1. Beyond Customer Service for Lab
Managers
Presented By:
Ron Pickett

2. Liquid Handling
Manual pipettes Electronic pipettes Pipette tips Pipette calibration Automated pipetting Dispensers Combitips Bottle-top
dispensers
Cell Handling
Fermentors/ CO2 incubators Biological shakers Micromanipulators Microinjectors Microcapillaries Electroporators Micro
bioreactors fusion
chambers
Sample Handling
N Centrifuges Ultra-low temp- Spectrometer,
E
Mixers Vacuum concentrators PCR thermocyclers PCR and Tubes
erature freezer Photometer deepwell plates
and cuvettes
W
!

3. Objectives
 Review the trends in marketing and
customer service
 Analyze the implications for laboratories
 What does a laboratory have in
common with a Customer Focused
Organization?
 Spot Quiz - ___ % of dissatisfied customers will not
return.

4. Define Customer Service
 What the Customer wants;
 When the Customer wants it;
 Provided in the way the Customer
expects.
 All of you are designated
Customer Service EXPERTS!
Spot Quiz: Satisfied customers tell an average of
_____ friends.

5. Customer Service Hall of
Shame/Fame (2012 Zagat
Survey)
1. Amazon 1. Bank Of America
2. Google 2. AOL
3. Apple 3. Comcast
4. UPS 4. Time Warner Cable
5. Hilton Worldwide 5. Dish Network
5. Sony 6. Sprint
7. FEDEX 6. Wells Fargo
8. Marriott International 8. J. P. Morgan
9. American Express 9. Citigroup
10. Southwest Airlines 10. Capitol One

6. 3 Keys to Success

Good service starts at the top. Companies with great
service have chief executives who make it their mission. They're not
afraid to spend money, hire experts and structure the corporation
around the goal of sterling service.
 Service is seen as a continual challenge.
Companies with outstanding customer service are more eager to talk
about their continuing efforts than to accept praise for a job well done.
 These are companies where people want to
work. Companies that excel at customer service are often also
known for providing relatively good pay and benefits. They trust their
employees to make decisions, then routinely stand behind those
decisions.
 Hint: Do these make sense in other settings?

7. Trends in Customer Service
 Old concept:
 Who are our customers?
 What do we owe them?
 What they don’t know . . . .
Spot Quiz: Each dissatisfied customer tells _____
friends about their experience.

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9. Trends in Customer Service
 Emerging view
 Minority Report
 British Airways
 Amazon
 Netflicks
 Social Media
 Other examples
Spot Quiz: For every customer who complains,
___ disgruntled customer’s don’t.

10. Question?
What trends do you see from these
examples?
How do they apply to your lab?
Spot Quiz: It costs ___ times more to acquire a new
customer than to keep one we already have.

11. Trends
 Event or situation related
 Anticipate needs
 Highly personalized
 Impact of the Internet
 External Customers
 Internal Customers
- Everybody has a customer!-

12. Laboratory Environment
 Patients, Grantors and Contractors
 Stakeholders – Patients, Students,
University, Government etc.
 Kaiser-Permanente
 Emerging Capability
 On-line education
“One third of the cost of health care goes for laboratory
tests.” Dean, UC Berkley School of Engineering

13. How can we exceed
expectations?
 UPS
 IBM
 How do we use customer service
concepts?
 What’s standing in the way?

14. Cycle of Customer Service –
Moments of Truth!

16. Some Technology Issues
 What’s coming*,
 When,
 What will it mean to us?
 (What’s here now!)

17. Themes
 Event related
 Anticipate need
 Personalized encounter

18. Generalization
 Focus
 Consistency
 Rewards
 Follow Up

19. 20 Important Customer
Experience Statistics for 2012
1. 40% of organizations cite ‘complexity’ as the greatest barrier to improving multichannel customer
experience, overtaking ‘organizational structure’ since 2010.
2. Only 37% of brands received good or excellent customer experience index scores this year. 64% of
brands got a rating of “OK,” “poor,” or “very poor” from their customers.
3. RyanAir received less than 1 complain per 1,000 passengers in January 2012. It answered 99% of
complaints within 7 business days.
4. Poor customer experiences result in an estimated $83 Billion loss by US enterprises each year because
of defections and abandoned purchases.
5. Just 47% of US contact centers reward their agents based on customer satisfaction ratings.
6. 50% of smartphone users would prefer to use a mobile customer service application to try to resolve
their customer service issue before calling into the contact center.
7. Customers who engage with companies over social media spend 20% to 40% more money with those
companies than other customers.

20. 20 Important Customer
Experience Statistics for 2012
8. 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.
9. 84% of US adults who have conducted an online transaction through a mobile device in the last year report
experiencing a problem.
10. Customer power has grown, as 73% of firms trust recommendations from friends and family, while only
19% trust direct mail (from Forrester report “Consumer “Ad-itudes” Stay Strong”).
11. The verticals with the lowest percentage of calls that are complaints are entertainment / leisure (1.7%) and
manufacturing (2%).
12. Over 60% of customer service managers select customer satisfaction as the key metric for determining the
success of their support organization. Secondary priorities include first call resolution, average handle time,
and wait time.
13. $289 – Average annual value of each customer relationship lost to a competitor or abandoned.
14. 63% percent of online adults are less likely to buy from the same company via other purchase channels if
they experienced a problem with a transaction on their mobile phones.

21. 20 Important Customer
Experience Statistics for 2012
15. 86% of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience.
16. Only 26% of companies have a well-developed strategy in place for improving customer experience.
17. 50% of consumers give a brand only one week to respond to a question before they stop doing
business with them.
18. 18% of US smartphone users would consider switching providers immediately after an initial poor
customer service experience.
19. 24% of consumers who had unsatisfactory service interactions shared their experiences through
social networks in 2010, a 50% increase over 2009.
20. US consumers prefer to resolve their customers service issues using the telephone (90%), face to
face (75%), company website or email (67%), online chat (47%), text message (22%), social networking
site (22%).

22. Discussion
 Spot Quiz: Customers leave because: 1% DIED;< 3%
moved away; 5% influenced by friends
 9% were lured away by the competition,
 ___ were dissatisfied with the product,
 ___ were turned away by the attitude of an
employee.

23. Bringing it Home
 What can you do now?
 What preparation can you do for
tomorrow?
 Who do you need to involve?

24. Answers to Spot Quiz
 91% of dissatisfied customers will never return.
 Satisfied customers tell an average of 5 - 7 friends.
 Each dissatisfied customer tells 15 – 17 friends about
their experience.
 For every customer who complains, 26 disgruntled
customer’s don’t.
 It costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than to
keep one we already have.
 14% were dissatisfied with the product, 68% were turned
away by the attitude of an employee.

25. Summary
 Apply the concepts from the best.
 Think of the Cycle of Service– Moments
of Truth
 What can you learn from Customer
Service to apply in other areas?
(Quality, employee involvement, etc)

26. References
Albrecht, K. The Only Thing That Matters: Bringing the Power of the
Customer into the Center of your Business
Albrecht, K. Service America: Doing Business in the New Economy
Collier, M. The Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide
Goodman, J. Strategic Customer Service John A. Goodman
Harvard Business Review on Increasing Customer Loyalty
Pickett, R. Beyond Customer Service. CLMR Nov/Dec 2006
Sanders, B. Fabled Service: Ordinary Acts, Extraordinary
Outcomes [Paperback]

27. Customers - Stakeholders
 What are the ethical issues in tests that have
serious implications to your bottom line?
 Can you Not recommend a test that is called
for by the results of other tests?
 What are the implications of OTC testing,
mail-in testing, “super-blood panels”?
 To whom are you ultimately responsible,
legally responsible?

28. Organizational Change
 History
 How do you begin the process of
expanding the way in which Labs are
viewed?
 Who will be your advocate?
 Who will be your detractors?
 Who will you be threatening?

29. Beyond Customer Service for Lab Managers
The webinar video will be available at
www.labmanager.com/customerservice
If you have a follow up question for Ron Pickett he can be
reached at ronp70000@aol.com

30. Beyond Customer Service
The Lab Manager
March 27, 2013
Ron Pickett