Comcast renames Customer ‘A**hole Brown’
Comcast at it again – Comcast had to be thrilled when 2014 came to an end, since it had one of the worst Customer Experience years to remember. However, they are starting off 2015 in similar style. Many times Customers are upset when they get their cable bill because of the unexpected charges they incurred. This time a Comcast Customer was irate when he received a bill, but it wasn’t because of the dollar amount. It was that his name was changed from Ricardo Brown to “Asshole Brown.” It appears that a Comcast employee changed Mr. Brown’s name in their system after the employee unsuccessfully tried to persuade him renew his contract. When the next bill came, his name had been changed. Making matters worse, Brown told Elliott that calls to the cable company and even a visit to a Comcast office couldn’t get the name changed. Comcast confirmed to The Huffington Post that the bill was real, and said the company was taking action. Read full story
*Related – January CX Talk featuring interview with best selling author Rory Vaden
Paying Less than $16 per hour Not Fair – Some 5,700 Aetna employees received a substantial base-pay increase of $16 per hour because “paying them less was not fair,” says Chairman and CEO, Mark Bertolini. “Here we are, a Fortune 50 company, and we’re about to put these people into poverty, and I just didn’t think it was fair.” Bertolini says it is time for a paradigm shift in corporate America and his company is leading the charge. “We’re going to invest in them. We’re going to give them all a chance. We’re going to educate them into a new way, but we needed to engage them first,” he said. “That population was too worried about whether or not they could put food on the table, whether or not they could afford health insurance.” Bertolini explains, “We’ve sort of destroyed business after business in this country by looking at spreadsheets with numbers we call truth.” Instead, enterprises should consider both the hard and soft benefits that come with wage and benefit increases, including savings from lower turnover costs. Aetna spends about $120 million in expenses associated with rehiring and retraining each year, he said.
Employee Satisfaction Drives Customer Satisfaction – Other factors may have influenced Aetna’s decision to boost pay. The Affordable Care Act is helping millions of Americans get insured, which means insurance companies like Aetna have to compete on Customer service to remain competitive. “Health care decisions are increasingly consumer driven,” Bertolini said in a statement emailed to The Huffington Post. “We are making an investment in the future of health-care service.” Read full story
Are You Sure You Are Not a Bad Boss? This is a question I like to ask often when conducting a workshop. My intention is never to insult, or actually accuse anyone of being a bad boss (although, they are out there, we have all had one!), but rather to focus on the characteristics of what makes a bad boss. In today’s world of constant connection and demands, we all have to remind ourselves to inspire, provide a clear vision, and simply make a connection.
Eight Facts About What Makes a Bad Boss in 2015 – In a recent Huffington Post article titled “8 Unsettling Facts About Bad Bosses”, Jeff Fermin points out some statistics that should motivate any manager to focus on being “good.” Here are a few tidbits Jeff reported: Three out of four employees report their boss is the most stressful part of their job; 50% of employees who do not feel valued by their boss plan to look for a new job; and my favorite – 65% of employees would take a new boss over a pay raise. Of course, the true unsettling fact of all of these statistics is that everything mentioned above leads to less-productive employees, higher turnover, and higher overall operating costs. As leaders, we must constantly be evaluating what type of boss we are, as well as those leading below us. I am continually amazed at the stories I hear of how one or two “bad bosses” in an organization are quickly undoing large investments of both time and money.
TDG Makes Top 50 Customer Experience Blogs Distinction – This blog has been selected one of the top 50 Customer Experience Blogs selected by NGDATA, a Customer experience management solutions organization.
The problem is that building a Customer experience is everyone’s problem, but no one’s job – As a result of the organization’s hiring and promoting a key executive to oversee their company’s Customer Experience, The DiJulius Group has launched the Customer eXperience Executive Academy so companies can send their Customer service leaders for comprehensive training and certification on all the facets and responsibilities that fall under Customer experience. Learn how to:
- Adapt The DiJulius Group’s trademarked X Commandments methodology and tailor it to your business
- Start a Customer Service Revolution in your organization
- Transform and improve the six components of your Customer’s experience
- Create a strong Service Vision that instills purpose in your employees
- Recruit, engage, retain and develop employees with high service aptitude that align to your core values. And much more….
If you or someone in your company is a fit for the Customer eXperience Executive Academy, give us a call today at 440-443-0023. ONLY 3 SPOTS LEFT FOR THE CLASS OF 2015!
