It’s not your way or the highway!

By Fiona Boyd |  Email This Post

Mistaken me, I thought we were well and truly meant to be in the era of customer service. Indeed Michel Hogan and I have discussed one of the really negative side effects of the era of customer service – the customerzilla – in several video interviews, the most recent being yesterday’s What to do about the customerzilla?

Well have I got it wrong. There are still plenty of companies out there who think that the customer is an inconvenience to be tolerated and that the systems and the protocols of the business are all about making it easier for the staff and management of the company.

Why do I say this?

Two weeks ago David and I were sitting down to have our weekly life and business lunch meeting at the Middle Brighton Baths Restaurant and I’d just checked into Foursquare (Stan is the Mayor at this venue) and I get an incoming call on my relatively new iPhone. Thinking it’d probably be an rsvp for my daughter’s birthday party which was getting huger by the minute, I took the call. Now David will tell you how unusual it is for me to actually answer an incoming call with a number I don’t know or that is blocked. I just don’t answer these calls, I let them go through to voicemail and pick up my messages there.

However on this day I did take the call and it was an arts company that I had sent a subscription form to for their season for the second half of the year. This is an innovative arts company that presents interesting work. David and I have been subscribers in the past, and have recently thought that we’d like to get back into seeing some live theatre.

Is it my way or the highway with your customer service? Don't give your customers a reason to take the highway - be flexible

It’s quite unlike me to do anything with paper these days, but because I had found this company’s online booking form incomprehensible, I actually sat down and for an hour went through the hard copy subscription brochure and chose the shows I thought David and I would enjoy seeing. David started life as a lighting designer and stagehand and has had a whole career as a technical manager and venue manager and has seen lots and lots of theatre, and he really doesn’t want to see any more bad theatre, so it’s important to make the show choices with some care. I figured out which shows might work, pulled out my Saints football fixture and made sure the dates I’d chosen didn’t conflict with a St Kilda football game, cross-referenced with school holidays etc, then worked out the cost, which was not insignificant, wrote in our payment details and sent the form off.

Since I’d chosen quite a few opening nights in the season I wasn’t expecting to get all of these. Which was the case as the call from this venue’s box office staff confirmed.

There was much clinking of glasses and china in the room as we spoke and I asked the caller if she could email me the alternative dates she was suggesting for the shows we had to change our date preference on and I’d match with our calendars and confirm what works. Really, my mind was on lunch not on solving a booking issue.

And this is where it all went wrong. The box office person at the end of the line told me quite firmly that that was not the way they did things at this particular arts centre and that this problem must be worked out over the phone. Maybe I could call back at a more convenient time? They did not use email for such a purpose as I was suggesting, it just would not work out for them to do business this way.

So here we have a standoff as I’m someone who never, ever calls anybody to sort out issues, but instead uses email to get a message across or clarify a situation, mainly because it leaves a paper trail and it’s easy to identify when things have gone amiss. Phone calls leave you open to he said, that she said and somehow, nothing gets done. And of course, it’s all about what you remember having heard, not something that’s staring you in the face in an email that can be saved and referred to in the future if need be.

As it was I didn’t want to sit down and go through the subscription brochure again and then have a long discussion about it over the phone, my preference was for the box office person to send me a few suggested dates by email and I would then accept or feedback where it wasn’t possible. I knew it may take a few goes, however, surely one can do this sort of work in the quiet times? A box office is not always busy.

Not so. Determined not to have my lunch spoiled I told the box office caller that I’d have to think about it and not to proceed with our subscriptions at the current time.

I have now thought about it and do want to proceed, however I now need to gird my loins to tackle a tedious phone call with this person to sort out available show times. And simultaneously I must make sure I have my footie schedule and calendar open so that I don’t go and  book a show that conflicts with the rest of my life.

Why is this so? Why is it that this innovative arts company cannot be a little more innovative and flexible and customer-focused when it comes to doing a transaction with a customer? Why does it have to be their way or the highway?

Mmmh, I’m still rather perplexed. When David and I founded Arts Hub a common complaint from artsworkers was that the public didn’t appreciate or support the arts enough. Now I have an experience from the other side and I’d like to make the point that some arts companies need to make it easier and smoother for a willing artslover to transact with them and that they should be more inclined to do it in a way that suits the customer and not just in a way that works for the box office manager.

And I’d like to pose this question to my readers – is there a process or person who is currently getting in the way of your company and your customer transacting? Fix that issue and you may not have to expend so much energy on chasing and marketing to new customers.

Love to know what you think about this. Please feel encouraged to file your comments.

Photo: flickr kia4067

David Eedle and Fiona Boyd founded Arts Hub in 2000 and sold the business in 2006. They took pride in delivering great customer service to members. You can read more about the Arts Hub adventure here.

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