LEAVING EMPTY PACKAGING IS NOT ALLOWED!
This post is part of a new series of posts on our website focusing on customer experience:
What about the other 30%?
On a recent trip to the local post office’s “business center” I noticed that the mail sorting tables and trash bins had been removed. These had been replaced by some signs informing clients that they were no longer allowed to leave any of their mail at the post office.
There were two post office employees in the post box room so I decided to ask what the reasoning for this change was. The female employee seemed to avoid the conversation entirely, while the male employee engaged quite vigorously in an explanation.
He explained that the post office did not have the resources to deal with the discarded mail and that they had conducted a customer survey to find out how their clients felt about direct mail and advertising (I don’t recall this survey though I may have missed it).
He said that 70% of their customers has responded that they liked receiving that type of mail and “only” 30% of their clients didn’t want to receive it. I explained that I was clearly a member of the smaller group to which he replied something to the effect of “that’s unfortunate.”
Why am I writing about this?
I think this is a perfect example of rational business decision making that fails to incorporate the softer dimensions. I’d like to look at some of these dimensions in a bit more detail:
Customer loyalty:
It’s great that the majority of customers want to receive this mail but what about the other 30%? The net of this business decision is that the post office doesn’t care about this group, although I’m sure loosing a full 30% percent of their post box customers would garner some attention. I’m not suggesting that would happen, however I do believe that they have given this customer group one less reason to stay.
I frequently receive calls from companies doing customer surveys and I’m always struck by how they nearly always fail to collective the qualitative information. As an example; even a person that likes looking through advertising mail may enjoy being able to sort through it at the post office and only take with them what they want to keep. Could it be that this decision will also have a negative impact on the loyalty on the 70% who like receiving adverts in the mail? Was this captured by the survey?
Of course, when you are a business like the Post you have a captive audience. There aren’t any other options for receiving the mail. Or are there? Do you want to be doing business like there aren’t?
The environment:
As soon as this mail leaves the post office, I believe the chances it will be recycled decrease. The decision by the post office passes the problem onto the customer whereas in the past the post office essentially provided a service to the community and the client – ensuring that the unwanted portion of a customer’s mail would be recycled – that’s good environmental stewardship. Maybe this isn’t the post office’s responsibility. It sure was positive while it lasted.
Communication with the customer:
If a business chooses to make such a decision based on necessity/lack of resources/financial problems they should be very tactical about how their people communicate the reasoning behind said decision to the client. In this example, the post office had two opportunities to do this; 1) the sign posted where the desk once was, 2) my conversation with the post office employee. Fail on both I’m afraid.
Make it easy for the client, regardless of what they say they want. Within reason.
The local approach to managing customer experience is developing in many ways though I believe it still has a ways to go. Rational decision making based on analysis is only ever part of the picture. The other part is important and must always be incorporated into the decision making process if one wants to avoid unintended consequences.