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264: The Friction Tax: Are You Trapping Customers? · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

• 0:46
  Have you ever signed up for a service and then it takes less than a minute?
• 0:50
  But then spent 45 minutes trying to cancel it.
• 0:53
  Maybe the cancellation button was buried deep inside the website.
• 0:57
  Maybe you were forced to call during limited business hours.
• 1:00
  Or perhaps you finally reached someone whose job seemed less about helping
• 1:04
  you cancel and more about wearing you down until you surrendered.
• 1:08
  It's not always an accidental inconvenience.
• 1:11
  Sometimes friction is part of the business model.
• 1:14
  Today we're examining what we call friction tax,
• 1:17
  the extra time.
• 1:19
  Effort, confusion, and frustration that customers must absorb because
• 1:23
  a company benefits when doing business with it or leaving
• 1:26
  it is unnecessarily difficult.
• 1:28
  New York City recently adopted a clip to a click-to-cancel rule that takes effect
• 1:34
  on October 1st of this year. It requires businesses offering automatically renewing
• 1:39
  subscriptions to clearly disclose their terms and give customers a simple
• 1:44
  way to cancel. The fact that government must
• 1:46
  Regulate how easy it is to stop buying something raises a much bigger customer
• 1:51
  experience question. When does ordinary operational friction become deliberate
• 1:57
  customer exploitation? Welcome back to the Customer Service Revolution Podcast.
• 2:03
  John and I will be discussing this this week.
• 2:06
  And how excited are you, John,
• 2:08
  to talk about this uncomfortable situation that customers go through?
• 2:12
  I think it's necessary. I think we confuse the term ease of doing business with
• 2:20
  making it easy for customers to buy from us,
• 2:22
  but ease of doing business means everything.
• 2:25
  Returning, getting a hold of support,
• 2:27
  you know, whatever. And and yeah,
• 2:30
  it's it's a problem. And it's it's it th it's been being addressed,
• 2:34
  I think, by government the last several years.
• 2:38
  A few years ago they rolled out
• 2:41
  that you can cancel any membership.
• 2:43
  aka or or an example is your fitness membership.
• 2:48
  but I think they backed off that for some reason because we were working with
• 2:52
  a fitness company and you know their franchisees were all up in arms that
• 2:57
  you know in the fall this was gonna be a thing.
• 3:01
  It might it was actually last year.
• 3:03
  And I remember asking them
• 3:06
  Like I've always been i i under the as an entrepreneur,
• 3:10
  if it's applied to my entire industry,
• 3:13
  all my competitors, I I don't feel as a disadvantage if it's like singled
• 3:18
  out my type of business. So like I I I asked them,
• 3:22
  you know, they were all worried that that their members could walk anytime they
• 3:28
  wanted instead of, you know, giving the you know,
• 3:32
  adding to wait that that
• 3:34
  the let's say it's a one-year membership.
• 3:36
  But then I also found out that they,
• 3:39
  you know, only had five percent of the market,
• 3:44
  right? Which is is a good percentage,
• 3:48
  but now 945% of the market's available to you because they can get out.
• 3:55
  So there's opportunities, you know,
• 3:57
  besides
• 3:59
  raising your game and and and keeping that up.
• 4:01
  So yeah, ease of doing business or ease of of of not doing business,
• 4:06
  whatever you wanna call it, is a huge part of being a brand.
• 4:09
  Customers can't live without and too many businesses make it the opposite.
• 4:15
  So when signing up takes one click,
• 4:17
  but canceling requires three calls,
• 4:20
  multiple screens, and a conversation with the retention specialist,
• 4:25
  is that poor customer experience or a calculated business decision?
• 4:28
  Because let's face it, everybody's looking for their SaaS,
• 4:32
  right? Their service as a subscription that they can sell and keep customers with.
• 4:38
  Yeah. and so your answer to your question is yes.
• 4:41
  It's both, right? it's it's horrible customer service,
• 4:45
  but it's also calculated. again,
• 4:47
  like you said, you can find the buy you know,
• 4:51
  one click, whatever it is, so easy,
• 4:53
  but you know, to to find how to return it and all that is is usually buried.
• 5:00
  if it it's anywhere. And the and and I I I'm sure you remember
• 5:05
  the retention specialist came from I think it was Comcast.
• 5:09
  And there was a lot of companies that that did this,
• 5:12
  but Comcast, one of their calls when a customer tried to cancel their subscription
• 5:18
  membership w went viral because they recorded it and it was out fourteen,
• 5:24
  twenty minutes long and the
• 5:27
  c customer attention specialist was just harassing the person would not
• 5:31
  let him off the phone. and, you know,
• 5:33
  Comcast at the time came out and said,
• 5:36
  that's not who we are, that's not how we train our employees to be.
• 5:41
  acting like that was a one-off.
• 5:43
  But then it was re you know, shown that he he that person's j title
• 5:49
  was customer attention specialist.
• 5:51
  They got
• 5:53
  bonus and incentivize on the customers they didn't get or they that
• 5:57
  the yeah that they got not to cancel and they would you know be penalized
• 6:02
  if too many a higher percentage canceled.
• 6:05
  So it was that person was fulfilling their job ideally from a job description.
• 6:11
  Yeah, and there are I think certain businesses too that we've that we've
• 6:16
  all dealt with, where we've come across the retention specialist.
• 6:20
  ~
• 6:21
  Yeah.
• 6:21
  but sometimes intentionally so that we can get a discount because there
• 6:25
  are whether it's your phone bill,
• 6:26
  Incentives. Yeah.
• 6:27
  your cable bill, yeah, they'll give
• 6:29
  you an incentive
• 6:30
  to not cancel. how can leaders tell the difference between unavoidable operational
• 6:36
  friction and friction the organization has deliberately created because
• 6:40
  it produces revenue?
• 6:41
  No. yeah, I I I I guess I'd have to have think of a more specific example because
• 6:46
  it all sounds like
• 6:47
  I mean, it it's all avoidable friction.
• 6:50
  and I think deep down they are they're they're making it hard and making
• 6:56
  you you you want to give up on on on on the situation.
• 7:00
  So there's a I talked about this,
• 7:03
  me and Dave talked about it in our last book,
• 7:06
  The Employee Experience Revolution.
• 7:08
  And it it just talks about how not all profit is good profit.
• 7:13
  And when organizations apply short-sighted thinking,
• 7:16
  focusing solely on sales and profit,
• 7:19
  they often enact bad profit policies that exploit customers,
• 7:23
  think hidden charges, excessive late fees,
• 7:26
  overdraft fees, flight change fees,
• 7:29
  all that. Short-term profit incentivizes incentivize put incentives push many
• 7:35
  companies in the wrong direction.
• 7:37
  Bonus plans reward executives for boosting short-term profits.
• 7:41
  Even if they embrace practices that take advantage of the customers
• 7:45
  and exasperate customer-facing employees,
• 7:47
  who are the messengers taking the brunt of the customer frustration?
• 7:52
  The truth is most incentive programs hold teams accountable primarily
• 7:57
  for meeting cost or revenue targets.
• 7:59
  Whenever profits are squeezed,
• 8:01
  an organization's tendency is to seek short-term profitability,
• 8:05
  opportunities such as bad profit policies.
• 8:09
  Companies rely heavily on bad profits,
• 8:11
  alienate customers, and offer opportunities for emerging brands to capitalize.
• 8:17
  For example, Blockbuster back in the early 2000s,
• 8:21
  Blockbuster wouldn't go to a subscription model because they made $800 million
• 8:28
  or 16% of its revenue from late fees.
• 8:33
  That's a lot.
• 8:35
  It's huge. Yeah, it's huge.
• 8:38
  Sixteen percent from late fees.
• 8:40
  Even the libraries I don't think charge anymore,
• 8:42
  do they, for re
• 8:44
  I am in your library.
• 8:45
  returning a a book late? can a company in any way be considered customer centric
• 8:51
  if they are making it difficult for customers to cancel,
• 8:55
  return, or reach a human being?
• 8:58
  I I my answer's no. I I maybe if it's a short term shame on us,
• 9:04
  we didn't realize we added a couple extra layers or had that,
• 9:09
  you know, but if it's you know,
• 9:11
  if it's more than you know, a short term,
• 9:15
  y then they know about it. They know about they're just taking that
• 9:20
  the profits gained, the
• 9:22
  revenue they're avoiding, losing,
• 9:24
  will outweigh the customer defect
• 9:28
  and brand terrorism,
• 9:31
  because we all hate these companies.
• 9:33
  Yeah, what are some of the most common ways that companies transfer work onto their
• 9:37
  customers without recognizing or admitting that they're doing it?
• 9:41
  Yeah, I mean, you know, we we all get the old example of having to type
• 9:45
  in or tell the customer support person our information and you know,
• 9:50
  and then have to do it many times.
• 9:53
  I think the the the b the biggest one is is well one of the biggest ones
• 9:57
  is just a lack of knowledge of what's going on and the uncertainty business.
• 10:02
  but and then, you know, hiding behind policy,
• 10:07
  because that's that's easiest for employees,
• 10:13
  you know, to just make a blanket policy and and and then you don't have
• 10:18
  to worry about employe employees using their own discretion,
• 10:22
  which actually it defeats it because
• 10:25
  when an employee becomes a punching bag and doesn't have the you know
• 10:31
  d using your own discretion and making things right based on your trained judgment
• 10:38
  is a rewarding part of an employee's job.
• 10:40
  And, you know, if you work for a company that,
• 10:42
  you know, doesn't do that, that's that's or doesn't allow that,
• 10:46
  no one f goes home feeling good that they they got,
• 10:49
  you know, beat up by, you know,
• 10:51
  customers today.
• 10:52
  We recently talked about trust in one of our podcast episodes.
• 10:57
  What do you think is more damaging to customer trust?
• 11:01
  The original problem that caused you to want to cancel whatever service this was,
• 11:06
  or the realization that the company designed the process to protect itself instead
• 11:11
  of helping the customer?
• 11:13
  Yeah,
• 11:14
  one of my f favorite lines, stories,
• 11:17
  whatever you wanna say it, that I like to say is I think the best customer loyalty
• 11:22
  strategy is to screw up first.
• 11:24
  And obviously it should be no one's intention to doing that,
• 11:28
  but when you reframe it, and might have said this the last time.
• 11:32
  I I'm not sure. So so there there's we we talk about that there's grudge buy
• 11:39
  companies purchases. A grudge buy is something you don't want to do with money
• 11:43
  and time. you know, walking out of your house today with a busy,
• 11:46
  crazy day, need to get to work meetings,
• 11:49
  all that, and you have a flat tire,
• 11:51
  right? No one's pumped. No one realizes,
• 11:55
  thank God I didn't know I was going to do with that $300 sitting
• 11:58
  in my checking account. And more,
• 12:00
  importantly maybe to people that have money is the time.
• 12:05
  Right? I I'm fine with the paying the three hundred dollars,
• 12:08
  but it's the three hours that is gonna take me now to get a tow truck,
• 12:13
  to get a company here, you know,
• 12:16
  and all that. So those are grudge buys.
• 12:18
  That could be a dentist, you know,
• 12:20
  no one wants to go to the dentist,
• 12:21
  even for a cleaning, but if you have a throbbing toothache,
• 12:24
  no one wants to write a check to an insurance company,
• 12:27
  no one wants to, you know, anything to do with repairs,
• 12:30
  medical, all that, you know.
• 12:32
  g any all those are grudge by.
• 12:34
  Now going to the spa, going to the Ritz Carlton,
• 12:38
  a lot of for a lot of people going to Starbucks,
• 12:40
  that's a pleasure buy. They like the time they that they're being used
• 12:45
  for that and they don't mind parting with money for those experiences.
• 12:50
  But what I just dawned on me is service recovery for any business,
• 12:56
  salon, Ritz Carlton, Starbucks,
• 12:59
  whatever.
• 13:00
  is a grudge per and no one wants to be calling any business and having
• 13:06
  to complain and case you know and having to escalate it to their manager,
• 13:10
  the GM, home office. So every business is in the grudge by when they're dealing with
• 13:18
  an upset customer, something that went wrong.
• 13:20
  And so
• 13:21
  What we had found that the grudge by companies do the best to do very well
• 13:26
  is they reframe their their employees to say,
• 13:30
  listen, everyone you're dealing with today is in a vulnerable situation that
• 13:35
  you can come to the rescue for,
• 13:37
  versus looking at it as everyone I'm gonna deal with today is pissed
• 13:40
  off that they're dealing with me.
• 13:42
  Right. But that's the same thing with a service recovery.
• 13:45
  You have an opportunity to be a hero,
• 13:46
  you have an opportunity to demonstrate.
• 13:49
  So it's the service recovery paradox of,
• 13:52
  you know, you don't get the same lifetime value or customer loyalty
• 13:58
  if you met their expectations as you do as if you drop the ball and pick it up,
• 14:03
  people are more impressed. So yeah,
• 14:07
  so to answer your question, it's it it the original problem is never,
• 14:10
  I think, the serious part of it.
• 14:14
  it's how how
• 14:16
  difficult or easy it is. And so r really transforming a mindset,
• 14:22
  I I think most of us knee jerk reaction.
• 14:25
  If if if if if you came to me and said,
• 14:27
  John, you have to call so and so client,
• 14:30
  she's very upset, knee-jerk reaction.
• 14:32
  can you do it? Can someone else do it?
• 14:35
  You know, you want to hide underneath your desk.
• 14:36
  That's the last thing I want to do is deal with that.
• 14:39
  It's negative. But changing it into a mindset of,
• 14:42
  I'm gonna
• 14:43
  I'm gonna own this customer in a good way.
• 14:45
  I'm gonna have her so impressed by,
• 14:48
  you know, my empathy and and and and the way we solve this for her that she's gonna
• 14:53
  be bragging about us.
• 14:55
  I like that. for our listeners out there who really want
• 14:59
  to create world-class customer service organizations,
• 15:03
  how do they how do they find these?
• 15:07
  Can dashboards be hiding some of the problem?
• 15:10
  So say a company might celebrate low cancellation rate without asking whether
• 15:15
  customers stayed because they were loyal or because canceling was too difficult.
• 15:20
  Yeah, so I mean I again this goes back to customer sentiments,
• 15:25
  which I think it it's an AI tool that listens to the calls.
• 15:30
  More so surveys, I mean if you can do surveys,
• 15:32
  if you could get I I believe your your surveys net promoter score,
• 15:37
  customer satisfaction, whatever those are,
• 15:39
  are invalid if you're in the low teens.
• 15:46
  or lower in response rate, right?
• 15:49
  I I I I I said this last week in a class in our Customer Experience Executive
• 15:53
  Academy, there was 18 people in it.
• 15:56
  And so a 10% response rate if if asking them to do surveys
• 16:02
  on the class would be less than two people filling out the survey right
• 16:09
  Now take that across, you know,
• 16:10
  send out 10,000 surveys, whatever it is.
• 16:12
  So can you imagine if we only had one or two people from that class fill
• 16:16
  out the survey and they complained about stuff?
• 16:20
  Well, we can't run and change and adjust content,
• 16:26
  where we're having it, you know,
• 16:28
  all those things because, you know,
• 16:31
  two people out of eighteen said that.
• 16:35
  You don't, that's not a valid.
• 16:37
  you know, and and so that's when you get down to the the low teens,
• 16:41
  which a lot of net promoter scores response rates are now because
• 16:45
  of the survey fatigue. So you there's a couple things you could tie in.
• 16:50
  There there's customer sentiment.
• 16:52
  What are they saying that the you know the your your customer service reps
• 16:57
  on the phones may or may not be or or chat bot or or how what however it's being
• 17:03
  thing.
• 17:04
  But now you can grab those and and an AI can grab those for you and say,
• 17:07
  this is, you know, the negatives,
• 17:09
  this is the positives. And then the other thing you can track is if let's
• 17:15
  say you don't let them out of their their membership or or whatever it is,
• 17:19
  is your retention when their contracts are up.
• 17:23
  Right? If that's going through the roof,
• 17:26
  well, I mean that's telling you something that
• 17:30
  the experience isn't there and and and and yeah and then it's also a high cost
• 17:35
  of when you're dealing with if you get a hundred calls today you know
• 17:41
  a hundred calls to book appointments to sell something that's great I want
• 17:46
  you know whatever that many reps to take that calls and make those sales
• 17:52
  now you get a hundred
• 17:54
  Calls today, or you get 130 calls today,
• 17:56
  and 30 of them are complaints,
• 17:59
  trying to cancel, all those things.
• 18:01
  Where's my product? All those things.
• 18:04
  Well, now you gotta staff more people,
• 18:06
  and that's non revenue producing time
• 18:11
  and people because they're putting out fires,
• 18:14
  which isn't the favorite thing of their jobs,
• 18:17
  and obviously it's not the favorite thing of a customer.
• 18:19
  go back to the grudge you buy.
• 18:21
  So it it's just so short sighted to to to you know build in all those things that
• 18:28
  have to keep on getting escalated and transferred and called back and all that.
• 18:32
  So we have an idea how friction gets created.
• 18:36
  But let's talk about you brought up the employees that get caught in the middle.
• 18:39
  So the ones who go home not feeling great about what they had to do today that made
• 18:45
  life difficult for the customers.
• 18:46
  Once the frontline employee recognizes that a process is unreasonable,
• 18:50
  they might even agree with the customer,
• 18:52
  but they lack the authority to fix it.
• 18:55
  What happens to employees when they must repeatedly defend their policies that they
• 19:00
  know are frustrating or unfair,
• 19:01
  and what can they do about it?
• 19:04
  Yeah, I guarantee you that those industries have the highest turnover.
• 19:08
  no one, I no one I well, I I can't think of anybody who would enjoy that part
• 19:13
  of their job, right? and now when it's makes up a significant chunk of your day,
• 19:20
  your job of, you know, just getting,
• 19:22
  you know, yelled at all day.
• 19:26
  That can't feel good. And having your hands tied.
• 19:29
  I don't know what employees can do because the culture dictates that.
• 19:33
  Like, you know, the a good company will ask and ask and ask your employees,
• 19:39
  you know, what are you hearing and and coaching them how that maybe they could have,
• 19:43
  you know, won the customer over and you know,
• 19:46
  you don't have to you know, enforce the policy if you think it's it's
• 19:51
  not right in in that case.
• 19:54
  I guess they could bring it up to their manager.
• 19:56
  I just feel like you wouldn't be in that mess.
• 19:58
  Now, unless it's it's a one-off and you know you work for a really good company
• 20:03
  and this isn't jiving with your core values and the norm.
• 20:07
  Yes, I'm sure the company, but if this is commonplace,
• 20:11
  it's been created for a reason.
• 20:14
  All right, well let's talk about the leaders then.
• 20:16
  How do leaders give employees enough authority to remove unnecessary friction
• 20:22
  without eliminating reasonable controls or creating inconsistency?
• 20:28
  So I have an example here from from the Employee Experience Revolution book.
• 20:31
  It's it's Eradicating Bad Profits.
• 20:35
  And one of my all time favorite CEOs,
• 20:38
  now former CEO, Walt Bettinger,
• 20:42
  he was the CEO of of Charles Schwab.
• 20:45
  and he found out early on in his tenure as CEO that one quarter
• 20:51
  One fourth of Schwab's, Charles Schwab's revenue resulted from bad profits,
• 20:58
  okay, when he took over. So he asked his team to rank
• 21:02
  in order the offending policies,
• 21:06
  putting the worst at the top of the list and committed and committed
• 21:10
  the company working from top down,
• 21:12
  eradicating each policy so within several years all would be gone.
• 21:18
  Bettinger realized that this practice was essential to creating
• 21:22
  a customer service culture. Under Bettinger's leadership,
• 21:25
  the value of Schwab's stock went from $13.59
• 21:32
  at the beginning of 2009 to $95 in 2022,
• 21:37
  about when he retired, with the market capitalization increasing tenfold.
• 21:42
  Not surprising, the CEO has received many awards.
• 21:46
  over the past decade, including Fortunes magazine's business person of the year,
• 21:51
  four times as well as landing its as well as landing in
• 21:56
  its number seven global business person spot.
• 22:01
  Charles Schwab offers an outstanding example of what can happen when leaders have
• 22:06
  true understanding of the the customer service experience
• 22:09
  and structure their policies with the moral compass firmly in place.
• 22:13
  Simply do good and you'll do good.
• 22:16
  another thing, and it might be something i i is coming up that you're gonna ask,
• 22:20
  but you know, and I've done this myself
• 22:26
  as an entrepreneur is avoided calling my own company because I I
• 22:32
  I hate the you know the hold and this and this.
• 22:36
  I mean that's telling you something.
• 22:38
  But
• 22:39
  There's something spiked up a few years ago and and I don't know if it's still being
• 22:42
  done, but all of a sudden all these new CEOs or CEOs started like when when
• 22:48
  the new CEO of Starbucks took over,
• 22:50
  he spent four hours a month as a barista.
• 22:55
  I think it was DoorDash that enforced
• 23:00
  all their corporate people.
• 23:02
  To drive four hours a month. Because in DoorDash's world,
• 23:07
  their direct customers, the drivers,
• 23:11
  their drivers don't work for them.
• 23:12
  And, you know, they have to find out what is frustrating to the drivers.
• 23:17
  It might be the restaurant that they're picking up from,
• 23:20
  it might be the c consumer they're delivering to.
• 23:23
  and you know, you have to you have to walk in the shoes of your customers
• 23:28
  or your employees and
• 23:30
  Cancel something. try to get a hold of someone.
• 23:32
  you know, we we gotta be doing that.
• 23:34
  And and and and not only the CEO but all leaders need to be spending time
• 23:40
  on the front line so they can feel the pain and the not so ease
• 23:45
  of doing business with your company.
• 23:48
  Yeah, it's a good good experience for people to go through being in
• 23:52
  the shoes of their customers. leaders,
• 23:54
  if your customers are working harder than your organization to resolve problems,
• 23:59
  that's not a service issue, it's a system design issue.
• 24:03
  The DiJulius Group helps organizations identify those breakdowns
• 24:07
  and build a customer experience system that employees can consistently deliver.
• 24:11
  If you want to learn more about creating a service culture that produces measures.
• 24:16
  Results, visit thedijuliusgroup.com or schedule a call with
• 24:20
  us at tdg.click forward slash call.
• 24:26
  Alright, John. Some businesses assume that if a customer stays,
• 24:31
  the relationship must be healthy.
• 24:33
  But retention and loyalty are not the same thing.
• 24:36
  A customer can remain because switching is difficult,
• 24:39
  contracts are complicated, alternatives are limited,
• 24:42
  or canceling requires too much effort.
• 24:44
  The customer hasn't been retained through loyalty,
• 24:48
  they've been trapped through friction.
• 24:52
  What's the difference between earning customer loyalty
• 24:55
  and manufacturing customer captivity?
• 24:59
  Or better yet, how do you measure the difference?
• 25:04
  Yeah, well I think we've gone over tracking and measuring,
• 25:08
  you know, and then there are customer effort score,
• 25:11
  but those are just more surveys.
• 25:13
  you know, but but easy you know,
• 25:15
  that. but I mean i l let's just think of the the easiest companies in
• 25:20
  the world to do business with,
• 25:21
  Amazon. that's probably number one.
• 25:24
  But Apple is so easy. Nordstrom's Costco might be number one.
• 25:29
  co you know, Costco is just unbelievable.
• 25:32
  And and all these companies have no return policy,
• 25:35
  meaning you can return it in five years.
• 25:38
  And everyone talks about how you get taken advantage of,
• 25:41
  but I think it's working out pretty good for those brands.
• 25:44
  second part of your question. I'm sorry.
• 25:45
  How do you measure the difference?
• 25:47
  yeah, yeah. So listen, I think it's it's every company's job to create customers
• 25:52
  who create customers. Track referrals,
• 25:54
  right? I I can't say that enough if if if your b business can.
• 25:58
  And I I I again the only businesses I think that can't track referrals
• 26:02
  is brick and mortar, walk up, kiosk,
• 26:05
  you know, order a coffee. you know,
• 26:07
  you don't know if you you there you really don't have them in a database.
• 26:10
  You don't know if it's the first time there.
• 26:11
  It's the last time I'm not asking you how you heard of us.
• 26:15
  if you're walking in to buy a a a a a a a birthday card,
• 26:18
  you know, a C V S.
• 26:19
  Yeah, they're not worried
• 26:20
  about the friction tax either though,
• 26:22
  right? Yeah.
• 26:22
  Right, right.
• 26:26
  but but let's you know, let's think about that.
• 26:28
  a lot of at most Starbucks,
• 26:32
  whether it's on their cup or a sign where you pick up your drink is let
• 26:37
  us know if your drink was anything but excellent,
• 26:40
  we'd be happy to remake it for you.
• 26:42
  I think I love that. That's that's most companies would think that's so stupid.
• 26:48
  you're you're encouraging your customers to complain.
• 26:51
  Yeah. How's it working out for a Starbucks?
• 26:56
  But I think the number one thing is retention and referrals.
• 27:01
  Now you're right there's a lot of things I would like to change but
• 27:06
  it just seems like to unravel it they've made it so hard.
• 27:12
  I will tell you what I've noticed a lot because
• 27:16
  I realize and it's probably from these laws.
• 27:19
  But like I realize, you know, I have HBO or Paramount Plus.
• 27:24
  I mean, I got I feel like I got every subscription under the world and when I,
• 27:28
  you know, don't li when I get painful about I need
• 27:34
  to cut back expenses. I go and say,
• 27:36
  I haven't watched anything on that,
• 27:38
  you know, streaming service in over a year.
• 27:41
  It's so easy to cancel now.
• 27:44
  in those. And that might have been from the laws being passed.
• 27:48
  I love this New York law. I'm I'm I know I'm sure businesses are freaking out,
• 27:53
  but that's how every business runs.
• 27:55
  It's it's easy
• 27:56
  to cancel, but they've also come up with ways where,
• 27:59
  okay, we're gonna bundle that with these other three that maybe you're
• 28:03
  not interested in, but the one you have to buy those in order to get
• 28:06
  the one that you want. I mean that's a friction too,
• 28:08
  Yeah. Well and then y
• 28:10
  that kind of
• 28:11
  right. And you look at all these you know,
• 28:13
  first companies that come to mind are the cellular carriers and all these switch
• 28:18
  and save.
• 28:19
  But they're not taking care of their existing customer.
• 28:22
  Reward your existing customer who's been with you for five years versus like
• 28:27
  you said earlier, if I either attempt to get out or I get out,
• 28:31
  you know, and I go back or or just whatever,
• 28:34
  go to their nearest competitor,
• 28:36
  I'm gonna get a free phone or whatever those switch and saves are.
• 28:40
  And you know, you wouldn't have to chase new customers if you were keeping
• 28:44
  the existing ones.
• 28:45
  All right, so if there are leaders out there that really want to find their biggest
• 28:50
  friction points, where do they begin?
• 28:52
  be a customer, listen to the customer,
• 28:54
  listen to the customer sentiments,
• 28:56
  create, you know, KPIs that tell you,
• 29:00
  you know, again, i if you're not getting referrals,
• 29:02
  you're you you're not doing something right.
• 29:04
  If if if all your the majority of your sales is bought,
• 29:09
  which means it comes from advertising and marketing,
• 29:14
  we y y you know, a and not earned,
• 29:16
  which is repeat and referred, that's,
• 29:20
  you know, to me says everything.
• 29:22
  Should companies make it as easy to leave as it is to join?
• 29:25
  I mean I'd like to think so. And if so,
• 29:28
  i is it really going to harm their business or do you think they all end
• 29:32
  up in the Schwab, Costco, Starbucks category?
• 29:37
  That's a a tougher question because yes,
• 29:39
  common sense would tell you that if you made it easy and
• 29:45
  any customer could leave you right now e easily,
• 29:49
  you would provide a better experience.
• 29:51
  But that's just, you know, I just think you wouldn't be in that mess if
• 29:57
  you know you had that mentality.
• 29:59
  So I I think everyone absolutely should do it and the
• 30:03
  best performing companies do that.
• 30:06
  it's just it's just I don't know.
• 30:08
  It's yeah,
• 30:09
  We
• 30:09
  I I yeah, it's just it's just mind boggling why they they make it
• 30:14
  th their short sightedness.
• 30:16
  what's one piece of customer friction every leader listening should investigate this
• 30:21
  week?
• 30:21
  Mm-hmm. I I I again I go back to I would delegate to every leader over
• 30:27
  a certain level, not a not a frontline leader,
• 30:32
  because I think they're they're hearing it and getting it,
• 30:35
  but every leader corporate, every regional,
• 30:37
  everything higher that isn't on the front lines of operations is they have
• 30:43
  to be a customer. They have to be their own mystery shopper.
• 30:47
  and buy something, return it, you know,
• 30:50
  try to get hold of support, see if you have to get transferred.
• 30:54
  you know, one of the biggest pet peeves is when I hear this all the time,
• 30:59
  employees say, you know, I don't make the rules,
• 31:02
  I just enforce Well obviously a and it's not the employees' fault.
• 31:05
  yeah, that is oversharing, but they're also frustrated because
• 31:10
  They are basically saying, I have to live with you know,
• 31:13
  the policy. I have to enforce the policy,
• 31:16
  or it's out of my pay grade. you know,
• 31:18
  that decision. all those things are are are red flags that your employees aren't
• 31:23
  happy. And if your employees aren't happy,
• 31:25
  your customers aren't happy because one of the reasons why your employees aren't
• 31:28
  happy is because they're getting beat up by unhappy customers.
• 31:31
  Customer friction isn't just an inconvenience.
• 31:35
  It communicates what the organization values.
• 31:38
  And when companies make it easy to purchase but difficult to cancel,
• 31:42
  easy to pay but difficult to receive help,
• 31:44
  it sends a clear message. They're protecting revenue more than they're protecting
• 31:49
  the relationship. If you remove unnecessary friction,
• 31:52
  it may make it easier for an unhappy customer to leave.
• 31:56
  But it also gives satisfied customers a reason to trust you.
• 31:59
  And trust is far more valuable than captivity.
• 32:03
  everyone listening, examine that one important part of your customer journey this
• 32:07
  week. Don't ask whether the process works.
• 32:10
  Ask how hard the customer must work to make it work.
• 32:14
  Thanks for listening to the Customer Service Revolution Podcast.
• 32:17
  John, thank you for all the great information this week,
• 32:21
  and we'll see you next time.
• 32:22
  Thank you.