Carson Research Consulting: Are you satisfied?

A recent Fast Company blog talked about Wal-Mart’s practices, which often force other smaller companies out of business. Wal-Mart has a bad reputation for how it treats its vendors and its unfriendly behavior toward employees.

As a native of Arkansas, I remember the days when Sam Walton used to drive around in his beat-up old pick-up truck and they took the magazine Tiger Beat off the shelves because they thought it was too racy. I’ve seen small towns altered by the presence of Wal-Mart and watched as people slowly transitioned from visiting small (and not so small) neighborhood stores to shopping at Wal-Mart for everything from paper towels to groceries to car tires.

So I was surprised to read that Wal-Mart is further enhancing it’s newly minted green credentials by creating an environmentally efficient fleet of trucks. This and other articles about the greening of Wal-Mart made me wonder if this behemoth of backwards business practices was turning over a new leaf.

I recently visited a Wal-Mart on vacation and found that they have another innovative practice related to measuring customer satisfaction. I went to the checkout register to pay with my debit card on the electronic kiosk. Along with the pin pad, a question popped up: “Was the cashier friendly to you?” and below you could press “Yes” or “No”. While I wasn’t so sure about the value of the question (How much does cashier friendliness really impact your bottom line, and how reliable are different customers’ assessments of what friendly is?) I was impressed with the delivery. Here was an instant and effortless way to measure customer satisfaction. Not only would it take me just a second to tap the answer, but the cashier couldn’t see what I was answering. It made me wonder, “Is the question always the same? Or if I went through again would they ask me how clean the store was?” Either way, the possibilities are endless. With this method you can directly connect a customer’s purchasing behavior to their satisfaction. And imagine if grocery stores with frequent buyer cards used this method! The questions could be linked to a history of buying behaviors to see how purchasing connected to customer satisfaction and whether those who indicated lower customer satisfaction purchased less in the future. The possibilities are endless…

The other day I had the illuminating experience of dealing with two car rental companies in the same day. I had booked a Zipcar for a trip to Richmond to meet with a client. I needed a reliable car service that I could catch from the train station in Washington, D.C. and the Zipcar system is really an amazing one. Zipcar has cars located strategically close to public transportation systems in urban areas and college towns. The idea is that once you are a member of Zipcar, you use the online registration system to book the car, then just show up with your key card, get in, and drive away. So this particular morning I arrived at the train station in Springfield, Virginia and there was no Zipcar there.None. As it turned out I either reserved the car for the wrong day, or the reservation system malfunctioned. Either way, it was a very stressful experience. So imagine my surprise when I called customer service, and was told that I would be charged $3.50 to talk to a live person! This I was willing to do because without a Zipcar I couldn’t get to my meeting. But for $3.50 I would have expected a customer service representative who was at least sympathetic. It was obvious that the woman on the other end of the line could not have cared less that I was in a bind. And it occurred to me, even when the company can’t do anything to resolve your problem (I can understand that they can’t make a vehicle appear out of thin air) it really goes a long way to at least pretend to check on things and see if there’s a solution. It’s a good idea to appear sympathetic even if you feel confident that the customer’s harried state is due to their own misuse of the product or service. And the most unfortunate aspect of this overlooked strategy is it wouldn’t have cost Zipcar a dime.

So standing in the parking lot without a car, I thought, “I’ll call Enterprise, I doubt they can do anything, but it’s worth a phone call.” Why enterprise? They have a good reputation, and they are known for picking people up. But I figured there was no way they could get me in a car in time to make my meeting. When the assistant manager of the Enterprise office picked up the phone, I explained my situation, ending with a pathetic “there’s not any way you could help, is there?” He answered “we can pick you up in ten minutes; we’ll have you in a car in 25”.

I didn’t believe him, but said I would give it a shot. It helps when customers have low expectations, don’t you know? But the best part was, Enterprise fulfilled its promise, and I was on the road in time to make the meeting in Richmond. What’s the lesson here? Even if you can’t help the customer, pretend like you care. Even the offer of a small condolence prize (they could have offered to credit me the charge I received for the Zipcar I never drove) or just plain human sympathy can help. People often understand that things go wrong, but they don’t understand when the company doesn’t seem to care. And the lesson for Enterprise? When another company screws up their customer service, take advantage of it. The last thing the assistant manager said to me as I walked out the door at the end of the day after returning my car was “next time don’t use Zipcar, use us!” and I probably will.