An alternative to “Random Acts Of Kindness”

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One of the great buzz phrases in the world of customer experience is “Random Acts of Kindness.” These programs — which even have their own acronym: RAOK — empower employees to randomly do something nice for customers. This isn’t systematic and algorithmically calculated in the way an airline or hotel might upgrade one of their better customers, but something that is truly random.

Two of my favorite examples were shared by Sean Risebrow, then of Virgin Media at Forrester’s Customer Experience conference in London a couple of years ago. Sean referenced a Virgin Media employee who sent a picture frame to a new broadband customer who mentioned that he had just become a grandfather for the first time. He wanted the faster speed internet to be able to Skype or FaceTime his family to see the baby as he grew. The employee sent the picture frame along with a note of congratulations – just because it was a kind thing to do. In a separate example, another Virgin Media employee received a written cancellation notice from an elderly woman who had bought two smartphones — one each for her husband and herself. When the couple received the phones, they discovered that their elderly and shaky hands weren’t the greatest for using a touchscreen smartphone. She wrote and said that she loved Virgin Media but was going to have to cancel her contract because the phones didn’t suit their needs. Rather than slapping the couple with hefty cancellation fees, the employee went online and researched the best phones for elderly people. She bought two of them (yes, they weren’t phones that Virgin Media sold) and sent them to the elderly couple with a note that expressed their hope that they would work better for their needs and said “We love you too.” Now, admittedly, I’ve heard from plenty of UK-based friends that they’ve had markedly different experiences with Virgin Media, but regardless of your direct experience, I think these are two great examples of how a RAOK program should work.

But, whether or not your company has a formal RAOK program, it’s worth considering whether they have an unofficial COAH program. Yes, I’m coining my own acronym which stands for “Concerted Acts Of Hostility”. Unfortunately, in my experience, they are far more common. I think of these as different to Reicheld’s ‘bad profits’ — you know those charges that firms slap on their customers, usually when the customer is trapped into the relationship. Instead, I’m thinking of policies and procedures that are deliberately unfriendly to customers. And, policies that employees either won’t or can’t circumvent to help the firm appear less deliberately unkind to their customers.

I’ve written previously about Apple’s lack of employee empowerment, and my experiences with Starwood, Hertz and JetBlue as it relates to customer animosity. As an update to my US Airways experience, I was back in Dublin last week and worked with my mother to complete the requirements to get the value of her canceled ticket transferred over to me – minus the $150 fee, of course! Today, they called me to tell me that the letter that she had signed and witnessed — as requested — has to be notarized. At what stage does a company stop and consider its policies and realize that they are engaging in Concerted Acts Of Hostility? In the case of US Airways, that stage clearly hasn’t happened yet. Have you taken a look at your own policies lately? Even if you don’t have a formal RAOK program, for the love of your customers, please take a look and see if you have any COAH behaviors that are damaging your customer relationships.

Cheers,
Dave

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Dave Frankland
Dave is an independent consultant, published author (Marketing to the Entitled Consumer), and former-Forrester research director who has helped scores of companies architect winning customer strategies. He has worked with companies as diverse as Fortune 50 enterprises and fledgling startups to help define desired customer relationships; recognize gaps, barriers, and opportunities; and build roadmaps, establish processes, and identify metrics to measure and demonstrate success.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks for the comment Michael. We’re in absolutely agreement here. The only comment I’d make in defense of the companies that do have RAOK programs is that while the acts of kindness appear random to the customer, there is almost always a very concerted, guideline/rules-based program in place to enable employees to act. Behind the scenes, the programs are anything but random, but they are designed to identify random moments in which to act. Also, many of these companies celebrate the random acts internally through storytelling, awards, etc.
    Cheers,
    Dave

  2. Am I missing something? COAH = Concerted Acts of Hostility? BTW — I think the issue is whether a firm wants to rely on a frontline employee’s “personal service ethic” to determine success, versus a corporate-wide, customer-centric culture.

  3. You’re right Deborah, it should be “CAOH” – either way, I doubt it’s going to be institutionalized in writing. Unfortunately, it’s all too common in practice.

    I’m not sure that a “personal service ethic” and “corporate-wide, customer-centric culture” have to be mutually exclusive. Clearly, one trumps neither…

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