Service Enterprise Excellence - the genesis

Baumin Lee PhD is the 'godfather' of the China Call Center Industry. He went to China in 1998 at the invitation of the CPT - the China Post and Telecom State-owned enterprise and helped in the set up of the massive contact centers for China Telecom, China Netcom, Ping An Insurance and more. We met in 2005 in Beijing when I had the opportunity to speak at the Peoples Congress Hall. When I was first invited to Shanghai in 2004, it was to give a keynote talk at the Greater China CRM Awards superbly organized by Sampson Lee who is the pioneer in Customer Experience Management Certification.

Sampson organized a seminar on my specialty, Customer Lifetime Value for September and I returned in September 2004 and met the most wonderful woman, Dana Wu - at that time assistant General Manager for Zhuhai software industrial park. She had studied in Germany and was fluent in German and English. It was she who brought me into the Beijing Contact Center Industry circles and introduced me to Baumin in March 2005.

With my background starting in Operations Research at Shell in Australia, followed by the great experience I had on new customer-enabling technologies and distribution channels and his PhD in Industrial Engineering and subsequent ATT Bell Lab's work on performance monitoring for the 1-800 services, we quickly began collaborating on Capability Maturity Models for Contact Centers, the topic of my speech at the Contact Center World conference organized by Zhaoxi.

Since then, Contact Center Capability maturity as a concept, has taken hold in China and Zhaoxi and Simon Kriss have been moving it forward. Baumin and I have worked together for the past 4 years on the two complementary pieces: individual competency development and service excellence capability maturity, implementing and trying out the concepts at the 1000 seat outsource contact center www.95teleweb.com

There is nothing like a real project to work on, in order to improve understanding of China - which is truly a world unto itself. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to visit, teach and conduct workshops in Shanghai and Beijing over the past few years.

Over the next few days, I will provide links to the joint articles that Baumin and I have published about our research in both Engish and Chinese on the web and in CCMWorld, a Chinese magazine publication by Zhaoxi's group.

Service Recovery achieved - Hooray

Back to my happy self again. Just received notification of cancelled credit card from Barclays. Time Magazine has stopped the automatic renewing of my subscription and will be refunding the charge to Barclays.

I was particularly pleased to receive yesterday, Monday (1 business day later) the notice of confirmation of credit card cancellation from Barclays which noted that the $24.95 was still outstanding but the card was being cancelled and I should destroy the card I have.

I am glad this is over. I just wish it could have been prevented.

On the positive side, had a very good call with La Quinta Inns reservations and I want to applaud the promptness, speed and friendliness of a human and effective interaction.

Best wishes from sunny California!
Mei Lin


PS Though I twittered about the event, I did not hear from any of the players.

Betrayed by Frontier Airlines - another loyal customer lost

I'm upset because this came out of the blue, and Frontier has lost the trust of a loyal customer.

I fly to Oklahoma City every week, and often, I'm on Frontier Airlines, connecting through Denver. The Frontier Airlines folks have UP TO TODAY earned and kept my business, I trust them to fly me there and back on time mostly and the flight crew are friendly.

So, when I was approached by someone dressed in a Frontier Airlines uniform at the Denver airport, I was receptive. I had some time, so I filled out a credit card application - my current card has an annual fee, and I'd started looking for a new card without an annual fee, and this seemed to fit the bill, plus the 5000 miles would come in handy as I was building up miles on Frontier, going to Oklahoma so often.

When the card arrived, I put it aside, not planning to use it, not charging anything to it till I was ready to transition from my old card. Today, I received a statement from BARCLAYS Bank which charged me $24.95 for a Time Magazine subscription.

Ok ok, I had checked the box on the credit card application which had said check here for some free copies of Time Magazine. BUT I had expected that after trying it, I would be offered a chance to sign up or decline. But NO - Time Magazine set me up for automatic renewal and charged the credit card.

Do I hold Frontier Airlines responsible. YES I DO! I had trusted them to do the right thing by me, and not be part of a scam that tricks people into signing up for magazine subscriptions.

Do I hold Barclays responsible? YES I DO! I had to endure the Barclays call center quality monitoring requirements that lead to me being asked 7 times, please call Time Magazine and cancel my subscription.

Surely it is NOT good business for a bank with a long and proud tradition like Barclays to have their contact center employees spending so much time with angry people who have been tricked into paying for magazine subscriptions. But no... I have to be asked over and over again, to cancel the Time Magazine subscription, when I am calling Barclays to cancel the credit card.

There are policy decisions going on at Frontier and Barclays and Time which present their companies in a poor light. And the employees I have spoken with, who know my frustration and fury, have no avenue to communicate this up the line.

Well there are ways to get the word out now, that are no longer under the control of Frontier, Barclays and Time Magazine managers. Thank goodness for the Voice of the Customer on the Internet.

At a time of recession when every customer counts, and I represent a stream of hundreds of dollars on average every month to Frontier.... wouldn't it be sensible for the folks at Frontier to want to know how unhappy they are making mainstream Frontier-flying customers through the Barclays credit card offer with the so-called "free" (I call trap) subscriptions to Time Magazine?

Proven Principles of Social Networking - Lessons from the Kalahari Desert:

"People who made exquisite gifts and told enthralling stories would have been more successful in maintaining relationships."

Let's to go the anthropologists to understand social networks. Pauline Wiessner spoke in April 2009 at the Origins symposium in Arizona State University and is quoted in today's NY Times on how the !Kung of South Africa tend their social networks with loving care because they know "their networks are crucial to how they get past the hard times".

Principles summarized:

1. Use vivid Stories generate momentum and energy
2. Gifts that reflect thought and care for the recipient and show understanding of their interests and needs
3. "In Kind" exchanges are an implied contractual of the relationship, storing relationships for when they are needed
4. Maintain ties of mutual support with people outside of immediate group - diversity of ties provides insurance for hard times

Innovation Journalism Conference May 18th

Douglas Engelbart will be making an appearance at the Stanford university Innovation Journalism Conference on May 18th at 9 am.

This is a super conference with an illustrious list of attendees ready to consider the future role of journalism in innovation


Also, International Museum Day is the same day and I will be appearing in Second Life in the Tech Virtual with Francesca LeBaron at The Tech Virtual's booth for International Museum Day - lots going on.

If you are on Second life, come to visit us!

You are invited to the May 18-20 2009 Stanford University Innovation Journalism Conference -

I am writing to invite you to the 6th Innovation Journalism Conference: Journalism succeeding with innovation. IJ-6 will explore how innovation can change the face of journalism at this critical time when business models for news are in flux, traditional newdpapers are exploring new media forms, and traditional newspapers are disappearing at a great rate. The conference is organized and run by the researchers and journalists of the VINNOVA Stanford Research Center of Innovation Journalism. IJ-6 is a meeting place to discuss how journalism and innovation come together: how journalism affects innovation, how innovation affects journalism, how journalism covers innovation, and the market for it.

This three day Stanford University conference with outstanding speakers and great workshops is, amazingly enough, free of charge! You will be charged only if you register and don’t attend. The Keynote for the conference will be given by Vint Cerf, Chief Evangelist of Google and “Father of the Internet”.
Register at http://ij6.innovationjournalism.org/ Pick any of the 3 days if you cannot attend the entire program. May 18th and 19th are limited to 180 attendees so register as soon as possible.