Sunday 27 September 2009

A fabulous brand experience from Microsoft

We all know what usually happens when we call a customer service number:

- Multi-layer automated messages

- Long wait times

- Dull musak

I found a great story about what Microsoft used to do 10 years ago to deliver consumers a fabulous customer service call handling brand experience.

What Microsoft did was have a live DJ playing up-beat music and giving callers an update after each song: “...those waiting for [insert relevant department] there are now 8 of you waiting with the longest person in queue waiting for 5 minutes.”

Okay, operationally this must have been expensive but this is story about a brand experience delivered ten years ago. The return on investment, given this type of long-term advocacy, must make it worth considering more carefully how brand organisations can work-out better call handling systems.

If anyone has a more recent example of a great brand experience I’d love to hear about it.

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