Debbie Mayo-Smith: Caution: Bad feedback may spark explosion Book giveaway

Let's talk about dynamite repercussions. And the business processes that create them.

Most New Zealanders would agree that businesses pay lip service to customer service. You can see it in the way business processes are designed for the sole benefit of the business - rather than their customer.

Ask anyone who is waiting in a movie or supermarket line, talking to a machine or having to go into a petrol station to prepay before pumping. This is but the tip of the iceberg of "them" policies rather than "us" - the consumer - policies.

There's rarely a cost of lost business to these establishments when the policies are the same across the industry. We're blocked from taking our business elsewhere. It's different when you encounter a bad meal or a snippy sales assistant. Then you can vote with your feet, and your pocket.

But this is nothing compared to the explosive dynamite that can occur with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs today. This is what I call the repercussions that can occur when bad customer service or experiences are combined with web 2.0. Unfortunately, most NZ businesses aren't paying much attention to the social media arena, so they're not aware of what can easily happen to their reputation and brand.

A comment on one Facebook page can go to thousands of people. This is dangerous - but what turns it into detonation is the automatic RSS linkage many people have between their social media sites. One push of a button and it appears in many places.

Let me explain through a recent personal experience.

Several weeks ago, I flew back from Christchurch to Auckland. There were several problems; I won't go through them but we were angry. In the departure lounge I tweeted a not-too-nice comment about the airline.

My Twitter account has 523 followers. My Tweets are automatically placed on my Facebook fan page with 618 fans and my LinkedIn profile with 350 connections. If everyone had a look, that's an initial audience of 1491. If anyone retweets or answers, then all their connections, friends and followers could also forward it on. You can see the exponential nature of social networking.

My blog drew a response from readers, of course, plus I received a phone call from the airline's customer care manager. Their response was that the things I complained about were the business policies they put in place to deliver the lowest price.

Airlines' customer service levels are often tied to ticket price. We understand this. You sacrifice some things to save money. But what happens when the business processes are detrimental to the customer experience? Low price will initially get you the customer. What will keep them returning? Several people who commented on my blog said they would never return to an airline because of their bad service and/or policies.

Is the airline correct to assume that the most important feature for the majority of customers is to have the very, very lowest price? Even if it means that what are considered standard features are removed from a base fare and priced as add-ons? Or is it smarter to have a ticket price that is $4 or $5 higher, but includes the use of credit cards to pay online and the selection of a seat?

Moving back from the airline industry, the question that should be asked is: when your competition meets or beats your prices, is it still wise to have lower service/experience levels? I, for one, don't think so.

The bottom line is that businesses should be re-engineering business processes. This is clever risk management. Ensuring business processes are both profitable for them and beneficial for their customers will show them the money and yield good word of mouth.

Debbie Mayo-Smith is a bestselling author and international speaker. Twitter mseffective

www.debbiespeaks.co.nz