Yesterday I had an email from Genesis Energy titled “Check you are on the best plan”.

This is a good idea and should be welcomed. But the good idea is so poorly implemented it has actually made me less happy with Genesis as my energy provider. I probably won’t change provider, but today I’m thinking about it. Before I saw the email I wasn’t.

Here’s how Genesis screwed a decent customer relationship opportunity:

First, my email says I used 22,623 units of energy in the past year.

It then goes on to tell me if I used less than 8000 kWh (kilowatt hours) I would be better off with one plan and if I used more I’d be better off with another.

Easy-peasy, the letter says I used 22,623 units. That’s 22,623 kWh isn’t it? So its the big hitter plan for me.

Not so fast. 22,623 kWh is a huge amount of electricity. My degree was in Physics and while I’m out of touch with the subject, I still remember this would be a lot of kWh.

So, I ring the 0800 number at the bottom of the email to find out what the relation is between kWh and ‘units’. We’ll forgive the poor English implicit in this – technically the kWh, or perhaps more accurately the Wh is a unit in the usually accepted sense.

On the phone. And lo. I’m asked for my customer number. Now I have this to hand, it’s in the email, but I’m buggered if I’m going to let them know it’s me who is calling. For all I know, Genesis might regard this kind of question as impertinent and mark my CRM record as a “difficult customer” to be deliberately given the run-around in future encounters and charged extra “difficult” fees.

Three times the phone system asks me, and not politely to enter my customer number. Eventually it gives up and I reach another menu where, as is so often the case with CRM systems, I have to listen through a long list of options before reaching the “all other enquiries”. My telephone handset has a timer. It took nearly three minutes to reach a human. There was no music on hold. That’s a big plus point for Genesis.

Eventually I reach an operator. I explain about the email and the mention of “units” and ask how many units are in a kWh. She then asks me again for my customer number and almost cuts me off when I don’t provide it. She says she can’t help me without looking at my customer records.

I tell her she isn’t listening. The question is generic. It is independent of my customer record. After a couple of turns of the loop, she gives in and tells me there are 660 units in a kWh.

Now I’m curious. What exactly are the ‘units’ we are talking about here? It’s clearly nothing to do with electron volts eV. It could be related to the Joule or perhaps the calorie. Can anyone enlighten me?

Last week the Bennett family toaster died. Its last moments were spectacular with arcing, sparks and flames.

I suspect it was also dangerous.

It’s a Tefal model we purchased just over a year ago. When it gave up the ghost we did the usual sales receipt hunt so we could take it back to the shop and get a warranty replacement or refund.

Although the toaster is roughly 13 months old and the company claims it isn’t covered by the warranty, New Zealand’s Consumer Guarantees Act suggests otherwise.

A new toaster should toast for more than a year.

The issue is moot because we lost the sales receipt. Someone – probably me – wasn’t quite anally retentive enough.

I called Tefal’s 0800 700 711 customer support line to report what looked like a dangerous finale and was routed to what sounded like an Australian call centre.

When I started explaining what had happened the representative told me  to take the toaster to a repair centre.

At this point I hadn’t mentioned the missing receipt although, technically I could argue proof of purchase isn’t the point. Goods should be fit to do whatever they were sold to do regardless of paperwork.

But that’s not my point. The toaster only cost $80 – which I had already written off. In fact by this point we had already bought a new toaster – though not from Tefal.

You see I wanted to report the dangerous arcing to the customer service representative. My aim was to give them valuable real world feedback that could potentially save people’s lives and certainly could help the company build a better product.

But the customer service representative I spoke to wasn’t interested.

I also had a very clear impression she was trying to get me off the line as quickly as possible – that’s possibly some call centre productivity thing.

When pressed she said she was “transferring me downstairs” whatever that means.

The call transferred to a voice mail line where I left a short message and a telephone number where I could be contacted. That was 36 hours ago. The phone hasn’t rung.

So the only conclusion I can draw from this is that Tefal isn’t interested in a potentially dangerous problem with its products.

This scares me.

Moreover, what is the point of a business having customer relations when this kind of information isn’t collected? Or am I completely out of touch with realty expecting a manufacturer to care about these things?

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You probably have all the business contacts you need; looking after them is the challenge

Whatever your line of business, there are people you communicate with regularly. The most obvious will be your customers or clients — people who pay money for your services or products. When you look for further sales or more work, these are the best starting place.

Knowing when or under what conditions you should rekindle an earlier contact can be the difference between a thriving business and one that struggles.

There are other key groups. Some almost as important as paying customers. For example, as a freelance journalist, contact list is almost as vital as my list of editors and publishers.

If you make or sell things, your suppliers matter. Depending on circumstances you may need to stay in touch with sub-contractors, trade associations and others who service your business needs.

That you should keep a database of all your business contacts is what Americans call a ‘no-brainer’. Doing it effectively requires a few more neurons.

In the old days, the best tools involved card indexes. Bigger cards worked better. People would write notes on these cards each time they called a contact. Some people still swear by cards, clinging to their boxes full of paper as if computers aren’t here to stay. It’s doubtful there are many of these reading this, but who knows?

Cardfile and Windows Contacts

Early computerized contact databases closely resembled their physical counterparts. You may remember the Cardfile program with earlier versions of Windows. We’ve moved on since then. Today’s tools are much more advanced.

The closest modern application to Cardfile is the Windows Contacts program built into Windows Vista. It’s often overlooked. If you run Vista and you haven’t tried it yet, go to the start button and look for it under the All Programs menu. Another contact manager you may already own is in Microsoft Outlook.

There are plenty of alternative contact management tools, but strangely, there are few decent free online contact management applications. For example, the contacts part of Gmail is weak compared with Outlook or Windows Contacts.

Customer Relationship Management

Companies often use more sophisticated contact applications allowing workers to share contact details. When combined with databases storing other information, possibly huge amounts of other information, they are known as Customer Relationship Management systems or CRM.

The principles apply to all contact management tools. Choose whichever software works for you. I urge you to look for flexible solutions that integrate well with the other tools you use on an everyday basis. My concern here is showing you the simple concepts that will trigger big productivity gains.

First, above all else, use your contact software as much as you can. It sounds obvious. If you phone someone, keep his or her details open as you talk. Making the data available may help jog your memory about things. You may like to record details of the conversation for future reference. Log calls in the database. Use reminder functions to automatically let you know when you should call someone again. Enter appointments in your diary or calendar from the contact database.

Second, make sure your data is good. Scroll through your contact list regularly. Check details such as telephone numbers and email addresses are up-to-date. When you learn that information has changed, make updating your database a priority. If you suspect major contact details have changed, get in touch with the person. They may have moved jobs, this gives you a good opportunity to strike up a conversation.

Communications channels

Modern businesses use many communications channels, so use your contact manager to make sure you choose the most appropriate channel. For talking it could be mobile, landline telephone or Skype. They may prefer email, instant messaging or SMS messaging. Record people’s communications preferences in your contact database. Make sure you have all their telephone and fax numbers as well as email addresses and so on.

Third, organize your contacts. The better applications allow you to assign categories to contacts. Use as many of these as you can. Cut and dice the data as often as you like. So, when you need to send a circular letter to all the left-handed Tasmanian fishermen who have birthdays in November, compiling the mailing list is a cinch.

Forth, share your data with co-workers. This information is more valuable if more people have access to it. You can do this using a network, though that may not be necessary. Data sharing is not such a good idea if you are a commission-only sales representative in a competitive organization, but most modern companies are team-based. It looks bad if different people from the same organization make similar or conflicting calls to the same contacts. On the other hand, coordinating data wisely can make even the smallest firm look professional.

Used properly, your contact manager will return the investment in days. It’s one way small business can perform on a level field with larger operations.

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