Customer Experience Insight From American Express: Micah Solomon Interviews Raymond Joabar

[Originally published in Forbes.com. Written by Micah Solomon, an author, keynote speaker, and consultant on customer service, customer experience, and company culture. Reach Micah by email or phone, 484-343-5881, or visit his website.] 

American Express is a company with roots going back to 1850. Branching off in the mid-19th century from what is now Wells Fargo, Amex is in an unusual position as a company that is both customer- and merchant-facing. The extent to which it has faced and overcome challenges from this unusual perch makes it a popular company for others to benchmark in terms of customer service, the customer experience, and vendor relations.

I recently interviewed Raymond Joabar, the executive vice president at Amex who heads up the company’s global customer service.

Micah Solomon: Let’s start with the human aspect of service. Would you care to share an anecdote related to providing great service?

 Raymond Joabar, EVP, Global Servicing Network, American Express Company: One time, a hotel café manager [an Amex merchant] alerted my team that he had accidentally sold a display cake with harmful chemicals and needed to find the customers before they ate it. Obviously, there’s no procedure for that, but our team took ownership of the problem. They gathered all the information they could from the record of charge, identified 21 Card Members who used their cards at the café during that timeframe, reviewed the accounts to find the right match, and then called the Card Member in time before they served the cake at an anniversary party.

The important point here–other than that everybody ended up safe and sound– is that there isn’t a script for every situation, so we empower our care professionals to do what’s right for the customer. And we recognize what they do with this empowerment as well. We give awards to employees who go above and beyond to help customers and we share their stories across the company.

Solomon: Now you have me hungry for another story of service done right. Maybe a way you served one of your far-from travelers?

Joabar: Absolutely. A major aspect of our service heritage is helping people when they’re traveling away from home. For instance, we once received a call from an Argentine cardmember whose daughter was traveling in India and was running dangerously low on cash, and our care professional who took the call remembered that one of her co-workers, Maria, was flying to Gurgaon that night for a family wedding. Maria took the new card with her on the plane and, once in India, arranged for a courier to securely deliver it to the daughter. Maria stayed in contact with the family to keep them updated until the card was in hand.

Solomon: Do you have fundamental, timeless principles that you feel are at the core of what you do, and that you’d be up for sharing?

Joabar: Relationships are at the core of it all. We strive to build long-term relationships by understanding, respecting and backing our customers. We have an ethos that we call Relationship Care, which focuses on serving customers in their channel of choice and treating interactions as relationship-deepening moments.

In each interaction, we want to keep things simple and easy, know and value our customers, and own and solve their issues. We have a wealth of transactional information from our closed-loop network and we use those insights to deliver increasingly personalized service with memory.

Solomon: What about ways that providing service has changed, in light of changing customer expectations?

Joabar: Service is a fundamentally different game than it was even a few years ago. Emerging technologies and changes in how customers experience service across industries have raised the bar. More than ever, customers judge every interaction with a brand against their last best experience, and those experiences are increasingly hyper-personalized, instantaneous and connected.

Solomon: And how have you responded?

Joabar: We’ve been working to make it easier for customers to connect with us on their terms, building on our digital capabilities to offer more options and value. We’ve invested in more than 100 initiatives during the past two years to enhance the way customers connect, transact and access information about their accounts via our mobile app, intelligent virtual assistants, and the Web.

One of our priorities is to provide “service with memory.” We’ve enhanced our systems to better recognize customers’ recent activity online and in the app. For example, customers calling for service are getting a boost from a smarter voice response system that in many cases can offer them a shortcut to help them pick up where they left off if they first contacted us online. Ultimately, we want to provide seamless, omnichannel experiences so whether you chat, call or use your app, we’ll quickly understand your history and get you what you want.

We’re also increasingly using machine learning and AI to improve efficiency in routine servicing tasks and to better understand customer intent.

Solomon: Do you have any particular principles for employee selection (hiring) related to giving great service?

Joabar: We look for people who know how to connect with other people. We no longer select employees based solely on experience with telephone or online servicing. No matter the background, if a candidate learned how to deepen relationships in another field such as hospitality or retail, we’re confident they’ll be successful and we can teach them the required technical skills to bring our brand to life for our customers.

Solomon: Any thoughts on employee engagement?

Joabar: You can’t deliver great service unless your employees are engaged, motivated and feel personally responsible for bringing your brand to life. One way we engage our employees is by encouraging them to offer up ideas to improve how we work. Our service team manages millions of customer connections and understands better than anyone what frustrates our customers and how we can make things easier for them. We’ve created a popular program where we invite employees to challenge the status quo and suggest ways to improve the customer experience. This year alone, employees offered about 10,000 suggestions, and more than half of them have been or will be implemented.

Solomon: Shifting gears, tell me one highlight that jumps out at you from your new study [The American Express Customer Service Barometer, a survey that measures and reviews consumer attitudes and preferences in customer service].

Joabar: Service satisfaction is at its highest point, but so are the stakes.

Despite what some may think from seeing customers vent in social media, 81% of Americans say companies are meeting or exceeding their expectations for service (up from 67% in 2014), and 40% say businesses have increased their focus on service.

And there’s a lot at stake for businesses to get it right: 70 percent of Americans say they’ve spent more with a company because of positive service experiences, while more than half have abandoned a purchase due to poor service.

Solomon: What’s another key finding?

Joabar: Digital natives and new technologies are revolutionizing how service is delivered. Nearly two out of three Americans now prefer self-service tools and digital options for simple inquiries, with millennials being two times more likely to prefer self-service options than older generations.

Solomon: What about more complex issues?

Joabar: Excellent question. Most Americans still prefer to contact a real person for complex service inquiries.

Solomon: Any closing thoughts?

Joabar: Consumers value efficient, seamless service that fits into the organic flow of their lives. The future of service lies in delivering consistent omnichannel experiences that recognize the length, breadth and depth of customer relationships. Going forward, service leaders will be those who combine the speed and convenience of digital with the power of personal connections. Beyond making it easy for customers to connect and self-serve, technology should make those connections more relevant by recognizing history and preferences.

Micah Solomon is an author, consultant, keynote speaker and trainer. Customer service, customer experience, customer service culture, hospitality, innovation. (email, chat, web).