Companies and people working together

I know, an original and disruptive thought, don’t you think?

I have however during the last couple of days in Sweden been reminded of what it’s like to use a service developed with the user in mind, and have users appreciate it.

Would you believe me if I told you it has snowed so much here I could hardly find my car yesterday morning, and yet people were incredibly surprised that there was some disruption to the underground?

car in snow

(Note this picture was taken a day before the snow storm)

Would you believe me if I told you that anyone using the underground in Stockholm is allowed to, if there is a disruption to traffic of more than 20 minutes, claim back the sum of up to 70 pounds to get themselves to their destination (this includes taxi). Well it’s the case, all you have to do is fill in this form and send it to SL (Sweden’s version of TFL).

resegaranti

And would you believe me if I told you that as I was leaving the platform to grab my taxi, most people remained on the platform. Why? The announcer had mentioned that the refund was available for people in a hurry…so anyone not in a hurry stayed calmly waiting for the trains to run again. Do you think it would be this calm outside a London underground if free taxis were made available every time there is a 20+ minute delay?

Aspudden underground

I think this is extraordinary on many levels.

1) SL is able to offer second to none service under extreme hard weather conditions. I don’t know about you but I have been in situations where companies face a lot less adversity and are still not able to get the basics right. Maybe the harder something is, the more effort we put into it, the better the results.

2) SL is so confident in their service that it’s sustainable for them to offer travel refunds as and when they disrupt passengers journey. How many of us work in a company so confident in the product and service we provide that we make compensation (not just refund) part of our SLA. I wonder if we made such compensation part of our value proposition, would we manage and run companies in a different (and therefore better) way?

3) People seem to see the relationship between them and SL more as a partnership. In other words, if I don’t need to take a taxi because I’m not in a hurry, then I wont do so just because I can. I almost felt guilty jumping into one on my way to the hospital. There’s very little chance I would feel any of that guilt if TFL would offer me a free taxi journey once in a while. This tells me that if you treat customers with respect, more times than not, you will get the same respect back.

Could be an interesting way forward for an organisation – set yourself some almost impossible customer service challenges, set out to deliver on them…and build the kind of relationship with your customers where it is appreciated, and not taken for granted!

Having said all this, I would not rush to move up here in the hope of having a relatively easy journey to work. My brother has just spent the last 2 hours shoveling snow so we can get out of the house and get into our cars!

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Email] More »
2010
02/21
CATEGORY
Customer Experience
Thoughts
1 comment
    • Humberto
    • August 1st, 2010

    I was looking for Aspudden photos and ran into your page.
    I saw the “T” station entrance and the “Cafe de las flores” where I uaually went in April May 2010. So, I tried to amplify to see the cafe door and window and guess what… I found my son´s face in the picture!
    Then I began to read the article and found that I agree completely with your opinion. In fact, it´s one of the points that make me seriously consider the chance of living someday in Sweden.
    I read part of the other posts and found them interesting too.
    All the best

  1. No trackbacks yet.