Cintreuk

Customer Experience Differences

Customer Experience Differences

I recently had the opportunity to deal with what Toyota names a “Customer Experience Manager”. Their business intelligence team had found that the best time for me to return my lease would be now, instead of possibly returning or buying it at the end of the contract in 6 months. It so happens that, aware of the lease agreement ending in 6 months, I had prepared a list of features for a next car, and just asked if there was a car with those features available. End-result: in less than a week, what could have been just one more marketing call became a real deal, with possibly both sides leaving the deal happier than before.

Let’s compare that to Comcast. The company decided to upgrade its network to a fully digital system, eliminating the analog channels. Over the last year, it sent me 2 letters offering digital adapters. In each case I replied asking for devices, and those never arrived. Then, it made the all-digital system upgrade, some channels disappeared and I got a phone call. The Comcast representative made a big deal of offering me the opportunity to go from the basic TV package that I currently have to a digital package, with promotional price for 6 months. And, by the way, I would need the digital adapters. Those same that they already failed to send me… twice. Obviously, this would not only increase my bill during the first 6 months, but then by a higher non-promotional price afterwards, forever.

The consequence of such different experiences is the perception of a great distance on “customer care”. Comcast is holding on to a customer by the simple lack of options. Not a great way to support the future of a company in the services area. If Toyota starts a cable company tomorrow offering about 6 TV channels and Internet, I would switch to them promptly. And they already have my number…

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