Many companies retain the services of Non-
Executive Directors to provide insight and
expertise not currently on their own payroll.
Volkswagen AG has employee representatives
on its board, but no customer representatives.
Likewise, BMW Group has employees on it’s
Supervisory Board, along with major
shareholders and business leaders, but no
customers.
Nationwide Building Society [who are not
featured in the book] do not have a Non-
Executive who is simply just a valued
Nationwide customer.
I’m convinced that the right customer - not
just there to make up numbers - can provide
valuable insight and an indication of how a
company values its customers.
Do Company Leadership Teams
need an additional voice?
Many Business Schools run modules around
the importance to businesses of getting the
customer experience, customer service,
customer retention etc., right, and task
students with identifying service innovations
and marketing initiatives to achieve this.
Keep Calm and Carry on Complaining
incorporates 5 case studies where the
backgrounds to each complaint are laid bare,
along with details of what the customer did to
achieve the outcome they were looking for.
Flip that around, and you have 5 real-life case
studies for students to come up with their
interpretations for how those companies
[BMW, VW, TUI and Microsoft] could have
addressed the customer service situation
differently.
Business School Students
WHY YOUR BUSINESS SHOULD WELCOME
CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS
Unless a customer complains when there is a problem with the
goods or services you sell, how else do you know that something
needs putting right? Time and time again the research, from many
global organisations such as Harvard Business Review, Accenture,
KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCoopers [PwC], highlights the importance of
a robust customer service, not just because its the right thing to do
for customers, but because it’s great for your business too. Genuine
complaints are an opportunity to address situations that might
otherwise result in customers taking their business elsewhere. And
if customers have invested their time and money in your brand,
because it speaks to their personality, values and aspirations, then
more likely than just wanting a ‘quick financial gain’, they actually
want you to solve the issue so that they and other customers get
the experience they craved.
HUMAN INTERACTION - NOT TECHNOLOGY
Cultures around the globe vary and, according to a PcW survey of
American consumers, only 3% were happy with a technology-only
response when things go wrong. We want to talk directly to
someone, we want them to listen, and we want them to say the
‘sorry’ word as if they mean it. You need to have a process that can
be easily accessed - perhaps initially by technology - so that more
customers give you an opportunity to put their complaint right. Only
a staggeringly small 4% of customers complain, the rest just take
their business elsewhere, and with that you’ve lost a golden
opportunity to transform a customer’s problem into customer loyalty.
ASK ME - DON’T ASSUME
My book, Keep Calm and Carry on Complaining, highlights some poor examples of customer service when goods and services didn’t perform
as expected or advertised. It was only once the situation with my complaints had escalated to the CEO that there was any dialogue around
what an acceptable resolution would look like from my perspective. None of the respective customer service teams asked me what I was
looking for. If BMW, for example, had not lied to me [and others] about their sub-standard DAB Radio, I would probably have accepted a
special BMW cable to connect my iPhone to the audio system. Instead, over 10 months my complaint escalated to the stage where they
eventually took back my car, refunding me in full the initial finance deposit and all 10 monthly payments. Essentially, I’d enjoyed ‘free BMW
motoring’ for 10 months, and they had a car back with 10 months depreciation, which might have been averted for the sake of a £100 cable.
They didn’t ask. And then I made a short video with damming evidence of their lies, at which point everything changed.
In the UK, 80% of our GDP is generated by
the service sector and almost 80% of
people are employed in customer-facing
roles.
Whilst this book highlights my success as
consumer, the real lessons to be learnt
from my book are for business leaders and,
to put it bluntly, “How not to treat your
customers when YOUR goods and
Services Don’t Perform as Expected.”
In my real-life examples, BMW, VW, TUI,
Microsoft and the Chateau Impney Hotel
would have all saved money by providing
excellent customer service as a given, and
not just because I embarrassed them into
it.
Why Customer Service Matters
to the UK Economy
ESSENTIAL COURSE READING
offer far more than just the shared appreciation of the written word[s]. They bring people together socially, even
when socially-distanced over Zoom, and, unless you are a specialist group, help members navigate through a selection
of literary, fiction, non-fiction, the-book-of-the-movie, and more.
Keep Calm and Carry on Complaining brings short-story telling to the world of consumer championing, and almost
certainly provides clubs with a book that’s unlike anything your members will have read before, and one that will
generate passionate discussion across many different aspects; short stories, David v. Goliath consumer victories, and
even complaints that individuals have had themselves! In fact, there are many social conversations that this book will
generate.
Act quickly if your book club would like [signed or unsigned] first editions for your members at a great price. Contact
me directly for orders of five or more copies to a single address
Book Clubs
HAVE YOU GOT A BAD
BMW DAB RADIO?
I’m curious to know how
many BMW drivers, like me,
were told that problems
with the ‘signal loss’ on
their DAB radios were
caused by poor transmission
quality of Digital Audio
Broadcasting [DAB] in the
UK?
Drop me a line here to
share your experience with
me.
PRAISE FOR Keep Calm and Carry on Complaining…
“Just laughing my way through your book, it’s brilliant.”
“What is it about corporates not being able to say ‘sorry’?”
“I laughed out loud at the Mexico holiday issues.”
“My BMW Radio does that too!”
Discover how I got a £1500 refund from TUI when
our Mexican resort coastline was blighted with seaweed
instead of the “White Sands and Warm Seas” promised in their brochure
and website advertising.
#meTUI
Keep Calm and Carry on Complaining
The perfect gift for the ‘moaner’ in your life!