Alex Oliver writes:

I was lucky enough to present some of our current insight about trust and decision-making, especially at a local level, to a group of local government leaders earlier this month.  In short, it suggests that there’s a growing public appetite for more engagement and involvement, as well as greater confidence in decision making at the local level, compared to central government.

But there are also still significant barriers to engagement faced by certain groups, including younger people. These include knowing how to get involved, which often is not obvious. (Other work we’ve done for government about this also identified that if people did get involved, they needed to believe that their actions would make a difference and their opinions would be listened to; councils still forget to tell people about the impact their involvement has had on the outcomes.)

I also looked at the area of digital service delivery. Work done by the IIPS – the Institute for Insight into Public Services, the think tank we jointly run with TNS-BMRB – shows that concerns still exist around the potential inequalities inherent in internet service delivery for older and less affluent groups, along with the need to consider the role of other digital channels including i-TV and mobile.  People continue to prefer personal channels (phone and face to face) where personal information is concerned, and still expect to be offered choice. The mail is still preferred by a significant proportion of the population (around a third) for forms and payments. People who use services continue to expect multi-channel delivery, rather than being funnelled into one channel. And from a service provider’s perspective, getting the mix of user and channel right can represent a big cost saving.

And the research findings on choice and quality of service continue to be worth emphasising; all social groups, and ages, put quality above choice. And those who value choice more – typically in poorer social groups who don’t have as much choice generally – are also most worried about their ability to make the right choices.

Andrew Curry writes:

Over the holiday I had to take myself and my bike by long distance train. I’d heard bad things about the bureaucracy involved, so I decided to visit my local mainline station to sort it out in person. And this story doesn’t turn out the way you’re expecting.

In fact it was one of the best customer service experiences I’ve had all year. When the ticket clerk heard when I wanted to travel, the first question she asked was whether I had some flexibility – travelling half an hour earlier or later made the fare quite a lot cheaper, and it helped that she split the journey into two separate parts rather than selling me a single through ticket (rail’s arcane pricing structure doesn’t do it any favours).

She then made sure that my seat reservation was as close as possible to the guard’s van, where my bike would be, reminded me that the bike needed a ticket attached to it during the journey, and finally, as about eight tickets popped out of her printer, put them all into a little wallet grouped by journey stage.

What I liked about this, apart from the fact that I saved about £30, was that my service representative had a picture of my entire journey in her head, and set about making it as straightforwards as possible for me. I’d like to be able to give credit where it’s due, and name the station, but I’ve heard (though can’t find a link) that at least one rail franchise has responded to the downturn by telling staff to maximise revenues. This is short-sighted, to say the least. Digital media consultancies increasingly say that “earned media” – where a company’s actions earn from their users good digital or personal plaudits, such as this blog – is the most effective form of promotion. The rail company has already earned its £30 back in promotion several times over.

The picture is courtesy of the London Cycling Campaign, and was taken by Lionel Shapiro. It is used with thanks.

Rebecca Nash writes:

Segmentation is widely used in the private sector, to get closer to customers, to provide a language for understanding, and to create a framework to make the most of available resources. In the public sector, it can represent a powerful way both to prioritise customer insight and improve service delivery. Hence the reason that the IIPS (Institute for Insight in the Public Services, the co-venture between The Futures Company and BMRB) turned its attention to segmentation in its first breakfast briefing of the year, in particular as a tool for service transformation.

While planning the event we realised that, despite these benefits, some are put off by segmentation because of its specialist, technical jargon. But we also wanted to make the point that segmentation demands more than analytical skills – it also requires strategic and cultural awareness. A segmentation team needs to draw on a range of expertise to succeed, and the cultural challenges can be just as significant as technical ones.

In her presentation, IIPS Chair Michelle Harrison demystified the use of segmentation for those interested in better designing and embedding the method in their organisations but also emphasised that organisations must be clear about why they’re using segmentation. Sometimes it is not an appropriate insight tool and other methods will work better.

In the public sector there is growing recognition of the benefits of customer segmentations, but there are still concerns about equity (when some, not all, groups are targeted); the scale of public services (when your ‘customers’ are entire populations); and the analytical approximations that produce the segments (the boundaries of attitudinal and behavioural segments). But panellists from the Department for Schools, Children and Families (DCSF) and the Department of Health (DH) illuminated how segmentations that go beyond socio-demographic profiles are informing policy, interventions, marketing and communications, and how the government community is building up a body of best practice in this area.

The Futures Company will take another look at the technical and cultural challenges of segmentation, from the perspective of the private sector, when we host a breakfast briefing at our More London offices on 14 May. Please contact Jennifer.Kivett@thefuturescompany.com for more information.

Giles Powdrill writes:

“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter-and getting smarter faster than most companies.” So said the Cluetrain Manifesto almost exactly a decade ago. The prescience of the work lay in the authors’ clear understanding of the connective potential of the web and the shift in power from companies to individuals which would accompany its growth.

However, despite witnessing this shift in power, the majority of organisations still haven’t adapted their business practices to embrace the internet. They are not making use of the networks, the empowerment or the easy conversation and collaboration made possible through the social media technologies broadly described as ‘Web 2.0′ to help create new types of relationships with their customers. For many, the internet is still just another channel.

But maybe this is beginning to change: perhaps the current recession, the first of the truly digital age, will be looked back upon as being the spur to growth of new types of online commerce. We are already witnessing the growing success of online shopping, price comparison websites and digital advertising in the downturn, but these are only first steps – doing old things in a new way. The real challenge is about greater engagement; working with and for consumers in an open way. It is about companies demonstrating that they know enough about customers and their behaviours to deliver a benefit. Combining transparency with networked data and new technological infrastructure can create situations where all gain, customers and companies alike, but if companies don’t work out how to use these new networks, they may find themselves bypassed as people decide to do it for themselves instead.

A good example of a company getting it right is Zopa, the social lending site set up by banking professionals on which people lend directly to borrowers online. Borrowers bid for funds, and lenders choose whether to respond. Lenders get good returns, and borrowers get lower cost loans. Zopa makes its margin by charging both parties a fee. Default rates are low and lenders can see their borrowers and follow the progress of the their loan. Zopa has disintermediated the banking business by adding social networking and a human touch. In terms of Recession 2.0 it’s a sign of the times. As the Cluetrain Manifesto said: markets are conversations.

The picture, ‘the garden of Zopa’, is from a digital campaign by the social lending site to demonstrate the benefits of personal involvement and mutual help.

Andrew Curry writes:

Visiting the British Museum’s Hadrian exhibition on a wet Sunday in August isn’t perhaps the most sensible thing to do, although the exhibition is striking even when it’s teeming with visitors. But the trip was at least as educational about the BM’s approach to customer service.

While waiting to buy my timed tickets, the screens behind the ticket desk advertised to me the benefits of membership (‘Join today and see Hadrian free’). I had some time to do the sums, and it seemed like a reasonable offer. So when I reached the desk I asked if I could buy membership instead. Not here, apparently, but over there – at a desk with another long queue at it. Having waited several minutes already, I bought the ordinary one-day exhibition tickets instead. Lost revenue, lost relationship, from the Museum’s point of view. ‘It doesn’t seem sensible to advertise membership here and not to sell it’, I observed, helpfully. ‘I know’ said the woman at the counter. ‘We have mentioned it to the management’.

Being a wet Sunday, I had an umbrella with me. It had been pretty visible when I bought the tickets, since umbrellas aren’t the sort of thing you tend to hide unless you’re a hitman. When we got to the entrance of the Hadrian exhibition for our timed entry, 40 minutes later, the attendant told me that I couldn’t take the umbrella in; it would have to go to the cloakroom. ‘I could have been told that when I bought the tickets’ I pointed out, both to the attendant and later to the man in the Cloakroom. ‘I know’, said the man in the Cloakroom. ‘We’ve been telling the management for the last two exhibitions, but they haven’t done anything about it’.

Of course, the British Museum’s not unique in not listening to its customer-facing staff. Lots of organisations forget that they’re the first to hear (often the only people to hear) when their customer-facing systems aren’t entirely customer friendly. Usually managers are too busy telling their staff about new instructions to find the time to listen to them.

As for the Hadrian exhibition, it’s open until 26th October. But don’t go on a wet Sunday. And if you do, don’t take an umbrella.

Though it is hard to gauge the full impact of the postal strike on the economy, it is worth considering the response of different organisations. Whilst big businesses will have been able to avoid the worst as they have their own delivery methods, others appear to have used this as an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to serving the customer.

For example, Boden sent out an email to all their customers letting them know deliveries would be unaffected as they were using their courier network, despite the extra expense (“the finance department might grumble a bit, but needs must and all that”). The Economist has encouraged its readers to read a copy online or download an audio edition, as well as, more interestingly, offered to hand deliver to addresses in central locations across a number of major cities in the UK.

Taking this kind of action reminds me of an area of customer service, “service recovery” which a number of our clients are getting interested in. “Service recovery”, put simply, is doing something to delight the customer after they have had a negative experience (generally the company has made some kind of mistake). Service recovery is likely to generate valuable positive word of mouth and loyalty, as well as touch those customers who appear unengaged by the company and the brand: the large mass of “neither satisfied, nor dissatisfied”. Who knows if, by taking appropriate action to deal with the postal strikes, has in fact improved customer satisfaction for some businesses?