According to News Telstra is "Australia's most hated company in terms of complaints". The news is that Telstra has decided, shortly after firing its Chief Marketing Officer Holly Kramer, that it would like to hear from customers about how to "combat soaring dissatisfaction levels".
"We know we've disappointed customers," Telstra's executive director for market-based management Gloria Farler said. "It's not entirely altruistic. If we have low customer satisfaction that means low customer loyalty and if your customers are not loyal they are very likely to (leave), which leads to a high cost of marketing and that leads to disappointing profits," she added.
(Aside - it is amazing how huge those profits actually are in any telco's language given the high levels of dissatisfaction - leading to a kind of hostage syndrome among customers.)
So this is an admirable, if not altruistic, initiative.
Will or can it succeed?
On
face value it would seem like a great idea, and with a sure chance of success given the pent up rage against Telstra from its customers.
But before proceeding into the unknown let's start with the known and proclaim that this will indeed be a certain success as measured by Telstra.
How do I know this? Because David Thodey, Telstra's CEO, has reportedly "offered $40 million in bonuses to staff if there are even slight improvements in satisfaction levels". Therefore, as in every large business, these numbers will be met and bonuses will be paid - there is zero doubt!!
Now, let's venture into the unknown to ponder will it actually work in reality.
There is no doubt that Telstra's customers want to give their feedback. After all the very News article itself had generated over 421 comments in 12 hours since 6am the day it was published, that's about 35 per hour or more than 1 comment every 2 minutes.
That's a remarkable number in itself, 100X the normal response.
The key to success is in the planning, the essence of having an integrated social media strategy as opposed to a campaign. So let's list some challenges, and then we can track how things progress at Telstra against these challenges:
1. Since they have 104,000 complaints on the table with names addresses and telephone numbers from the last 12 months, and now another 421 comments which are 98% hostile, is Telstra firstly going to track all those down in the real world and the social media world? Or does Telstra just let lie comments such as the following and start a brand new day with the community portal?
- I just had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn't April Fools Day. :-);
- Like there's ANY chance whatsoever they will actually listen to complaints and/or suggestions and fix anything. They never have before and there's a less than zero chance they will now. This is just a PR exercise to get some exposure;
- What a joke, you dont know what to do to improve customer service, i thought you had 104,000 customers last year who could give you an idea, just an example of the fact that youre NOT LISTENING so why will you listen to people who complete your on line surveys;
- I just want to speak to a real person that gives a damn.
2. Do they have their heads screwed on, or are they dreaming, about the tsumani of rage and complaints that will flood into "My Telstra Experience" experiment exactly parallel to the comments to the article? Presumably they will have an already detailed and approved strategic and operational plan and resources to handle these and to coordinate responses in a systematic and timely way.
3. What is the plan of the coordination needed, which will be more than once a day to start, to handle the tsumani, and how are all departments keyed into that plan including, for example, the ability of the call centres to answer basic questions about My Telstra Experience?
4. How well thought through is the risk analysis of managing the rage, managing those who complain loudest, working with the social media as people blog Twitter and Facebook their experiences with My Telstra Experience?
5. How well is Telstra prepared as an organisation to respond to the My Telstra Experience inputs given that (a) their own staff already know most of the problems and have made zero progress (according to the doubling of complaints) and (b) the inputs from customers mostly speak to symptoms and not causes. It's about the organisational mindset - the "prepared mind" as Pasteur once said.
OK, where are we?
On face value and given history this initiative has a very poor chance of real success (I don't mean that the Telstra managers will not get their bonuses!). However I'm not a fan of being trapped by history so let's see what might be different this time.
On the issue of "what might be different this time" the BIG difference since the last in a string of similar attempts by Telstra is that we are now in a new era of established social media. This means that no matter how much they try to constrain views within the closed panel it will not work. There is absolutely no doubt that this will be a public exercise.
Now given that social media IS the BIG DIFFERENCE now you would wonder why a firm would be reverting back to the past in conducting closed shop panels as market research? It seems like a backward view to me, but Telstra are obviously being advised by Vision Critical who are experts in this field and have an impressive track record.
You might also ask me how come this has anything to do with social media as it is a closed panel of surveys? Well that's a good question, and one which no doubt Telstra has thought through. My answer - the panel has people, those same people exist in the social media; the panel will no doubt ask some open questions or give people a chance to make open comments - that opens the chance for the pent up rage and the outlets into social media if satisfaction is not forthcoming. There are other reasons as well that this closed panel is no longer a close panel, but that's enough for now.
But back to my headline - will customers help? They will certainly try, whether it lasts is completely up to Telstra's management of the relationship, and once doubt sets in to the customers' minds then it is all over rover.
I'm interested to hear your views or of your experience with My Telstra Experience.
PS - Below are
Poll Results from Adelaide Now which ran the poll with
the article announcing Telstra's plans to ask customers for help.
How do you rate Telstra's customer service?
- Excellent, faultless
1% (29 votes)
- Acceptable, if not perfect
5% (112 votes)
- Average, needs work
11% (228 votes)
- Poor, needs urgent fix
41% (836 votes)
- Sorry... you're breaking up
39% (803 votes)
Total of 2008 votes.
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