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.

I hate rebates

I meant to post this note in response to this Colloquy article on the debate on rebates back in May. However, 6 months later (now in November), I feel just as strongly as I did then.

I HATE REBATES. 

Not as a consumer, of course, but as a marketer and loyalty practitioner. Rebates encourage cherry-pickers. Rebates are for the 'penny-wise'. Rebates cannot encourage long-term brand affinity, patronage, or higher-margin product cross-sell/up-sell. Rebates kill your product CVP, your profits, your image, and eventually your business.

It's true.

Yes, I agree that rebates may work for certain category-goods, it certainly does not work in the long-term for payment cards. Then again, most banks fail to see the 'longer-term big picture'. So, we are back to square one.

And I categorically agree with everything the article says and advocates. Read it, please.

Virtual Currency may no longer be "virtual" anymore

Just a moment ago, Finextra tweeted an piece of Amex-related news: American Express has filed a patent for a system and method for using loyalty rewards as a currency.Any loyalty practitioner will find this statement odd. Loyalty rewards mostly operate on the concept of a 'rewards currency'. So, what is so different about this? Further reading reveals that 'currency' in question, is one that is 'virtual' in nature. By 'virtual', it refers to currency that exists in the 'virtual' or a.k.a. internet/online world.

For hardcore online gamers or even Facebook amateur players, the 'virtual currency' is 'virtual money' used in the purchase of all things, well, virtual; like a potion here and there, or a zombie to grow your garden. As with money in the real-world, you have to 'work' to 'earn it'.

Amex put in $30 million in September for a 4-year-old company Sometrics that helps gaming companies set up the infrastructure to enable virtual-currency. With this, they may have made the most far-sighed investment in new business yet.

As the social-cultural sphere is increasing entrenched within the 'virtual', so is the economy. The world painted in the movie series Matrix may be a teeny bit far-fetched, but who is to say that the clothes, food supplies, armour and magic potions you buy in the cyber world are less important or valuable that the tangible real ones in the world?

Food for thought.

Credit Card or Discount Card?

It's the Great Singapore Sale again, and there has never been a better time to enjoy credit card promotions. Every bank seems determined to out-do each other in bigger discounts and better deals for cardholders in their tie-ups with merchants.

Card marketing has never seen tougher times of competition. Aside from the stiff competition in funding and delivering all kinds of expensive-to-run promotions (consumers have even come up with a ever-so-helpful listing of all the great credit card deals this year), customer loyalty seems to be a thing of the past as more and

How many credit cards do you carry with you? 4? 5? 10?

It is a sad, sad state of things to see a credit card reduced to a retail discount card.

Accessing your rewards on a phone

In March 2011, OCBC Cards managed to complete the most large-scale loyalty platform implementation in recent memory. I was glad to be part of the project team to have made it happen.

In the time I have spent in customer loyalty, the primary focus had been on a few key elements, namely, the value of the reward currency, the relevance of the rewards earned, and the rate at which they are earned.

Back then, no one had anticipated the proliferation of social networking and the widespread use of the smart phone as a banking medium.

As these developments unfold in ever-increasing frequency and speed, it dawned on me, that a customer's view on rewards would also have altered by these changes. This is an epiphany that led me to think that the next battle ground in rewards is not in the 'earn', but the 'burn'.

While the rest of the card banking community tries to out-do each other in multiplier points earn, perhaps enabling a quick and easy way for customers to access their rewards currency anytime, anywhere, is the next big thing to disrupt the market?

I hope anyone who reads this will take a moment to visit the OCBC rewards mobile website: mobile.ocbc.com.

Although this is a mobile web-based service at the moment, I hope that in time, our recently released Android mobile banking app will incorporate rewards as a key functionality.

Meanwhile, have a look a a video on the much-talked about OCBC Android mobile banking app.

ZDNet interview of mobile banking product manager.