Arnold on ethical marketing

CHRIS ARNOLD

CRM is nothing new. Keep the customer happy, respond to their problems and they will love you and sing your praises. Best of all, they’ll tell other people to join.

When a Virgin customer had a bag fall on him due to a locker opening (faulty catch) even though he wasn’t hurt Richard Branson rang him up personally and offered him a pair of free return tickets anywhere in the world. The positive word soon got around. As Branson once said, commenting on BA’s terrible reputation for customer service at the time, “I’d rather spend millions on good customer service than millions on telling people how great I am when I’m not.”

John Lewis and M&S will replace any faulty item without questions. Many top brands know that customer service is everything because reputation is more influential than ads. We now live in a world where the web and social networking means your reputation is defined by what people say not what you say. A multimillion pound ad campaign soon evapourates if the word gets around that the company cannot be trusted, it over claims, abuses and fails the customers. In today’s ethically minded world customer expect trust and respect. So what is going on at Talk Talk?

Is it honest to promise a customer that by switching to Talk Talk broadband that they will get the same service, when you won’t? “You won’t even notice the switch over”, commented the salesman. We did, the internet only works during the day and after midnight, rarely in the evening and is slower. Talk Talk are obviously having serious problems. This is evident from the large number of complaints and a short poll of friends all who seem to be less than positive about Talk Talk’s broadband service.

If anyone has tried to talk talk to them you can expect to wait wait a long time - they have call centres in India and South Africa – unlike NatWest who have responded to customers and now only use UK ones. I can guarantee you’ll be hating the ‘Something in the Air’ tune and renaming it ‘There’s a lot of hot air’, as one customer called it on one site. 

After weeks of complaints (almost daily) about no internet in the evenings you finally get passed to Second Level Support. You start to wonder how many levels do they need? After weeks of further complaints and excuses – including the fact it could be because your Mac is on the top floor of the house? – they promise to get a real engineer (rather than someone in an Indian call centre) to contact you. But the phone never ring rings. The problem’s never solved. Every evening you have to wait wait until midnight to get on the web. However, one helpline does suggest that if you unable to get online you should visit their website. Yeah really!

A visit to one of many sites where you’ll find complaints should worry the investors and directors of Talk Talk. Social networking is powerful (over 300,000 alone could be reading this blog). There’s even an online petition against them. Here’s just a few extracts.

“I decided to leave BT because there customer service was terrible and I was promised that Talk Talk would be better, a lot better.  But you are worse, if fact I think the worse company I have ever the misfortune to deal with!”

“After five months of phone calls and e-mails, I have still not had a sensible and productive conversation with anyone at Talk Talk.”

“I can't even begin to explain the problems I have had with Talk Talk, just thinking about it makes me angry in summary it's taken 3 months to go through their home movers process, I've been lied to about time scales, wasted over 15 hours on the phone to the”

“It has been a complete nightmare that has practically reduced me to tears.”

“My Internet connection has been down so much for extended periods and the telephone too has been either dead or extremely crackly, so much so you can barely have a conversation.”

“I had a sick child at home and was totally incensed when they even cut my telephone line for two whole days without any warning.”

My own experience is an emotional one too. One evening my son called from Thailand where he’s travelling on a sabbatical. He was in an unfamiliar place and wanted help to find accommodation. But we couldn’t get on the web. My son was left abandoned. How do you feel about a brand after that?

So what happens when you try to contact them direct? Impossible, seems you can’t talk talk to Talk Talk. No one wants to deal with the customer or their complaints.

This is a brand that has a serious problem and a failing reputation. One that is ignoring the power of the people. If I was them I’d can all advertising and spend the budget on a new customer satisfaction programme. There’s still time to make amends, if not they’ll be the next British Rail – always trying to get there but never arriving.

(I would welcome any comment from Talk Talk direct to the marketing community.)