David vs Goliath

This week has been an education in good customer service and has demonstrated how often it's the smaller businesses who do it best.

Today I have spent over an hour and a half on the phone to Orange, EE, or whatever they call themselves now trying to upgrade my phone. I am given two ways to do this; online or over the phone. As is now usual the deal is better online and I understand that this is because it is cheaper for them. However when this does not work, and I quote; "How do you know it hasn't worked?" "I haven't received a confirmation email or text ...or a new phone," it might have been cheaper for them to fix it over the phone on Monday rather than leave me, still phoneless, awaiting my fifth phone call of the week having tried three times myself online. I could get started on how their website logged me out three times whilst I was trying to navigate it* but I won't.

In between speaking to the polite but hopelessly unhelpful people in various Orange customer service teams I have also been waiting for some banners to be delivered. The firm, onestoppromotions.co.uk have produced them for me in superquick time and been very nice about my failure to meet their 'safe' copy deadlines. This morning I called to check the banners had been dispatched and they were able to confirm, without me knowing my order number, that they had. Then they gave me my tracking number and the number of the courier, www.apc-overnight.com and said I could contact them directly for more information.

APC overnight's number was answered without me being placed in a queue and each time I called the person I spoke to could retrieve my request with the tracking number, know exactly what I was requesting and where the driver was and each tried to get hold of the driver to get an update for me. Everyone I spoke to was friendly and each offered me a new 'Plan B' option when I explained that I really needed the parcel by Monday morning.

And its not just today. A couple of weeks ago I got the most amazing customer service from an airport transfer company, www.british-airport-transfers.co.uk, on behalf of one of the charity's clients. Again whoever you spoke to was able to promptly bring up my details, was helpful, proactive and reassuring and took even the most specialist requests (Tamil speaking driver) in their stride. And I only have the highest of praise for the poor taxi driver who put up with constant calls asking 'Are they there yet?'

In contrast BA customer service were unable to even tell me what the 'Special Assistance' they offer might include when I was booking it for one of our more vulnerable clients.

I understand that with flights and contracts more security is required and the staff I'm talking to are probably less empowered to make decisions or use their initiative but does that need to be the case?

We're looking at a new contact centre and CRM system at Bolton at Home and we need to make sure that this improves the services we can offer to customers rather than overcomplicate the situation. As a customer I don't understand why the person I speak to on the phone isn't able to see my online self service activity and if I'm honest I don't care. If I contact an organisation through whatever channel I think it's their job to be able to join up the dots and I hope that we're going to be able to offer this for our customers.



*Also picked up some lessons in how not to design a website. If your staff can't find the page, your customer can't find the page and the search function can't find the page perhaps you need to look at your navigation. Thankyou to whoever invented internet history.

Angry tweeting

This weekend I wrote what I think was my first negative tweet going against my own advice of ‘if you can’t say anything nice on social media don’t say anything.’  I’d spent the weekend standing in the foyer of Morrisons with a bucket collecting for the Refugee Welcome Trust. For those that haven’t ever done this it is hard work. Physically standing for six hours carrying a bucket of coins makes everywhere hurt, add to that being ignored by 70% of people that walk past and the boredom of being in a supermarket for three days in a row.

The store I go to is in a little Lancashire town which has a massive sense of community. Staff turnover seems low and they are friendly helpful to the customers, a young man collecting baskets knows an elderly customer by name and is concerned when she waits over 40 minutes in the hot foyer for a taxi and seems confused. She tells me she always has the same driver who helps her lock up and carry her shopping and is visibly pleased to see him when he arrives. He is very attentive, checking she’s OK with the heat and giving her his arm  to walk to the car. Morrisons' staff come to check she’s gone a few minutes later.

There must be some research around collecting like this. You can tell, with a  reasonable amount of accuracy, whether people passing you on the way in will donate or not on their return. Some are surprising groups, teenage boys in my experience are much more likely to donate than girls, people who look like they have less to give more likely than those who appear to have more. A distinct group peer at the bucket. At first I thought they were looking for a particular cause or charity and maybe some are. Being such a small organisation the majority won’t recognise our name and some people, it appears are filtering out rather than in. One lady tells me she was just checking I wasn’t from an animal charity and one that I wasn’t from a hospice. Quite a few people ask what we do and this is sometimes where the trouble begins.

I am the first to be picky about what I give money to. In times where people have less to give where it goes becomes so much more important and when I say ‘Refugee families’ in response to their question many say they prefer to give to ‘local people.’ Most people ask more questions about where they’ve come from and why they’re here and this is partly what makes standing here worthwhile. There are a small minority that look at me with complete disgust like I’m suggesting they give money to help murder puppies. For a large part these are respectable looking older ladies and I continue to be shocked at how rude they can be to a stranger. But the tweet was not aimed at them, they’ve aired their feelings and its their decision who to give to.

My first bad encounter was with a man who unfortunately for him was shorter than me. When he asked the standard ‘What is it this time?’ I responded with ‘Refugee families.’ ‘Why don’t they just stay where they are?’ he asked. A perfectly reasonable question. Apart from the fact he was standing way to close for comfort and shouting at me. If the store hadn’t been busy and the staff so attentive this could have been quite scary. Next time a man who was a lot bigger than I was leaned over my and shouted ‘Pakis?!’ in response. Not really sure how to respond there was an awkward silence with him staring at me until I nodded and he backed down.

I chose to end my angry tweet with the #idiot which I’ve never used before and won’t use again. This is not particularly because of people thinking it’s OK to be aggressive and intimidating but more the fact that both of these people donated money. Over a pound each. Didn’t see that one coming.

Lessons in social media and community self sufficiency from MMDA

Back to 'reality'after our holiday and weekend off. Well the kind of reality where we get invited to meet the General Manager of the Metro Manila Development Agency in a room that looks more suited to a meeting of the UN. And a brass band meets us at the front door with some Katy Perry covers and Gangnam Style.

The scope of the MMDA (not to be confused with MDMA as this caused much amusement last night with my host family) is quite wide and includes seven key areas or mandates. However over all these areas the most interesting aspect for me is the use of social media. Here the matrix signs point motorists to a Twitter account for traffic updates and in a briefing on their work social media is discussed as a mainstream tool.

Like at Bolton at Home the comms strategy focuses in part on sharing the good work done by staff at the agency and communicating the key issues in a variety of ways to meet the needs of the younger audience As part of the drive to encourage good driver behaviour viral videos of road rage and bad driving are posted onto social media to show the public the kinds of situations the MMDA deal with every day.

In the control room a member of staff sits alongside the camera operators in the navigation sections to tweet congestion updates and suggest alternative routes in a truly integrated way of working. Response time is impressive with my thankyou tweet responded to within the hour and favourited shortly afterwards.

There is a lot of talk in housing about the need for management 'buy in' when implementing a social media strategy and this is more than evident here. During our briefing with some fairly high level operational staff social media was often raised as being key to their communication. Not only raised but discussed in the way that 'experts' do in the UK showing awareness of listening to customers and responding, engaging and responding promptly, creating conversations and trust and most of all having a sense of humour. If Bolton at Home directors could speak like this in a years time I'd be happy to have achieved something in my time there.

An example of the trust placed in the account is people tweeting crime and emergencies. Rather than telling the enquirer to go elsewhere their enquiry is instead passed to the relevant agency. This means they are seen as an authoritative source of information and raises their levels of repeat interactions. Perhaps something Bolton at Home could be looking at for their contact centre?

Not having had access to people anywhere near this high up in strategic development at home I guess I don't have a lot to compare the conversation to but it seemed that in this agency, as with others here in Manila, common sense ideas were implemented to provide cost effective solutions to the problems they face.

Their coding system for traffic is a great example. Faced with massively over populated and congested roads a solution is to ban 20% of the cars on each working day. So on Monday licence plates numbered 1 and 2 are not allowed to travel, on Tuesday 3 and 4 and so on. On Thursday the roads are particularly light as the Chinese population favour the plates with 7 and 8 on as lucky. This leads to increased demand for these and less traffic. (They estimate this is a 4% increase over the normal 20%)

I do have to say that almost every household I've stayed in has had a number of cars with different coding to avoid the ban. And many people I spoke to had ignored the ban and driven anyway. A great example of their Twitter skills though was given to me by my current host's daughter Reggie. Her friend had driven to work on a banned day and tweeted how happy she was to have made it through. MMDA replied saying they were glad she'd got to work on time but warning her she could be caught if she did it again.

Among other fascinating work one idea really stood out; the training of normal people in disaster response. We've already seen in communities children being taught to be first aid responders but this training extends further to cover how to deal with flooding, fire and earthquakes among other things. In a perfect example of the joined up thinking displayed here people who violate minor rules such as jay walking and cannot pay the fine are sent on this training instead.

As has been pointed out to me so many times we are lucky in the UK. We know we can call 999 and help will come. We know someone will be there to help if there is an emergency. But as we face further cuts to services maybe we should be looking further afield for how we can respond to this. Great initiatives such as this allow people to help themselves and their community and would work just as well in heavy snow or a power cut as they would in an earthquake.

How many women?

Today I was honoured to be asked to come to speak to people at the ‘How many women does it take?’ event put on by Vanessa McDermott one of the Community Development Officers in our Neighbourhood East team. Women from Breightment and the surrounding area gathered at St Catherine's Academy, donned bright yellow t-shirts and sustained by cups of tea put the world to rights. 

After a brief into on the 'power' of social media' with discussion of the Arab Spring, Kony 2012 and Malala Yusefzai some people (if not all!) were, I hope, inspired to be using these channels to campaign and get their voice heard. 

As the day went on and Craig from our Income Management team faced a barrage of objections and complaints around the bedroom tax it was clear that there were some main themes and that there would be no problem in getting the women to share their opinion. 

One of the sessions was working with a writer to write a 'rant'. I've never seen a writing workshop and it was great to see Louise draw out the ideas and get something produced in only 20 minutes. 

Below are the women's rants. They're not complimentary and the language reflects the strength of feeling. You'll note that one woman has ranted about her damp property - this has been passed on to someone who can help! 

Am looking forward to getting some specific social media sessions set up with the women to get them all tweeting these themselves in the future. 

How many women: Rants

The bedroom tax is out of order as people who have lived in a property for years are being made to move after putting in money, blood, sweat and tears.

Squash it.

I am really worried about universal credit. I’m having sleepless nights.

I think its really unfair that only certain people are allowed EMA. Education is important and everyone should have the right to it. As you need education for a good future and some people may not be able to afford travel due to being skint. It makes me fucking mad.

Rant over.

I am very angry that I was misled and lied to about I was told I needed a three bedroom house and now I have been slammed with the bedroom tax. I think that its unfair that people who have a three bedroom house and two children of a different sex have to share or you have to pay £12.95 a week. When if you do downsize when your children are old enough you have to move again.

How do you expect people on  low income to live on when you got bills to pay and food to put on the table. When you have more than two kids they need their own room It makes me angry and upset because they’re taking money out of kids mouths. I would campaign and protest to save other families.

If you keep taking benefits off us how can I possibly do my degree? It’s unfair for us that will work for the NHS and struggle. Its punishing us before we even start our career

My kids will be punished for me wanting a good job. This makes me fucking angry.

Keep funds for people who are going to give up their lives for others.

I will keep murderers and rapists off the streets or I will help others from taking their lives. I will help people in crisis but I will be in a crisis of my own.

Don’t get me started on stereotypes. How stupid people assume how all teenagers are lay thugs and how chavs sit on street corners drinking in tracksuits also how people think men are stronger than women – if it want for women they wouldn’t be here. We deserve more respect and the way people bully people that are different and how they think gap people are all womanly, love wearing pink and shopping.

Why do I bring my child up on my own? Its unfair that some people get away with paying for their children – yet walk around with new clothes and always with drink and cigs. Why do I not have enough at the till, the sleepless night – no tea for me?? The government protect justice for fathers buts its always the single mother’s fault. The lies and deceit, frauding the country – yet get protected.

Why?

Single them out for once!!

It gets me mad cos my house is damp and it seems like nothing is being done for me and my two kids.

I find dog fouling fucking angry it makes me want to go and kick him in the balls. A man outside my house dog no lead there watching his dog have a shit on the grass the dog wiped his feet then they both walked off. Just wish I had the guts to say would you like a bag but I didn’t.

How unjust is this country? Where have all our rights gone? What about all the old people who have spent their lives fighting for their country who now are living in poverty? We have people here who sit on their backsides and do nothing and get all our money! Come over here where we literally pay them to live here! And those who do work take all the jobs. Think about your kids or yourself? What jobs are you going to do in the future? You stupid wankers in parliament sit on your arses and are in denial about it. You’re so cushty in your lives Unjust soft country. Pathetic bastards.

I am fed up of having to tell people with dogs letting the shit along my home and along the pavement and on the road I live on. Also all the litter, several of us go along picking all the rubbish up, even the roadsweepers don’t do there properly.

I keep going out telling them no one will listen. I feel I would like one of the councillors to go round with the sweeper people or gutter people and supervise.

People on benefits are not scroungers. It is unfair to class everyone suffering from poverty.

Don’t tar everyone with the same brush. Its unjust and hurtful. Lots of people are genuine lots of people have worked hard all of their lives in all weathers for a pittance of a wage and some need help when they retire. Only a very few people are really scroungers a small number.

So you’re alright Jack! Doesn’t affect me – bedroom tax – what does that mean? They’re all on benefits anyway. All scroungers its time they all cut the money they get serving all those scroungers right!

Recognise any of these feelings? Believe any of these? Well if you do then you should rethink and be ashamed of your ignorance.

This bedroom tax is wicked – it is unfair divisive and disgraceful that the government are endorsing the misery fear and dislike that this will cause to the most vulnerable and disempowered members of society. Those that are the most easy targets.

This policy is poison – it is demeaning – it is fat cats who close their eyes – ‘let them eat cake’ till echoes today.

The cost of this insane policy is scandalous. It will cost more in human suffering than will be so called saved by the government. This government doesn't care about people any more. 

I am very angry about the EMA system it is very unfair that only certain people can receive payment for attending college. Some of the people who do not receive payment are skint and I think everyone should be entitled to some kind of money to help with travel food costs.

People may not be able to get to college and to get jobs people need an education to have a good future. It is important that people have an education. I think if not everyone can get a small out of money the college should be scrapped. 

I am very angry about Child Tax Credit because it leaves you feeling like you are along you can't do anything. 

Low income don't pay enough tight fuckers. Bedroom tax causes more poverty. Government selfish make us angry. Want to move me into smaller property they can come and pick me up hunger and poverty. 

It just scares me that there is so much poverty in this country that their are people starving hungry and having to survive without a job and clearly desperate to work but because of the media, we're all being labelled as scroungers and skivers and just not trying hard enough to make something of our life.

I feel that the government has a lot to do with this and what they're doing is in no way helping us to support us enough to get us out of the mess that they've put us in. 

The next step is to work out how the women can do something about this whether it be campaigning, protesting or taking action. There's a march organised by Bolton Councillor Kate Challender against the bedroom tax on Saturday and although I'll be away by then I hope to see the women and their bright yellow t-shirts there having their say. 

You can keep up with the how the women will be changing the world following #howmanywomen

People to follow:

Vanessa McDermott @veemcdee 

Lisa Forrest @LisaF_BaH 

Kate Challender @katechallender

It's not often I leave a meeting and think 'I must write about that'

Although I knew we had tenancy services I don't think I'd considered what this actually meant. I don't really go to meetings where discussion about what we do comes down to individual cases but this meeting opened my eyes to what these services actually mean for our customers and why what we do really matters. 

Being at Bolton at Home for less than a year I sometimes think I'll never get used to the slower pace of change, the endless bureaucracy or ex-local authority culture. However I don't think there are many private sector landlords who would consider so carefully whether a tenancy was suitable for someone or not, make regular visits to ensure problems were addressed early on or create relationships with families to allow us to understand them and provide the right support. 

In the context of cuts and staff shortages there were extra meetings arranged to allow tenants to feel happy with services, time taken to arrange cleaning and food parcels and clean bedding left on the doorsteps of vulnerable people. Caseloads discussed seemed to me to be more than enough to do let alone allowing staff much time to be going the extra mile. 

From a communications point of view (which is of course why I was there in the first place) it was so important to hear how we are going the extra mile and also to get an insight into why so many people tell me they are too busy to spend time on social media when they attend the training. 

But before anyone in housing services think they're let off the hook I'm now keener than ever that they tell people about what they're doing. It's far more positive and more interesting than I thought it would be and although many people working in housing might think this is run of the mill there will be many more people out there to whom this would be news. 

And for me it was a useful reminder of why the bright lights of the private sector might not be all they're cracked up to be. 

Catching up

Watching a recording of last week's Creative Virtual webinar: 'A New Customer Service Paradigm: Customers are Now Demanding Self-Service Options and Why You Must Adapt' raised some interesting points about how far we should be taking our multi-channel approach.

Although I'm a huge advocate of us looking to global leaders not just leaders in UK housing there has to be a  limit. Although IVR (Interactive voice response) seems like a tool that is being widely adopted among the big corporates I'm not sure it would work for us at the moment.

This session also highlighted how far behind we are in terms of customer access with chat and email being incorporated into call centres in 1996.

This was incidentally the year I started secondary school and if I remember rightly a year or two before I had a mobile phone. I don't think at that point I had an email address and think web chat would have been far beyond my imagination. If memory serves me correctly this is only slightly after my mum professed the opinion that the internet would never catch on whilst we did homework on Encarta.

Another eye opener was social media being incorporated into call centres in 2008. A quick trawl of my timeline tells me it was July 2008 I joined Facebook making me a very late but enthusiastic adopter.

Now we can all agree the internet has caught on where now? Someone asked me at a project meeting what was the 'next big thing'. Having just been to a seminar on digital and comms I was able to talk about augmented reality and RFID both of which I can see becoming really useful tools for housing in the future.

But if we consider that we're only now looking at introducing live chat into our contact centre that puts us 16 years behind the leaders in this field. Given that I wouldn't have dreamed of some of the technology we now see as everyday I'm not sure I can imagine where we'll be in 16 years time.

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that it will include the huge transparent video walls you see on CSI. And with creator Antony Zuiker putting this only two years behind the times four years ago I hold high expectations for our new offices!


@creativevirtual

Who defines 'good' customer service?

Our charity clients are some of the strongest people I've met. How they manage to persevere through the bureaucratic nightmare that is seeking asylum, deal with what has happened to them in their home country and then battle through applications through family reunion visas is beyond me.

In theory our part in the process is the easy one. Once all the hard fought for documents are in place we simply book the flights and they travel to be reunited as a family.

We don't provide emotional support (we are neither trained or experienced in this area) but from our communication with clients we understand how the flight is the pinnacle of what, for some, amounts to years of separation.

Imagine then that you have come to the airport. You are scared of authority in a country where you do not feel safe. You have been through years of trauma. You have a small child with you and are leaving behind another who, having turned 18, does not meet the criteria to travel to the UK.*

It is late at night. The check in staff refuse to accept the travel visa you have spent so long jumping through hoops to acquire. They tell you to go back to the issuing embassy and sort it out but you cannot travel tonight.

If this was you or me we'd make a fuss. We'd be confident in our documents and in our rights as their customer. We'd be asking to see a manager, for them to phone head office, making something happen. How many times will this be all that's needed to resolve the situation?

But if you're scared and worn down and unable to properly communicate you can't do this.  Should the airline staff recognise this and make sure they've tried all the channels that they would have done if the customer had made a fuss?

For example look at this story in Inside Housing about asylum seekers who are scared to complain about sub standard housing in case they are deported.

Is it our responsibility as a customer to make sure we get the level of service we expect? In some cases, such as our clients, expectations will be that the situation will go against them as it has done so many times before. For us, and especially those who care about delivering high levels of customer service, we will expect and demand much more.

Having previously worked with wealthy customers who felt entitled to the world I have been used to meeting and aiming to exceed these demands and expectations. It is a concern that when customers are less confident and empowered might be settling for second best as companies lower their standards to meet expectations.

It is important that when we're considering how we provide customer service we not only meet our customers expectations but look at what we'd expect in their position.

* All case studies referenced from any clients, of Bolton at Home or the Refugee Welcome Trust are amended to be representative of the situation but not true to any one case or client. Details are either general descriptions or an amalgamation of different client's stories.

Social media training

Back in November when we began the social media training the list of 1079 staff that needed to be scheduled in seemed more than slightly intimidating. Two months on and 36 people in the task appears no easier. With so many staff with busy schedules, and in some cases a reluctance to attend, filling up the sessions is proving difficult. And whilst running 108 sessions is a mammoth undertaking we're currently averaging a 50% capacity effectively doubling our time investment.

The sessions themselves are proving interesting. Its great to meet people from around the organisation and share my excitement at the way we're moving forward. With all the best intentions of providing a consistent base line of knowledge each session changes depending on who is there. With three tech savvy users we would run through the basics quickly to confirm understanding and then discuss the protocols and guidelines for use. For those less acquainted with the basics discussion around potential misuse is slightly more complicated.

If someone doesn't understand how Twitter works its nearly impossible to explain how quickly things can get out of hand generating the stories they've heard in the press. Having people understand the basics is essential. On the plus side the press coverage has piqued people's interest in the platforms and raises good points for discussion.

Discussions are generally based around the way we want people to be using social media at work and when and how 'big brother' will be watching. From the beginning it proved impossible to set out guidelines and setting out rules for what is and isn't acceptable has been put aside in favour of these face to face conversations. After hearing people's suggestions about the potential for mishaps this approach would appear to be the right one. I don't think I could have come up with all the suggested 'faux pas' other staff have. Although I would hasten to say these have been hypothetical and (touch wood) we've had no problems so far.

I'm sure when people grow in confidence there will be more mishaps and as more staff join and become active the monitoring will become a much larger task but for now its just great to be getting people started.