Category Archives: General

Percepta at the DMA Ball

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On the 11th of November this year, Percepta attended the Direct Marketing Association’s 17th Anniversary Ball, held in Edinburgh’s Prestonfield Hotel, located at the foot of Arthur’s Seat.  The beautifully decorated stables adjacent to the hotel itself would host the event, providing guests with a spectacular setting for the evening’s festivities.  Those attending were greeted to a champagne reception upon arrival, followed by a three course meal, ceilidh and late night disco, giving them the chance to chat and get to know other members of the DMA from throughout the UK.

The event also saw the welcome return of the Percepta sponsored “Groovy Booth”, where attendees could pose for photographs dressed in various comedy wigs, hats and oversized sunglasses (those of a nervous disposition have been warned).  This year’s revellers did not disappoint, with queues for the booth stretching across the dance floor at times.

The highlight of the night was the ever popular Orcadian Strip the Willow, which got the majority of the crowd off their seats and onto the dance floor. As many of the attendees headed for the DMA after party, they were thankful that there was no repeat of last year’s weather (2010’s ball marked the beginning of the heavy snow, which lasted well into the New Year).

Overall, the night was a huge success, and the grandeur of the setting was matched only by the party atmosphere throughout the evening. Very much looking forward to next year!

When Social Media Goes Wrong – Poor BlackBerry

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My personal online accounts have been flooded with comments from friends, colleagues and business contacts about the recent ‘disaster’ caused by system failure from BlackBerry owner Research in Motion (RIM).

So what got people so upset?

Well, firstly it was the problem itself. People today just expect that, as most of our lives are run by or with technology, it should always work – 100%, every minute of every day. That just doesn’t happen.

But overwhelmingly, the comments I read are about the complete lack of information from BlackBerry, with one or two messages posted each day on Twitter advising that something is wrong (well that’s a no-brainer to every single user). What makes this even worse is that news channels report the PR releases that all will be fixed soon and the days tick on where some customers just don’t see a fix in sight.

From such a tech-savvy business, I think we could be right in saying we expected them to handle the failure, and importantly the expectation, much better.

Why have so many channels of communication and not use them? The nature of Twitter, for example, is right now! Not 12 hours ago, but the last few minutes.

So, what could we learn from this?

Firstly, be multichannel. If you are going to open channels of communication with your customers, use them and allow them to be used.

Secondly, engage. The disaster might not be just so bad if only someone had kept things updated. From the messages I have read, slowly but surely over the past 24 hours, people started to come online. Well that’s a good message, so let your customers know that is happening and reassure.

Thirdly, act. Fix the problem (obviously). But now it’s known that millions of customers aren’t happy, prepare for the fall out. Have a plan to respond to those complaints & requests for compensation. Get your staff up to date on your simple ‘policy’ to help them respond quickly.

Maybe, a good response from the company and a good fall-out plan might just save the day.

For the moment, I’m sticking with my Apple though – with my fingers crossed.

Alan

Wanted: An Automotive Sales Manager Who Focuses on Quality, Not Quick Talking

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We all know the stereotypes around salespeople, such as being silver tongued, having the gift of the gab and being able to talk the hind legs off a horse. While eloquence is never a bad thing, it’s not the only thing and we’re looking for in an Automotive Sales Manager who wants to build a lasting relationship rather than make a quick buck.

We’re looking for someone with experience and enthusiasm to be a key member of our sales team, proactively working to achieve specific revenue, profit and customer satisfaction targets. Our ideal candidate will have an automotive technical background or qualification, as a key part of the role will be the consulting service provided to UK dealers.

The successful candidate will be essential in providing comprehensive sales and support services to key account holders, whist also identifying opportunities to develop sales and exploit potential areas of growth.

If you feel you are the person we are looking for, convince us by clicking the link here to apply online.

What’s The Story?

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Or maybe the question is “What’s the format?”

Growing up, reading and being read to, is something that really stands out in my head. Whether getting absorbed in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or being read the Hobbit by my Dad, I have always enjoyed the escapism and enjoyment that can be found in a good book.

I still like to curl up on the sofa or tuck up in bed and read a good book and now take a lot of joy from reading to my children in the same way as my Dad did for my brother & I. Times are changing now though and with new formats and options coming out, I find myself torn between the traditional and modern.

For me, this is the only place that I am still holding on to the past, I don’t have any vinyl or CDs, I am happy to shop online (in fact I prefer it), I prefer checking bank statements online rather than getting them through the post and I wholeheartedly agree that there really is an ‘app for everything’.

The traditional book is well & truly covered for me and I have, with some trepidation considered alternative sources. I listened to my first audio book when I discovered a promotional free download of the first of the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson. I downloaded it, put it on my iPod and listened to the whole book in the car on my way to and from work – I liked it. The same applied with the second book; I was given the CDs as a gift and followed exactly the same process (but I disliked having to change the CD between sections). For the third in the series, I read the actual book. At this point, I had the correct pronunciation of the characters names, a forced idea of what the tone of their voice and accent to an extent sounded like and whilst I like the familiarity, I normally decide those things for myself and then am invariably disappointed when a film is released and the characters are nothing like I imagined them (William Golding’s Lord of the Flies being the biggest disappointment for me but that topic should maybe be the subject of another blog).

Moving on to other formats, I have also tried reading e-books. If I’m to be honest about it, the last thing I want to do after a long day at work is spend even more time looking at a screen… Enter the Kindle. The screen display is fantastic, the storage is immense with the ability to hold up to 3,500 books and the battery life boasts up to 2 months without a charge. The number of titles available is endless and for me, the best part about it is that it doesn’t try to be something it’s not. I don’t have one but I’m pretty sure I want one, strangely this wasn’t until I had the chance to see the display for myself. Until that point I was certain it was just another screen.

Where do you stand on this subject? Are you a purist and would miss the feel, smell and shape of a real book in your hands or do you embrace the new formats and happily ignore tradition by putting down the physical book using comments like “I can carry 3,499 more books at the same weight”?  Although it sounds funny, I know someone who has just bought a Kindle to ‘encourage her to read more’ – I totally understand this though, the formats available make it so much easier and convenient to consume information in a variety of ways. Even JK Rowling, with her latest project Pottermore, has added over 18,000 words worth of material to the Harry Potter series but will only be releasing the material online as she believes that ‘The future of publishing is digital’.

As ever, thanks for reading and feel free to leave any comments including what your favourite book of all time is.

What’s Love Got to Do with It? – Customer loyalty today

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If I shop in the same store every week or I collect points in a retailer programme on a regular basis, am I loyal?

What if that store closed down and I started to purchase those essential items somewhere else, maybe because it was the closest alternative, what does that say about my loyalty then?

A matter I’ve been reading about for some time and that thousands talk about, Percepta included.  I do wonder….do we all just mean repurchase or repeat business?  Or do we mean the emotional relationship with the brand or product?  Have we confused them?

A colleague raised a very interesting point with me a couple of weeks ago.  I was having my bi-annual challenge with my mobile phone provider – the same provider that has given me phones and a mild, not-so-cheap, service for over 14 years.  She asked what made me stick with them, considering I have experienced some really serious failures, and even worse failures trying to fix the originals.  I found myself rationalising the fact that my 14 years of ‘loyalty’ has earned me some credits.  If I want to upgrade early, if I have a complaint, if I don’t like what I’m getting, almost always I get something in return (even if it does take a long time to get it).  And now, even as I’m writing this, I am realising that my reasoning is just wrong.  I have probably paid them 100-fold of what they are giving me back over the years.  To them, I’m loyal.  To me, I’m crazy!  What have I been doing?!

Take a look at some of the great retail players in ‘customer loyalty’.  Is the Tesco Clubcard scheme designed to create an emotional bond with Tesco?  Does the Boots Advantage Card stop me ‘cheating’ with Superdrug, even though it’s closer and probably cheaper.  Not really, but it just gives me some reward to shop at Tesco or Boots – the feeling that we get something back is always a good feeling.  Now that many retailers have a ‘loyalty scheme’, what might stop me from joining the Sainsbury’s (Nectar) and Superdrug schemes?  If both stores are closer than their rivals, and I still get something back, maybe I will switch.  I wasn’t really loyal then, was I?

There is no denying that these are great marketing tools that help these retail giants target me for more business. They personalise things for me that gives a great feeling of them valuing me as a customer.  More and more behavioural economics.  They can almost make me buy the £5 product to save the 25p (I do resist more often than not).  Have we now become accustomed to loyalty just meaning repeat business?  Or is real loyalty the attachment to Boots that makes me walk passed its high-street rivals, regardless of whether I get some points in the process?

I would love to hear your views on customer loyalty today.  What does it mean?  What should it mean?  How do you measure it?

Alan

Wanted: Customer Service People looking to build a career!

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Customer service is the cornerstone of our business and our Customer Service Advisors are the keystone in the bridge between customer and client. They are the organisation’s public face, delivering the level of service that will surprise and delight the customer and turn a disgruntled caller into a brand champion.

We are looking for enthusiastic and motivated customer service professionals to join our Daventry Customer Relationship Centre (CRC). It’s an interesting and varied role where you will always be learning something new and building relationships with both customers and clients.

This isn’t a simple call centre job, you’ll have much more to do than tell the customers that the computer says no. We’re looking for people who can handle queries, managing cases as the single point of customer contact and build a relationship with the customer while resolving their issues. We can develop you in these skills and beyond, many of our staff began their careers with us in the CRC and have progressed from there.

We offer a great package of compensation and wide variety of benefits, along with development opportunities and the chance to work at a company that values its employees.

If you think this could be the role for you, click here to lay the foundations of a great career with Percepta.

 

Wanted: Correspondence Team Leader who knows which witch is which.

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We are currently looking for a Correspondence Team Leader to be part of our Daventry Customer Relations Centre (CRC) for whom accuracy is a way of life, who can keep grounded in their grammar and has a way with words.

The position is an interesting and challenging one, with a variety of responsibilities.  You will be responsible for leading the correspondence team, monitoring operational work levels and ensuring KPI’s are met.  You will also be involved in your team’s development and working on projects within the Customer Relationship Centre.

We are looking for someone with Team Leader experience, preferably with a background in correspondence handling with excellent communication skills. Education to A Level in English (or equivalent) is desirable.

We offer an excellent remuneration package including a competitive salary and bonus, and access to a wide variety of benefits including healthcare, pension and travel insurance.

So why not open the book and begin the first chapter of your career with Percepta by applying here.

The Disadvantages of Outsourcing Your Customer Service

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Most of you reading this will already be aware of the term ‘outsourcing’ and the potential benefits it can bring to an organisation. Contracting non-core business activities to third party providers can reduce your operating costs, give you easy access to the latest technology and best practices with no capital investment and, with the right provider, actually improve customer satisfaction in the long term.

However, if you are considering outsourcing your Customer Service function there are some potential disadvantages that need to be considered:

1. Loss of Control and Security

Having another organisation take responsibility for the life blood of your company carries some risk. You are effectively relinquishing managerial responsibility of the way your customers are dealt with to someone else. Keep at the front of your mind that most outsourcers are driven to make profit from the calls they answer and are not necessarily focused on the experience and service your customers are receiving.

The fact that your outsourcer is operating from a different site, with employees that are motivated by a different set of standards to yours, and that you do not have any managerial presence within that operation could all lead to a loss of control of the customer experience. And for any company that values the importance of continuously listening to the Voice of Customer, this disadvantage of outsourcing may outweigh any potential advantages.

2. Loss of Expertise and Staff Loyalty

No matter how much you train someone, an employee of an outsourcer will rarely be as knowledgeable of your services, products and business as someone who has been employed by you for years. The short term gain of reducing your staffing overheads by outsourcing could lead to a loss of expertise, knowledge and loyalty that can never be replaced. Many companies have discovered that customer satisfaction and the quality of customer support is irreversibly damaged after making the decision to outsource their Customer Service function and end up taking it back in house to try and repair their credibility.

If you are going to outsource your Customer Service operation then redundancies may affect your existing workforce. You may also need to retrain employees as part of your staff restructuring. The employees that are kept may be left with a bad taste in their mouth about the company’s decision to outsource and may choose to terminate their employment forcing you to spend time and effort finding replacements. Employee morale always suffers during a shift too outsourcing which may seriously affect employee loyalty.

3. Loss of Accountability and Responsibility

When one of your staff performs poorly, or is identified as being suitable for development into another role, there are many options you have to create a preferable outcome for that person and your business. Put simply, you have control over what the outcome will be and can assign accountabilities and responsibilities to that person, their manager and any other employees that work with them. But if you identify that your outsourcer is not performing, it’s sometimes difficult to determine who exactly is responsible for making it right. And more importantly, you invariably have to leave most of the accountability and responsibility of finding a solution to the outsourcer.

If the outsourcer fails to improve then it’s still you and your business that gets it in the neck – your customers aren’t interested in who is causing them problems, they just want it resolved. Recent research conducted by IPSOS Mori across 39 of Scotland’s local authority CEO’s and CFO’s revealed that the most commonly cited barrier to outsourcing was the loss of accountability, with over half of CEO’s attributing their reticence to Outsourcing to this factor.

So after painting this grim picture of what you could potentially lose from outsourcing your Customer Service function you’re probably asking yourself if there’s an alternative. Well, you’ll be glad to hear that there is – it’s called Insourcing and I’ll be talking about its benefits in my next blog article…

Running on empty?

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George Osbourne’s budget featured a 1p reduction on fuel duty as a step towards easing the burden on the beleaguered British motorist. However ‘good’ this news is though, the fact that there will be a £2bn tax grab from the oil companies probably means that they will increase their prices resulting in an outcome that will surpass the 1p let-off anyway at the pumps.

Last year, the hot topic was a focus on environmentally friendly alternatives. This however creates a problem in itself, the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) having adjusted forecast tax revenue from fuel duty by £500m as a direct result of improved efficiency in vehicles on the road today. Where will this gap be plugged as automotive manufacturers chase the holy grail of clean, cheap, reliable and renewable energy sources?

This will also have a knock-on effect on the “fuel in the tank of the economy” for the automotive industry in so far as consumers have started to move towards smaller engine vehicles to directly combat the impact at the pumps. It feels like a vicious circle that no matter what way you spin it, the government will still need the taxation and ultimately the man or woman on the street will pay.

In a trip to the US only last week, I found it very amusing when I spotted someone at a filling station taking a photograph of the price at the pump. When I asked him what he was doing, he responded that nobody back home would believe how expensive the petrol was at $4 a gallon. It’s all relative, but to him it was a total rip-off and in our brief exchange he couldn’t believe how much on average we were paying. It certainly cheered him up!

I took the inset photograph as I liked the name of the station – “Terrible’s”. With this topic in mind, I thought it was very relevant to include it here. At $3.69 per gallon of unleaded, it works out at £0.50 per litre. Not that terrible if you ask me…

Do you think that it is all too much fuss about nothing and that the price is the price and a couple of quid per tank is nothing to worry about?
Would you feel more comfortable if the service stations flew a jolly roger or wore masks as they took payment?

There is of course another angle here, if the duty on fuel wasn’t so large, where would you propose that the taxation comes from? Let me know your answers to the questions posed in the comments!

Percepta Employees & Red Nose Day

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Red Nose Day was Friday 18th March – this is a day members of the British public take on various fundraising challenges to raise money for worthy causes at home and abroad.

I relish an opportunity to do my bit for the community and charity work is second nature to me. I love the opportunities it brings, meeting lots of people, making new friends, having fun and all in the knowledge that the effort is worthwhile when it is helping others less fortunate than myself.

March 2011 has seen the successful launch of the exciting New Ford Focus so inline with the excitement of the new product I had the idea to create a spoof/parody of the famous Grease Lightning song from the Classic film Grease. Four Ford Dunton colleagues were duly signed up to join me. Subsequently a vehicle was sourced, a location booked, words re-jigged, song recorded, costumes borrowed and the filming completed.

So generous ladies and gentlemen I urge you to take a look at the video below and donate if you can

 

 
Believe it or not we did rehearse.

There were a few friends who helped out in different ways, all of whom are credited in the video. The cast in the video were Mick, Colin, Darren, Matt and myself

Your cash really can make a huge difference to the lives of many vulnerable people.
We hope you enjoy us being silly and it made you smile :)