I could choose your typical example from a company most already know provide pretty great customer care, like Apple, John Lewis, Nintendo, or my ISP who I’ve praised frequently on here. So I’ll skip past these as, aside from perhaps my ISP, most will be aware of the approaches taken by those companies, and they’re often aspirations market research will pick up on as you aspire to improve your own approach. Everyone seemingly wants to be Apple when it comes to customer satisfaction and support, so you’ll already know how they operate.
Instead I’ll talk about a more obscure one I once went through. Toothpaste. Finding a vegan toothpaste brand that’s actually good is very hard, and also not cheap. I just wanted one from a company that didn’t test on animals anywhere in the world, ruling out anything coming out of Unilever or P&G and other similar conglomerates.
I discovered a brand called UltraDex on Ocado and gave them a try. I tried the toothpaste first. I liked it. The instructions said to use after using oral rinse. That’s an important point because it’ll conflict with something later. Having been pleased with the toothpaste (it’s great toothpaste!) I decided to incorporate their oral rinse into my dental hygiene routine as well. Also a great oral rinse. However, the instructions on the oral rinse stated that it should be used after brushing. Directly contradicting the instructions for the toothpaste.
Now I don’t think it was a strict rule, more phrased as such that you’d get the most out of the benefits of the product if you used them as suggested. But I found this frustrating, and confusing.
On the box for the oral rinse though, they had an email and phone number encouraging customers to get in tough. So get in tough I did.
Within a matter of minutes of firing off an email I received a very well written and thoughtful reply, from a human that understood my issue and addressed it clearly, first time around.
The brunt of the reply simply was to acknowledge, agree with, and apologise for the confusion, explain why the instructions conflicted, and how he personally used the products. Essentially the instructions were written as if you used the products on their own, or with another brand’s products. Their range leaves a protective coating behind, and so if you were to use another brand’s oral rinse after brushing with their toothpaste, you’d rinse the coating away. Likewise if you were to brush the coating off after using the oral rinse. When using them together, there is no right or wrong way. He personally used the oral rinse first though.
Probably should poll on that!
Do you brush or rinse first?
- I brush my teeth first.
- I rinse my mouth first.
In any event, and this is what really brought the experience home. A few months down the line, a new tube of toothpaste turns up with Ocado. They had only gone and fixed the instructions, removing the confusion! They also fixed it on their website too. I thought, and still think, that this was pretty awesome.
For those interested, these are the new instructions:
Directions for use: Use twice daily. For maximum benefit do not rinse out with water after brushing. If using a mouthwash, always rinse before brushing unless using with UltraDEX Whitening Daily Oral Rinse.
Emphasis at the end is mine to denote the text they added to remedy the confusion I emailed them about.
but don’t worry I’ve been busy building the bank and not intentionally ignoring you all 
. We build and manage the processes COps use to support or protect our customers, manage the Ops side of changes like product launches, and work with product teams to share insights into customer experience to help them design effortless experiences.
. This could be from another bank or financial service, or directly with a company themselves.
Brought a mental image of the COp wandering over to O2 with a lead pipe.
What can Beth take from this feedback that will improve Monzo?