Taking Action!
Nigel Blunt
Strategic Transformation Leader | Digital & Operational Excellence | Value Creation | Cost Transformation | Turnaround & Scaling | eCommerce & Omnichannel Expert | Agile & Intelligent Automation Advocate
When was the last time that you read or listened to a piece of customer feedback and immediately acted upon it.
I am a passionate believer in actionable insight. All too often in business we can surround ourselves in data, swim amongst detail but come out the other end with very little insight and importantly no clear action.
So when I recently read of a Twitter encounter involving Elon Musk I had my interest piqued!
Back in December Elon Musk (CEO Tesla and SpaceX) had an encounter on Twitter which was frankly masterclass of taking action from insight.
As some of you will know Tesla make electric cars and have a network of Supercharger locations. These locations are fast charging facilities for their cars giving cars a boost of c.170 miles in 30 mins or a full charge in just around 75 mins.
A Tesla customer, Loic Le Meur was driving to a meeting in early December and had a fairly poor experience given the popularity of the car and the station in Northern California.
He wrote on his blog: 'I was recently driving to a meeting in Silicon Valley and had to charge my Tesla. I decided to stop at the San Carlos super-charger on my way to Palo Alto and there were 5 other Tesla cars waiting in line to get a charging space. Most drivers seemed to have gone somewhere else as their cars were charging. The San Carlos supercharger is located within walking distance from Whole Foods, Peet’s Coffee, a gym and some restaurants. Many drivers therefore keep their cars parked at the Supercharger even once their cars have finished charging.
I tweeted at Elon to tell him. Within minutes, Elon promised to take action ??'
Now you could be forgiven for interpreting this as a 'thank you for your enquiry, we'll look into it' type response...
However in this case it wasn't!
In less than a week Tesla announced a new 'fair use' policy to improve their Supercharger availability.
'We designed the Supercharger network to enable a seamless, enjoyable road trip experience. Therefore, we understand that it can be frustrating to arrive at a station only to discover fully charged Tesla cars occupying all the spots. To create a better experience for all owners, we’re introducing a fleet-wide idle fee that aims to increase Supercharger availability.
We envision a future where cars move themselves once fully charged, enhancing network efficiency and the customer experience even further. Until then, we ask that vehicles be moved from the Supercharger once fully charged. A customer would never leave a car parked by the pump at a gas station and the same thinking applies with Superchargers.
The Tesla app allows owners to remotely monitor their vehicle, alerting them when their charge is nearly complete and again once fully charged. For every additional minute a car remains connected to the Supercharger, it will incur a $0.40 idle fee. If the car is moved within 5 minutes, the fee is waived. To be clear, this change is purely about increasing customer happiness and we hope to never make any money from it.
We’re excited to increase availability during long distance travel and think this change will make the Supercharging experience far better for everyone.
Given that was less than a week after the first contact, that's fairly impressive!
Now I appreciate that this may simply be a tale of coincidence or good fortune with regards to timing however it still holds a strong lesson for all of us in customer facing or customer impacting roles.
I am lucky enough to be able to access customer verbatim feedback on a daily basis which really helps get underneath the emotion of any scores that we receive as part of our feedback programme. This adds a new dimension to any flat scoring mechanism that a more traditional feedback process provides. It helps to tease out meaningful moments of truth - both in terms of what they are and why they are so important - and if you understand why they are important, you've gained the most powerful piece of insight possible. The trick then is doing something with it!
So I ask you again - When was the last time that you read or listened to a piece of customer feedback and immediately acted upon it....?
Nigel Blunt
This is a personal blog, the opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
In Digital era, customer service has become even more important. Companies investing in 1. Easy and efficient channels for consumers to provide the qualitative and quantitative feedback 2. Having right data analytics engines to summarize them into actionable insights will take up pole positions within the segments
??? AI-Powered Marketer ???
5 年Beautiful example of digital era business culture, when high level management is open and reachable.? ?
Constantly Curious. Never Happier Than On The Fells
8 年Hi Nigel. Interestingly when I started out in retail with Kingfisher the world was full of simple common sense advice, admittedly some more direct than others "Retail is about getting money from that side of the counter to this" being one. However there was a very strong store manager focus across retail - I do realise you are talking only about the more central approach by the way - and this was about listening and reacting to your customers there and then. Poor managers focussed on sales only - needs & wants, but the good ones also encouraged staff to listed to comments, complaints & issues and empowered them to resolve, share (with colleagues) and escalate. I'm a big proponent of people powered change and the belief that all people across the entire supply chain can make an enormous positive difference if the listen and react in a way that is aligned to the brand...
Chartered Manager & Freelance Retail and Consumer Goods Consultant
8 年A great example of a MD valuing the relationship of the customer to the brand, even after the purchase has concluded. This is how you win a customers life time loyalty.