It has been a while that I have not updated this site. One major reason is that I have to travel to another place even when the COVID-19 is still ongoing and number of cases around the world are still growing.
Travel is not longer the same now comparing to pre-covid-19 days. In the next a few sections, I will share my experience of traveling during this period.
Stay tuned!
Take care and stay safe.
COVID has impacted most part of the globe for more than one year. the world is not longer the same as it was more one and half year ago, so does how business is conducted.
As the physical contact is restricted, that impacts how customer is interacting with the businesses and how businesses are to address the new demands from customers.
by default, online seems to be first option. That actually raises the bar on how the business could be leverage online presence and interaction channels. the business has to consider how to leverage various technology options and provide customer omni-channel experience and ensure the smooth handover from different touch point. Many businesses have been considering this. But the emergency of Covid has actually accelerated the process – you have to do it in order to survive.
This is no only just technology change, but complete business model revisit and refresh or probably reset and restart!
After waited for 2 days, I received a call the card issuer. They agreed to reinstate my point with only 3 months life-span.
Well, that is OK, finally I could get them back.
if we think about the whole process. There are inconsistencies in their service touch points.
What are goods:
what did not go well:
hope this is the last time..
One feature of credit card is award points which could be used to redeem vouchers, airline points, hotel points… and some credit cards issuers also claim that the points will never expires..
I have a few credit cards from the same issuer and I accumulated quite significant amount points on a few cards – my purpose is to transfer the points to my frequent flyer program and claim reward tickets – this has been delayed due to current covid-19 situation.
I thought the points would never expires as the issuer mentioned in their advertisement. And that was caught me by surprise when I check my account a few days back – a significant drop of award points -> more than 90% of my reward points in one credit card were gone. What happened?
I picked the phone and contacted their customer service center, and I was told the following:
but the customer agent was agree to request reinstate the award points, but it would take one or two days. finger crossed, I will update you the outcome later.
But, did I miss anything? I start to dig what were the exact statements from the issuer.
first, whether the points expires? actually, there are different terms attached to different cards issued by the same issuers. some do not expire at all, some will expire in 5 years, some will expire in just one year (luckily none of my card is under this category). but the confusion comes as “Point-never-expire” was highlighted in their advertisement and that confuse card members.
second, do they notify me? Yes, they mentioned in their monthly statement that certain amount would be expired in 60 days and advised me to check the web site. Now the issues:
I was thinking to cut all my connection with the issuers. but probably not immediately now. as I still have award points in other card. But on the hand, the practice they adopted does not seem that they have the customer interests in their mind, probably not, why?
of course, it could be their oversight in the customer journey experience design.
yes, they can claim that all these are so called “Term & Conditions” – a multi page document that hide somewhere in their web site..
I wrote a post about 5 years ago when a famous fast food chain started to change its ordering process. I copied it at the end as reference.
if you could recall, long time back, the counter staff took the order and collected the food items ordered for the same customer before he or she took the order from the next customer. Things has changed a lot since then..
one major change now is that food order kiosk replace the staff.. But that does not improve customer experience:
what are the motivation for such change?
but will these improve customer experience or address customer need?
”
A typical expectation when you walk into a fast food restaurant is to get something to feed your stomach with relatively not expensive food and within short period of time. if there is long queue of customers, probably you will blame your own luck.
however, it could be due to the fact that there something interesting happen behind the counter. Just like this morning, when I walked into a famous fast food chain, I thought I was lucky as there are just a few persons waiting in a queue. When I was queuing, I noticed that the serving procedure was quite interesting.
First, the customer was not served one by one. the staff behind the cash register took orders from roughly 3 customers in one go before he/she start to fulfil the orders. The orders were showed in the screens in the kitchen as well. the backend staffs watched screen and prepared food/drink. Looks good?
however, it was clear that the staff did not know exactly who ordered what exactly, once the food was ready and brought to counter, staff had to check the orders (at least 3) and find out who should get coffee and who should get egg burger..
And if you have ordered multiple meals, it seemed to be worse as the order was not cleared in the screen. it happened quite often that staff had no idea whether certain items had been served by his/her colleagues or not..
was this really save time and improve customer experience? I doubt. “
It has been a while that I had not added new post here.
Time flies.. It is approaching the end of year 2020 and a new year is coming. Covid-19 virus changes the world – how people work, live, think… and it will the change the world forever.
Even there are good news that vaccinations are coming soon, but the lives of everyone changed.
With current COVID-19 situation, working from home (WFH) is new normal for me. I use a Dell monitor instead of watching the small laptop screen for more than 10 hours everyday.
However, I started to notice that the color near the edges became faded especially when dark colors were shown a few months ago. Since it was still lock-down at that time, I decided put it aside first.
here is what happened when I decided to get it solved.
First, I searched Dell website to find out how to get support.
Now, when I think the whole experience of my monitor issue, this is probably one the best post-sale support I received (the others are from Apple), especially the first call resolution attitude. But definitely there are rooms for improvement:
your thoughts?
It is Saturday afternoon. Things were moving slowly. I just thought I need something to boost my energy. Instead of going out, I decided to order something from Starbucks via local food delivery platform.. a bit lazy choice.
The ordering went smoothly. The app is easy to use, you can find Starbucks easily and offering from Starbucks were presented nicely. I selected a cup of coffee, a cup of tea as well as a small cake, for my wife and myself. The payment process was quite great. No more typing of 16 or 15 digits of your credit card, it was integrated with Apple Pay (I am using iPhone). Once payment was confirmed, the app presented order status “preparing…”. I received email confirmation as well. So far so good
You can image that preparing a cup of coffee and tea is not going to take much time especially they are from Starbucks. But, I started to get worried what was going on as the app still showing the status preparing, just tea and coffee… you know..
30 minutes was gone, no change of the status – still preparing, I checked the app – only 3 standard items available for my pending order – – basically, you can not cancel it, you can not change it.. . And I started to search whether there was any customer support channel available – nothing in the App. I went to their website – Great! the help center only presented standard answer, no online chat and no phone number. And I did google search. and then I got email to their support – usually, that would not solve anything in a timely manner.
almost 40 minutes passed, my order was still preparing. I decided to send an email to their support anyway.
email was sent and just after that I received a notification that my order is on the way, finally, after more than 50 minutes from a Starbucks probably just 1km away.
The issue here is me,as customer does not have any means to address their needs to find out what was going on and whether they could do anything – change the order, cancel the order or … This in turn, I believe, would impact their decision when they need to select the delivery platform next time.
I checked “help” again after my order was delivered, I noticed that the items available were related delivery (anything missing, any problem, wrong order), payment, feedback about delivery person, and late delivery (was it a bit too late to ask whether the delivery was late? ) Actually, I noticed that there were chat function under certain questions, for example, missing item, order marked as delivered but not received yet. .. It seems that the platform adopted smarter approach to deploy their support resource:
I received their email response within the 30 minutes after i clicked send button. I was surprised. At least, someone was working on the customer support email and addressing the concern form customer.
I would say the missing piece here is how to deal customer frustration when there is delay in food preparation which is not under their direct control. But that is also one of key pain point their customer is facing I believe. I really do not want wait for my coffee for 50 minutes.
have a good cup of coffee!
it has been a while that I have not updated anything here.
COVID-19 – a term that did not exist in 2019, changes the world completely:
The epidemic has forced people to think and act differently in order to continue the basic activities.. This impacts not only to everyone’s personal life but also how each business should be conducted. many business activities stalled – airline, hotel, … and some are
From customer interaction perspective, one big challenge limited physical face to face interactions and people movement, – physical shop, customer interfaces… Many of these have to be transferred to the digital platforms.. that does not means the one to one copy.. this requires changes of complete mindset, thinking and process of business delivery.. Digitization – a term is becoming popular in recent years, will be one of key elements to determine the survival a company, whether you like it or not. and the CX (customer experience ) in digital only should be one of key elements in “new normal” world.
with the spread of Covid-19 virus around world, I, as many of people around, try to cut my grocery shopping trips and switch to online platforms.
I believe the demands are surging drastically:
the first thing frustrated me the most is last minutes cancellation by on-line shop. I assumed that when I ordered something and completed the payment, the stuff should be “reserved” in their system and the stocks are actually available as indicated online. however, quite often, certain items were cancelled by the online shop just on the day before scheduled delivery day. could this be their system problem? they could cope with the demands? Usually, what is missing is “hot” stuff, like hand sanitizer, hand wash, .. or is this just their trick to attract more traffic/visits?
second, it is very very difficult to secure a delivery slot. One online shop just tell you no slot available, another one, provide a list of slots, but non could be booked… And, there is no clear update on how slots are allocated, released. I tried a few days continuously at different time, the result? always the same. I could understand the high demands for deliveries services, but I am also expecting a bit clearer update..
third, some online shops still present out-of-stock items in their web sites and apps without clear indication at very beginning. you only know that the item is not available when you click the item and try to order…
I believe the key here is how to reduce customers’ frustration during current difficult time. could it be better if the online portal or app could
those might not be issue under normal circumstance, but, there are always new challenges… covid-19 could be probably today, there could be something completely new after Covid-19
take care and stay safe
