Customer Service makes Customer Experience

I called American Express (Singapore) today (17 December 2013) to get a fee waiver on my Krisflyer card. The call had to be made and I was not anticipating anything that would suggest a 'happy experience'.

It turned out to be the most surprisingly pleasant CS experience I have not had for a long while, even by Amex standards. As a consumer, as well as a marketer, thought it would be useful to distill the cause of the pleasant experience into professional insight.

The success of that particular customer service call resulting in a great experience, is the result of 3 things:

1.) Understanding - enough information in real-time on their part to know my tenure, my payment history, and past request for waivers with the bank.
2.) Energy - the positive energy emerging from the other end of the phone line suggests someone who is friendly and warm but not overtly reading from a script. She is genuinely happy and helpful. This means, she must be happy working there. This, as I must say, is the result of a happy work culture. And the root cause is a great management & human resource ethic. (Or the person is simply just genuinely a happy gal.)
3.) Empowerment - she had the authority to 'give' the waiver. There was no need to 'put in the request' and 'wait for an answer'. She did not have the 'check with my manager'. This, is probably made possible due to a set of actionable guidelines and framework, so that a front-line staff is able to do so, in a control environment as such.

Great work on the CS side, Amex. 

Virtual Currencies Materialising into the Real World

In a blog post some time ago, I believed that virtual currency may not be quit virtual any more. At that time, the subject matter in question was loyalty currency that could evolve into 'real money'. It seems, however, that virtual currencies going mainstream may not be limited to those of the 'rewards' kind. Today, news broke that Thailand may have declared it illegal to buy and sell Bitcoin or use it to make purchases.

In a conference with Bitccoin earlier, The Bank of Thailand officials decided that "due to lack of existing applicable laws, capital controls and the fact that Bitcoin straddles multiple financial facets," several of the exchange's related activities are illegal in Thailand. Bitcoin has had its fair share of controversy since the inception of this peer-to-peer currency. It attracted a lot of negative publicity when it came to light that the shady underground market place Silk Road hidden in Deep Web transacts $1.9 million a month in illegal drugs. The anonymity of users on Silk Road ensured that the virtual black market traded all manner of contraband, the most significant of which are illegal drugs.

Negative publicity and lack of regulatory infrastructure aside, it is ironic that the Bitcoin and other alternate currencies may be turn out to be more stable forms of monetary tokens for the consumer than the digits that flash across the screens on ATM terminals given the volatile financial markets of late.

It remains to see how financial systems can rein in the renegade systems. One must remember that money evolved to its present form in various cultures with their own accepted forms of tokens -- as long as the tokens are trusted and recognised as such. Who is to say that these alternative currencies won't make it to the mainstream in time to come?

Self-serve or served?

Just read today that the Indonesian loyalty start-up Squiryl has ceased operations. (Read the article here. ) The CEO and founder of the start-up cited the reason to be an issue of sustainability, that the business was not envisioned the way it turned out to be. In his words, it became "a resource intensive operations involving full time sales and support staff. And that was just the problems on the brand acquisition side."

The loyalty business was never something that one expects the retailer to be 'self-reliant' or 'self--sufficient'. Yes, they would want access and control. But operationally, it would be impractical to think that a retailer in full-scale day-to-day operating challenges, will have the time, effort, or the resource, to run an effective program in a laisser-faire manner. A customer membership program requires dedicated resource and constant intellectual input from a marketer that thinks "lifecycle management" and not "advertising and promotions".

There has been constant hype in the 'loyalty business' and that perennial myth of the pot of gold at the elusive end of the rainbow. But marketers need to get one thing clear: a loyalty tool/platform/software, or whatever you may choose to call it, is just really just that: a machine. It is an instrument for you to run a business. It is a framework on which you can execute your strategy. It is not a panacea. It is not a miracle cure. You need to work it before it will work for you.

And I think in many ways, they story of the Squiryl should give loyalty platform builders a clear message: you have to choose your role in the space and be prepared to fulfill that role. You cannot be all things to everyone.