Agency trials and retributions
It seemed to be going so smoothly, getting our offices up and running in just a month.
The key word is ‘seemed’. We are wiser now. We have seen the gap between promise and delivery. We know how it affects users attitude and behaviour.
It’s nice to be sweet talked at times; it’s fun visualising how great things will be. It’s less thrilling to hang around waiting for non-existent goods to turn up. That’s when you feel disappointed and want to kick your bright, flawless, newly painted walls down.
Customer service is something everyone gushes about. “We are competitively priced, but our premium is justified by our outstanding commitment to…” You’ve heard it. Why is it companies and brands still haven’t got it? Buying a service is about the delivery, not the promise.
Things that should have happened naturally were eclipsed by a tortuous string of phone calls and frustration: Transferring phone accounts: O2 say ‘1 day’, our panel say, Att-Ahhhh 2 months of chasing, cajoling and being let down. In the end we gave up and went to Vodafone, finding out that it’s easier to change provider than stay with the same one… hello? Putting landlines in. Our provider says cat 6 will be fine, so that’s what we do. Our panel said Att-Ahhhh, I meant cat 5, not cat 6 cable - 2 days wasted.
I could go on but I’m starting to tremble.
Brands must contain a promise, but more importantly they must fulfil it. One company that would never let that happen is First Direct. Their brand promise (or should I call it brand truth?) rings loud and clear from their call centre upwards, for them it feels that delivering the brand is actually more important than communicating it.
Something always comes good from bad as my Grandmother used to say. It got us thinking. Do we in the pharmaceutical industry focus so much on selling to HCPs that we fail to properly consider the impact on end users? The token patient programme, the leaflet, the poster. Not being able to talk to consumers is no excuse, we can talk to patients. Even if we can’t hear their complaints, the rest of the world will.
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