THAT any brand should damage itself deliberately is surprising and counter-intuitive. But when a good brand - nay a 'great' brand many would claim - does it, it is nothing short of astonishing. So it was with some significant surprise during a recent visit to a Samsung customer service centre that I witnessed this great brand go through an absurd, unnecessary and, seemingly, choreographed self-destructive behaviour.
You are a Singaporean consumer. You have just bought a Samsung mobile phone. You trust the brand because it performs. You admire its cool and cutting-edge designs. You recognise its innovative technology. Overall, your image of the brand is positive and solid.
Consider the possibility of this image - that has required huge investments in time, effort and money over two decades - instantly disintegrating in the minds of countless individuals on a daily basis. Well this is exactly what appears to be happening if the experience of customers at the Plaza Singapura Samsung service centre is any indication.
Given the reputation of the Samsung brand name, it was with some surprise that I along with my wife and two-year-old son recently found ourselves at the centre with a faulty mobile phone less than one year into its warranty. Though surprised, I was not particularly perturbed because I also accept that the odd lemon sometimes emerges even with the best of brands - notwithstanding Six Sigma.
The customer service process Samsung has in place generally requires two visits: the first to deposit the phone and the second to collect it following repairs. When we arrived, the shop-front set-up on the fourth floor was packed with people - perhaps as many as 40 or more. To deal with their needs the centre was equipped with about six or seven customer stations most of the time manned by no more than three or four Samsung service people.
The system requires customers to take a number. Ours was 1135. The number on the screen was around 1085 when we arrived. We went away for a half-hour walk. When we came back the number had progressed an unimpressive five steps to 1090 or close to that. The room was still packed and a great deal of grumbling was clearly audible amongst the customers.
We seriously considered the option of forgetting about it all, and just buying a new phone (though probably not a Samsung). My two-year-old was crying hysterically and the Samsung attendant whose attention I managed to get for a split moment gruffly told me that, no, I could not deposit the phone and walk away for someone to call me later. I decided to stay for a while longer and my wife and son went away for another walk. Half an hour later (now one hour since my 1135 number was pulled out) the queue had torturously inched to 1002. At that rate it would be another two hours till my turn arrived. And all of this simply to deposit a phone.
I was at the point of leaving when one woman asked me whether I was there for the mobile phone service (there were other sequences of numbers being called for other services). When I told her that I was, she smiled and gave me her ticket number: 1005. Only three numbers away! She explained that she had come and gone earlier in the day on a couple of occasions and taken multiple numbers.
Negative experience
She was done - and exasperated - and was only too happy to spare someone else the interminable wait. I was elated - for at least the first 10 minutes. It then took a further full half hour for the three numbers from 1002 to 1005 to be called. My total time waiting: around 90 minutes. Time to explain the problem and deposit the phone: five minutes. And this after benefiting from someone's ticket number that was more than two dozen numbers 'earlier' than mine.
The real negative experience, however, was on the return visit to pick up the phone. We went through the same ritual. My number this time was 4018. I looked up at the board and saw that the count hovered around 4010. It seemed like 'collections' was a fast-track process. We sat down and waited. Forty-five minutes passed and the count was still at around 4015. In those 40 minutes, I witnessed no fewer that four different customers complaining and, in the process, attracting sympathetic attention from others.
The tension in that room was palpable. The atmosphere during my first visit had been similar. Looking at all these people one has to wonder how many others had given up altogether and walked out in disgust, and how many would never again buy a Samsung product if only to avoid this experience.
Customer service remains one of the few opportunities that a company has to interact directly with the customer. Unlike a packaged goods brand on a supermarket shelf where the experience is mostly out of the hands of the brand owner, customer service centres are largely in the control of brand owners. Not only is there not an excuse for failing to 'delight' customers, the failure comes close to being a sin for two reasons: It undermines the hard work the company has already put in to obtain customers in the first place; and the customer service centre - whether to provide information or to rectify a problem - provides the company with a captive audience. This is an invaluable opportunity that the company has to exploit, not falter on.
It seems that in this situation, Samsung failed to deliver even the minimum that a company must deliver at the experience level: a hassle-free and smooth process. It is the minimum because competitive advantage in the cut-throat environment brands do battle in today demands that successful brands go way beyond this and deliver branded customer service. This amounts to a signature experience that 'says' Samsung - one that reinforces what makes the brand what it is, be it the positioning, the values, personality or some other element of the Brand Blueprint.
Below-par treatment
Personally, I love Samsung. I genuinely believe it is a great brand. As a brand consultant I celebrate the opportunity to reference it in my seminars across Asia as one of the few examples of a company that is committed to comprehensive and systematic brand-building in an otherwise barren landscape characterised by companies trying to cut corners.
That this type of problem has emerged out of one Samsung centre should not be assumed to be reflective of the brand as a whole, nor the culture of the company. But this does not excuse the company, nor does it mitigate the underserved below-par treatment some customers experienced. Moreover, it does not diminish the calibre of damage caused: those individuals who visited the centre on the two occasions I was there are, in my opinion, unlikely to buy Samsung again. That alone is bad news. But if this is happening every day, it is nothing short of self-destructive.
A couple of basic things for brand owners to keep in mind: First, be careful what you promise your customers. Why? Because you need to deliver it every time, all the time. Secondly, understand that increasingly the biggest vehicle for someone to complain about something is through word of mouth - which has nuclear-like destructive capability. These two things apply to all brands that have aspirations to be good or great. For brands that are already considered to be great, failure to deliver is akin to betrayal. People feel hurt, upset and angry. They won't buy the brand again and they'll tell their friends not to buy the brand - through the Internet.
The author is the CEO of BrandAsian www.brandasian.com, a strategy-centric business and brand consultancy
This article was first published in The Business Times on September 3, 2008.
