Customer Experience « Psychobserver

Archive for the ‘Customer Experience’ Category

7th
Aug
2007

Service level – Comparison between Hong Kong and France

I had a visit from my family recently and we ended up talking about the level of service customers receive in Hong Kong as compared to France. My family members were complaining that in Hong Kong any request that is a bit “outside of the box” meets the same “it is not possible” answer or sends the customer service staff into pure panic. At first, the comments made me hesitate. Was I wrong? Is service in France better? Did it change? A trip to France and going through a French airport helped me put my thoughts back in order…

When flying Air France from Hong Kong these days, you arrive at a brand new terminal in Paris – Charles de Gaulle airport. The problem is… the terminal is not totally finished. So upon arrival, instead of stationing at a gate, the plane stops away from the gate and passengers need to take a bus to reach the terminal. Keeping in mind that most Asian flights reach Paris around the same time (in between 6am and 8am) and that security measures (I guess) has policemen check passports when passengers get off the bus at the only available door of the terminal, passengers after a 12-hour or more flight are forced to wait standing on the bus for a certain period of time (from 10 to 30 minutes I guess) while buses in front of them finished getting emptied from their passengers.

Once this first step completed, passengers have to go through immigration, which is compulsory even for passengers in transit (strange if people fly to another country). There two or three lines are available. Each line is wide enough for 3 to 4 people to stand side-by-side leading to much pushing and jumping of the queue. The lack of signs leaves passengers wondering if they are in the right queue, while passengers with a connecting flight are stressed out because they are afraid to miss their flight because of the long queue.

The airport, I guess realizing passengers’ distress, had a ground staff standing next to the queues to assist. One passenger in front of me asked the staff: “I will miss my connecting flight which leaves in 30 minutes. What can I do?”. Then the staff to answer: “Sorry, I can’t do anything for you. You have to queue up. If you miss your flight, well, you just miss it”. Sure enough the passenger after this was not in distress anymore… but just was plain angry!

In my two-way flights between Hong Kong and France, I had many more stories on board the plane, in the airport, in the parking lot of the airport…
The result was clear to me. Living in Hong Kong is great! People may not be the best problem solvers, but at least the infrastructure and processes are designed following best practices and most of the time the service received is very acceptable. In France, where I think people are much better at solving problems, the infrastructure is the problem. Places, things and processes are not designed in a customer-centered way (here I generalize too much to make my point) and it makes service levels even lower. Hopefully, and some examples seem to show it is the case, things may change in France.

4th
Jul
2007

A lamp? A lamp as a logo?

Bossini Logo Some time ago (I guess around 6 months ago) Bossini went through a rebranding. When I first saw their new logo, the word that came to my mind was: “Lamp”. The logo looked definitely like a lamp (fact tested with other people). And Bossini being a clothing chain, I kept on wondering why their logo would look like a lamp. I first thought that they just did not realize their logo aimed at looking like a “B” actually looked like a lamp, but the resemblance was too striking… So could it be that they wanted to move into home accessories?

Today I have my answer. Browsing on their corporate website in the brand image section there is an explanation that, firstly, confirms that the logo is indeed a lamp; and that, secondly, explains why it is a lamp. Below is the copy from the Web site:

“Our signature lamp icon signifies that we are always looking out for and taking care of each and every family member.”

Now, the good thing about this logo is that people can identify that the logo is a lamp. But then we may wonder if people seeing a lamp will guess the true meaning it has. It is good to develop brand messages, but it is even better to develop an image that clearly carries that message…

3rd
Jan
2007

Leading answers

At the same time as the “Better living” exhibition, two other thematic exhibitions were held at the heritage museum. I will mention the “Fun of Collecting” exhibition in a later post and focus on the “Hong Kong Popular Entertainment” exhibition here. Rather than discussing the exhibition itself, I will discuss a specific item of the exhibition that can be related to research in general.

The whole “Hong Kong Popular Entertainment” exhibition has a very strong nostalgic feel to it. It highlights forms of entertainment that mostly disappeared from Hong Kong like street theatres or Cantonese opera. We also learn how Hong Kong movies now have to include stars from all over Asia (mostly Japanese and Korean actors) in order to attract a larger crowd or how Hong Kong was first in Asia to have a professional soccer league that is now irrelevant on the global scene and ignored by the local population.

In brief the whole exhibition makes you regret the good old days and builds a strong case against new technologies that almost entirely erased popular entertainment from Hong Kong (with the exception of horse racing betting) by making home entertainment available to the mass. The last stop at the exhibition is a corner with two buttons to press so that visitors can give their view. The question is simple: “Do you prefer mass participation entertainment or self amusement?” Although self-amusement is by far the most common form of amusement nowadays, 57,799 people pressed the mass participation button, while only 40,591 people pressed the other one.

I don’t know what the museum plans on doing with the result of this simple research, but to me it is once again a blatant example of how misleading results can be when doing research. Should the same question have been asked before the exhibition, based on actual behavior or was listing specific types of entertainments, the results would surely have been entirely different.

2nd
Jan
2007

Engineers vs. Businessmen

I continue here on the few posts I made on France…

In France, we are used to say that we are great inventors and engineers, but are unable to market and sell any of the good ideas we have. It is true that historically France has had some compelling inventions that in the end did not spread outside its borders that much: look at the Minitel (predecessor of the Internet) or the Concorde plane. On the other hand Hong Kong people are relentless entrepreneurs and salesmen that may build several businesses at the same time. These businesses often focus on very short term profit and are not meant to last very long.

I would like to use an example to highlight how this simple comparison can translate in the consumer world. It is related to the approach used by one of the most successful store chain in France: FNAC. In Hong Kong, the equivalent of FNAC would be a merger between HMV, the Publishing House and Fortress all under one roof and with a very significant share of each of these markets. Some people in France developed a symbiotic lifestyle in relation to these stores, spending their week-ends reading comic books or listening to music sometimes not to buy anything.

FNAC has developed a very strong trust with its customers that led it to publish selection guides to help customers choose their products. The products are rated and compared by FNAC “labs” and the shop is recommending the best picks. This practice never surprised me before I came to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong it is inconceivable for a shop selling products to review them and recommend “without bias” which one the customer should purchase. Why would a shop recommend a product of better quality to its customers if that product will not bring significant margin to the company? And what would be the reaction of brands that are not well rated?

So on one side, if a French person wants to buy a new camera, this person may check FNAC’s comparison charts, while a Hong Kong person would never consider trusting a shop enough to hear its recommendations and will rather rely on friends or “independent” magazines/forums for the job. This behavior is based on experience and relevant to each environment… but what would happen if a Hong Kong store decided to follow the French way and develop a stronger bond and trust with its customers?

1st
Jan
2007

Unbreakable!

Following the Earthquake in Taiwan last week, the Internet as well as roaming and IDD services have encountered very serious disruptions. I personally could not access the Internet for almost four straight days…

When I say I could not access the Internet, there are a few exceptions. Of course I could access Web sites hosted in Hong Kong, but more surprising was the resilience of all Google Web sites. While Yahoo and MSN “networks” were entirely down, it was still possible to access most Google Web site like Gmail, Blogger or YouTube. Of course, downloading videos was not working on YouTube for example, but the interface was loading fine. Especially Gmail was working rather smoothly and offered a pretty useful option that allowed using the Web site in simple HTML mode.

It is in time of crisis that we can differentiate the best from the others… once again it is thumbs-up for Google.

22nd
Dec
2006

Interactive Floors

There are more and more interactive floors appearing all over town in Hong Kong. These things even though they do not work perfectly are a great way to entertain people and make them interact with their surroundings. And kids especially love it…

19th
Dec
2006

Home Coffee Experience

Starbucks reinvented the coffee shop and is covering the whole world with its successful ventures. Another company is now aggressively targeting other untapped locations were coffee is consumed. This company is Nespresso and already showed impressive growth providing coffee to small and medium size corporations as well as to individuals.

While strolling around in Paris, I encountered one of their shop targeted to individuals. Everything is done to make the experience feel like a luxury one. The design of the machines is very well finished and their usage is a breeze. The staff wears suits and stands being neatly decorated desks. Change the product and this could be a Louis Vuitton shop.

If we move to Hong Kong, Nespresso does not have its own shop and is selling its machines mainly through high-end supermarkets (on top of aggressively developing its business segment). With most people in Hong Kong heading outside of their apartments for meals, especially breakfast, the approach of focusing on business, while developing some kind of exposure through supermarket chains should show great results. It is great to see a company doing its homework.

Starbucks could have brought great coffee experience outside of its stores, but it seems that another coffee company identified this great opportunity first and developed a very compelling experience to grow this under-developed market.

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