Stop Treating Your Customer as Sibel!

I have just had quite a fight with my financial institution who did not think it appropriate to contact me to tell me my stock sale had not been completed as I had requested. The customer service representative didn't know that I had other dealing with the bank and treated me, I suppose like they do with all new customers, with a high degree of "who cares!" and told me that it must be my mistake. I escalated to the management and when they realized that I had other dealing with them -- mortgage, investment, savings, etc. they were suddenly all apologetic and refunded me the difference between what the stock was sold incorrectly for and what it should have been sold for. Maybe in the initial rep had known all my relationships they would have done a better job at making me happy

Straight after this episode, I was standing in line at a security gate at my local airport where they allow frequent flyers from one particular airline the ability to bypass the security line. Again I was astonished that this airport didn't see my business across multiple airlines important to them, the fact that I travel almost weekly didn't seem to matter, but because I wasn't on some super-elite status of a particular airline I was relegated to the "standard line."

These although trivial examples brought home to me the business need for a single view of the customer. Harrods had exactly this problem until they implemented Java CAPS. Now they can view their customer as one.

Not seeing the customer as one entity sometimes have dire consequences. There has been much written about drug interactions and patients dying because the doctor and the pharmacist didn't know about other medications that the patient was on. I am glad there is a solution to this as well, and Cleveland Clinic is a great example of an organization who had implemented a technological solution to address these needs.

I urge you all to consider making your customer happier by ensuring you see one 1 customer -- not the 24 isolated interactions you currently have. If you need help, check out the white paper on what we can do to help.

Posted at 07:00AM Apr 08, 2008 by Mark Herring in Application Infrastructure  |  Comments[0]  |  | |