Your call is important to us and other modern lies - Print 21 magazine article

Automated call systems are like poison to good customer service and yet, amazingly, some printers seem to think they're not such a bad thing. Wrong, very wrong, writes Derek Fretwell, who suggests that in order to fully appreciate this fact, printers should spend more time standing in their customers' shoes.

I am, I have been previously informed, a customer-focused executive or at least I was. Now presumably I am still customer-focused but with substantially less of the executive bit. I mention this because customer focus came up when my printer buddy called and asked my opinion about automated phone answering systems. He was thinking of installing one because it would save dollars, free up his receptionist and make his business generally more efficient. I figured he was reading straight off the proposal.

When I said I was all for technology and improving business efficiency but what did his customers think, his "What's it got to do with them?" completely floored me. I then suggested he pop over with something long and glassy with a bit of self-adhesive label on the side while I started thinking about how he ever stayed in business and how I could help him join the twenty first century. We'll come back to my printer mate because he made me think. I thought about the nature of customer service in general.

Automated phones figure at about number three on the list of customer service hates. They are so despised that only businesses that do not base their value proposition on service can afford to use them. Businesses that have means other than customer satisfaction to retain and keep customers. It is very expensive and awkward to change banks, for instance, and you get to think about this every time you stand in the queue. The harder it is for customers to switch, the deeper the disregard, so you will find Telco's, Powerco's, and every government department using automated phone systems. Organisations that have a virtual or territorial monopoly are in there, like hospitals, water utilities and the like.

Or try pulling into a 'Service' station for some petrol if you want to experience a business that has outlasted its name and should be called something else. For further proof, try calling one of the petrol companies to complain and experience the wonders of automated telephonics in full flight.

Most automated phone systems integrate with cellphone usage and this is promoted as an advantage over a living telephonist. When Fred rings to order a reprint of his business cards and Joe the rep is out, no problem. We'll just divert you to Joe's cellphone and you can leave a message on his voice service. No human intervention required by the supplying business. Ah, what efficiency.

None so dumb
The problems start to occur when human intervention is required not by the supplying business but by the supplicant, what we used to call the customer.
Even the cleverest phone system seems incapable of figuring out that it's Friday, Joe won't be back until Monday, the digital department is quiet right now and he did say he wanted some more cards. The dumbest telephonist can do that.

I have fielded the calls, many many times, for unanswered messages that have been left on subordinates' voice mail. I myself have disappeared on some dazzling overseas itinerary feeling so important I forgot to change my voice message and inform my customers that I was abroad for a few weeks. The receptionist knew, but then there's that phone system again.

It's very unpleasant to receive several messages of increasing vigour at midnight on the other side of the planet. Especially when they say things like, "This is the fourth time I've rung". Oh for some human intervention!

If you are forming the opinion that I don't like automated tellers it's because I don't believe any business (except Inland Revenue) can take customers for granted. It doesn't matter whether you are the biggest printer in the universe or the local fish and chip shop. On hearing for the third or fourth time the message "Your call is important to us", who among you has not thought "If it was you'd answer the phone" and how many of you have actually hung up?

If you don't care for your customers they will not care for you. Further, you will discover the lack of customer loyalty at exactly the moment when you need it most.

Printers 0, Non-printers 1
This is the most challenging time in living memory for the graphic communications industry. The need for our products and services is being met not just by us but also by technologies that, for the first time ever, do the job as well as we do and in some cases maybe better. In such circumstances, it will be the entire customer experience that will determine loyalty to our craft and our businesses. Being the best printer won't do it.

I liken a printing business to a World Cup soccer team. Our best have astonishing technical skills, highly paid and skillful practitioners, outstanding mentors and leaders, millions invested in plant and facilities. Yet every now and then they get whupped by the amateurs from Outer Mongolia or Eketahuna. Printing is the same, there are no guarantees anymore. Having the best plant nowadays just means you have the highest capitalisation, there is no market advantage.

Now before I get the emails and calls from the heavy metal sales boys, let's think about investing for advantage. I suggest, for printers, there are two broad categories and reasons for investing in the business. The first is for a production benefit. One only has to attend a drupa or the like and witness our boys standing in front of twenty tonnes of pulsating metal with the mouth watering to realise what hits the buttons. Very valid it is too. To ensure that you are using the latest and greatest out of Japan or Germany or wherever.

The second and increasingly important is for a customer benefit. Something that provides a benefit to your customer as a result of your investment. That's where a new phone system might fit. If Fred customer can get directly to Joe account manager that's got to be good for the customer. Right?
That's why I said to my mate what do your customers think?

Good for you - and your customers
Investments that provide both a customer and a production benefit are the rarest and the ones that give you a market advantage. A TV and a coffee machine in reception gives a customer benefit but no production benefit, a 'customer only' car park the same. A new press gives a production benefit but no customer benefit no matter how clever it is.

Now just to prove there are some that do both, here goes. Online proofing provides both customer and production benefits. Integrated workflow between offset and digital is another, as is integration between IT and prepress. CIP3/4 data integration is another.

I used to suggest that FM printing gave both. It's cheaper to print and customers love it but you need a good imaging system or it can be a nightmare.
If all that sounds too complex what about a properly printed color chart showing what colours you can print instead of one of the commercial ones with colours you might print. Biggest reason for reprints in the world? Colour variances. Offset has it all over digital in colour stability throughout the run so your customers will be surprisingly appreciative of this very small service.

Now, does an automated phone system provide a customer benefit, a production benefit or both, and what did I advise my printer mate?

An automatic choice
Firstly I rang three of New Zealand's biggest printers; none of them had automated phones. Then I rang three of the smaller businesses picked at random and none of them had them either. Then I rang three of the better-known supply companies and guess what? None of them had them either.

I presented my mate with the results of my very scientific survey and asked him what was special about his business that made him think he could treat his customers differently. He did not install an auto answer system.

Your customer's experience of interfacing with your business is what will keep him interested long after the last job has left the plant. It doesn't stop with phones but goes through all points of customer contact including accounts, deliveries and sales calls. In today's world of less and less customer contact, every single one becomes just that more important. Give some time to thinking about how it feels to be a customer of yours. Always dial the customer line when calling into the office, send yourself a monthly statement and don't reserve yourself a car park.

I'm sorry for the poor struggling telco rep but there are squillions of organisations that don't need customer loyalty in order to survive. Printing isn't one of them.