Betty Heirich's secret weapon may be her unique workforce. She employs six stay-at-home moms who work in shifts at the real-chat beat.
Heirich uses a service called Human-Click, which is a sophisticated version of a free instant-messenger program. When a visitor arrives at the site, SkiMall's employees hear a doorbell-like ring. They can "approach" the potential customer, much as they would in a real store, by starting an online conversation. Heirich claims that her employees respond immediately about 50% of the time and answer messages within 24 hours. One major exception: when 20 inches of fresh powder fall, it's "understood that nobody works," she says.
The HumanClick software is set up to provide a visitor "footprint" that reveals such things as, say, which site the user has visited immediately before accessing SkiMall's site. Such clues about customers' interests help the company's reps jump-start conversations. Some visitors are shocked to discover they are "conversing" with an actual human being in cyberspace. "I've had people ask me, 'Is this a real person or a bot?" says Heirich, who previously worked in retail jobs in ski-resort towns. She pays nothing for the basic version of HumanClick, although a more advanced version of the program costs $150 a month.
By her company's second holiday season, its business had tripled, she says. The site draws about 100,000 hits a month.
Path Three: Real-Time Feedback
When John and Amy Howard launched Carrot's Ink Cartridges, in Carrollton, Tex., three years ago, they did so with trepidation. They knew their product line, no-name ink-jet cartridges, was a commodity, so service would make or break the business. But today the Howards don't have to wonder if they're doing all right by their customers. They get a real-time report card every day from BizRate, one of a handful of services that survey the customers of online businesses. What's more, the service is free.
The Howards simply wait for the survey results, which arrive by E-mail every afternoon. Customers are asked to fill out two E-mail surveys, the first time when they make their purchase and the second when their item is delivered. Cooperating customers are rewarded with online scratch tickets or other chances to win cash. The Howards have been pleasantly surprised at the number of customers who fill out BizRate's 10-point survey, which covers things like customer support. The response rate has averaged at least 20%, and on some days it's as high as 35%. BizRate adds up the scores Carrot's receives and sends the Howards a "VitalMail" report.
On a typical day recently, the overall score Carrot's got was 9.3, putting it in the top 1% of BizRate merchants. Just as pertinent as the ratings are the comments that come directly from customers. "I like reading the comments. They're more important than the metrics," John Howard says, since the real-time information can help the company correct problems quickly and systematically. Thanks in part to that advantage, Carrot's has raised its revenues to $2 million since its launch.
Getting from users an instant snapshot of how a company is doing is a big breakthrough in customer service, says consultant Patricia Seybold. What companies can measure "in or near real time," she says, differs from the quality of data they can collect if they survey their customers once a year. That doesn't mean that every time customers call or send E-mail, they should get a "little five-point questionnaire," adds Seybold, who recommends that companies start slowly by polling a percentage of their customers each week.
The moving service, RMR, does exactly that. Its real-time feedback from customers is the "most incredible quality-control tool," Bob Carbonell says. "It's live hot data. It gives us an opportunity to resolve issues that are festering."
Real-time feedback from customers is the "most incredible quality-control tool," says company president Bob Carbonell. "It's live hot data."
Each day, RMR's managers receive the results of a two-page satisfaction survey that customers have completed on the Web. The old, paper version of the survey got a 15% response, says Carbonell. Shifting to the Web has boosted the rate more than threefold.
RMR's surveys go out at the conclusion of each move. The transferee receives an E-mail message that is linked to the survey. He or she is asked to type in comments and answer 20 questions. Half pertain to RMR's service, half to the performance of the moving agent selected by RMR. If a mover or a truck driver has a string of low scores, RMR calls right away to correct the problem. Measured on its own 10-point scale, RMR's own customer-satisfaction rating stands at about 90%, according to John Carbonell, the company's sales man- ager and Bob's brother. He says that's a good average, since "you hear more from people with any kind of problem." But, of course, that's exactly who you want to hear from sooner rather than later.
Stratis Morfogen of FultonStreet heartily agrees. "The customer who says, 'You stink!' -- that's the one we want to talk to," he says. Moreover, when Morfogen, also a BizRate subscriber, receives any kind of negative feedback through that channel, he routinely sends an "Egift certificate" to acknowledge the complaint.
