It's 2012 and I just became responsible for customer experience at KPN in the consumer market. We want to write a change strategy - one that is not only functional, but above all appealing and involves real change.
We describe the change from the point of view of the customer and the employee. For the colleagues, we want them to tell us that they are working for this telecom company again enthusiastically and proudly at a birthday party. But where to start? Because if you told them that you were working at KPN, you had a guarantee at every party that you would be immediately treated to a drama story. That mechanic this, that call centre employee that, or then in the shop sister... How nice would it be if you could solve the problem?
Together with my team, we came up with the KPN Ambassador app. In it, the employee could immediately report the problem that came to his or her attention. So far, so good. The app was built, the processes connected to it and now it had to be tested with complaints from the field. As a real ambassador, I made a LinkedIn message, introduced the app and asked my network: what issues do you have that I can solve for you? In no time the stories came in. Then and then that and that happened. I found no less than forty complaints in the responses.
I contacted everyone and while talking to these people I found out that in 39 out of 40 cases there was no complaint, but complaining. There was nothing more to solve. There was just never listened to, never really paid attention, never once sincerely said sorry. What a lesson. There's an essential difference between complaining and complaining. Because the one case where I could take action, that was a legitimate complaint. I was able to enter it in our Ambassador app and it was (of course) well resolved.
What was also so great about it was that colleagues conjured up their app when they complained. They kept asking, and just by listening and showing that they could solve complaints, the complaining disappeared like snow in the sun. Just pay attention this week. We all have a hand in complaining. But take it from me: if you listen to a complaining customer and give them sincere attention, you can prevent the complaint.
This blog was written for CustomerFirst and published on 18 December 2019
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