Pointing Fingers Will Damage Your Credibility

I was recently involved in a customer service experience that reminded me just how badly a company can damage its brand by trying to pass the blame on to others. Here's the example...

On Monday I was offered a phone upgrade from O2 and accepted it. The operator I spoke to confirmed the contract agreement and the delivery dates and addresses. She told me exactly when and where the phone would arrive: Two days later to my home address. I consequently ensured I'd be working from home to receive the item.

By afternoon on Wednesday nothing had arrived, so I called the telecoms firm to check up on it because the tracking system on their website showed the delivery as "complete". After explaining that "complete" simply meant that the phone was now in DHL's hands - no really! - the guy then followed it up and came back to tell me that the phone had in fact been delivered the day before to another address altogether and no one was there to collect it. The operator I spoke to had for some reason written the wrong address on the form to DHL.

Blame Shift #1 - Me
The guy then tried to suggest that I must have given them the wrong address, and it was therefore not the fault of his delivery department that the phone hadn't turned up. No matter that few people are quite so stupid as to give their home address wrong. After a few raises in tone of voice, we agreed that it was best to move and set-up the re-delivery.

Blame Shift #2 - DHL's process
Apparently once the courier found that no one was available at the address given, he returned the item to the depot for dispatch back to O2. The sensible thing would've been to call my phone number and check before turning back round. This is a telecoms company after all and they have my number. The return cycle meant that they would not be able to deliver the phone for at least 24hrs.

Blame Shift #3 - The Rules
Having established that I could no longer get the phone that day even though there was still most of the afternoon to go, the operator insisted that it could only be sent to the address on file i.e. my home address. This was regardless of the fact that I would not be there, as I was due to be in the office the next day. The fact that they had just sent the phone to an address not on file, didn't seem to hold merit. That was the rule, and the guy refused to budge on this point, so I had to get a manager.

Blame Shift #4 - The Operator
The manager immediately blamed the operator for being obstructive and agreed to deliver it to the office as per my request, but insisted that since they had to follow DHL's rules, there was nothing that could be done to get to me any quicker than 24hrs. This is regardless of the fact that DHL was their choice of courier, for some reason they believe that the customer will understand the need for the company's cost savings and should make allowances for how the delivery is done.

Anyway, the next afternoon there was still no phone so I called up again

Blame Shift #5 - The Manager
The lady I spoke to informed me that in fact the delay cycle for DHL was 2 days and not 24hrs, and the manager should never have agreed to having it delivered the next day. She then told me that since the item was with DHL I should call them myself. Note that at this point DHL is now being treated as a fully functioning third party, almost as though the customer was responsible for arranging them to make the delivery.

So I called DHL who told me they still had the wrong address on file and had received no further instructions from the O2. I duly went back to O2 and tried again.

Blame Shift #6 - The Automated System
The new person I spoke to investigated and blamed the system. It turns out that the reason the instruction never went through was that the manager who noted my new address made a mistake with the postcode and the system thus didn't recognise it. This failure did not of course trigger any workflow to phone me and correct the problem. Again, remember this is a telecoms company who should really be using the medium they're selling. They waited for me to figure out that there was another issue, and call them back. After fixing this particular error she regretted to inform me that the earliest I could now get my phone was midway through next week.

Blame Shift #7 - Easter
My phone can't be delivered because it's the Easter weekend, so DHL now won't get the updated instructions until Saturday and then won't deliver til at least Tuesday. This means that a next day delivery agreement will not be fulfilled for at least a week. There is no good reason for this. Considering that we live a 24/7 life, and couriers work 7 days a week, the obvious logic is penny pinching on O2's part.

The cheek of the whole thing is that O2 started charging me for the new contract the day I agreed the upgrade (Monday). A full week before I'm actually likely to get the phone. By this point I was so frustrated with the quality of service that I seriously considered cancelling the entire contract and switching companies, which meant that the customer service person had to bribe me by giving me the next month free just to keep my business. The worst bit though is that I had to ask for it. You would think an appeasement would be the first thing offered to an irate customer.

The upshot of all this is that O2 have had to pay additional delivery costs to DHL, have lost revenue from me, and now have a global reputation drop through my sharing of this story.

The added delivery costs, the financial loss, and the brand damage could all have been averted with a simple phone call to me when the delivery guy turned up to the wrong address. As it turns out the error put him just 20 doors down and could've walked up the street to deliver it to me. Even if the processes and mistakes were inevitable, the brand damage to O2 could easily have been avoided by taking responsibility for the trouble, and recognising that as a customer I have an agreement with O2 alone, and not the rest of their supply chain.

For any business there is absolutely no justification for messing your customers about, or expecting them to pay for poor process and management. If you mess up, don't point fingers. Suck it up and focus on rebuilding your customer's trust. You'll save money, keep your sale, and maybe your customer will even put in a good word for your brand.