only after he disappeared into the elevator, that I said to myself, “Ken! Ken Tingley! That’s his name!”
I’m sure he remembered this kind of information about each of the 350 employees he spoke to, in addition to their names. I, on the other hand, couldn’t even recall the name of our company’s new president!
Whether you are the president, a manager, or an individual contributor, look for ways to make the people you work with feel special. It helps create a great working environment that makes it much easier to focus on your customers.
Are You Being ‘Dead Right’?
October 1, 2009
It feels great to be right, but it’s almost always better to reach an outcome where the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term gain.
There are times in our lives – both at work and at home – when our actions may have been justified, but an alternative approach may have been a far better choice.
When I was growing up in New York City, we would occasionally venture from our apartment in The Bronx into Manhattan. I remember one time as a child crossing a busy street in Midtown and having an interesting discussion with my mother.
The light had turned green and I started crossing the street. At the same time, a taxi came barreling around the corner and appeared as if it wasn’t going to stop. This is not an uncommon occurrence, as New York City taxi drivers don’t usually believe that motor vehicle laws apply to them.
With a quick grab, my mother yanked me out of the street to get me out of the way of the oncoming taxi. “But pedestrians have the right of way, don’t they?” I asked my mother. “Yes,” she replied. “Then I was right and the taxi was wrong!” I protested. “Absolutely,” my mother answered. “And if the taxi runs you over you’ll still be right, but you’ll be ‘dead right’.”
In other words, even though I was abiding by the rules and procedures governing pedestrian traffic, I still could suffer the consequences of an unfortunate decision.
Think about recent interactions with your customers. Do they fit this general profile? Are there times when you follow the procedures, but you feel as if the customer has not been served properly?
Think about situations in your personal life. Are there times when you stand on principle – when “right” is on your side – even when backing down and taking another approach would yield better results?
It’s feels great to be right, but it’s almost always better to reach an outcome where the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term gain.
