On the evening of Tuesday 18th February this year I received one of those phone calls that you never ever want to receive.
Well not one of THOSE phone calls…
But one that gives you a similar SINKING feeling….
Citibank phoned me to let me know that four transactions with Facebook advertising had just been placed using my Citibank Visa Card.
The Citibank employee was calling to ask whether I had placed those four ads.
I hear you ask:
“What’s the big fuss about that then David?”
I replied immediately to the caller saying that I did not have any ads running or to be run with Facebook, and that when I did advertise with Facebook recently, I did so using my American Express Card.
And then I asked him:
“So this means you are going to have to cancel my Visa Card and issue me with a new card?”
And my heart sank.
“Yes,” he said.
And what a pain in the tail that is…
You know what I mean?
All of those automatic debits on the card that need to be followed up and updated.
Phone service providers.
Insurance providers.
Storage providers.
Season tickets at the footy.
Health Insurance.
Life insurances.
And those are the monthly ones.
There are also some annual automatic debits that I’m yet to recall to memory..
But that was just the beginning…
When my monthly Citibank Visa statement arrived [electronically], only one of the four fraudulent transactions had been reversed.
This seemed odd.
And then, in the physical mail, two letters from Citibank arrived.
“We have now received documentation from the merchant supporting the authenticity of the original transaction. If on examining the voucher/s you have any reason to continue to dispute the transaction, please notify us immediately by signing below and returning this letter within seven days.
If we do not hear from you, we will presume you recognise the transaction…”
So my bank was telling me that I needed to prove I didn’t place these ads with Facebook?
The Response from Facebook was:
The Credit Card had previously been used without challenge or dispute in the past.A. Agree. [I had placed Facebook Ads in December 2016 and January 2017 with that card. But none since then.]
Aside: Facebook did not compare those ads from three years ago with the advert they allowed to be placed on February 18, to see whether the type of ad and type of market then and now were similar.
2. User Name and User Email are consistent with the Cardholder.
User Name and Email address are easily Googleable to see that they are located in Florida and California. I am not located in USA.
And…
3. The purchase Geolocation is consistent to the Bill to Country of the Cardholder.
Purchase Geolocation is AU and Bill to Country is US.
Facebook provided a screenshot of the Ad.
It read: “Below is the Ad the Cardholder purchased on the attached invoice [page 2], as well as the Name of the Ad and the number of times it was shared, liked, and commented on, providing evidence that the services were used by the Cardholder.”
The Ad is a picture and the copy is written in Vietnamese, I think… This in itself does not provide evidence that it was purchased by the Cardholder. It was purchased by the User Name more likely.On top of that, the number of shares and likes and comments show no reference to the Cardholder.
[Sorry Facebook. I don’t believe you did my situation any justice here].
So I phone Citibank again on March 25 2020.
The young man I spoke to that evening looks up my history and tells me that he will raise the dispute and it should be settled within seven days.
Fast forward to Monday April 27 2020.
An online review of my credit card statements and transactions shows that two of the transactions have been reversed but two transactions have not been reversed.
So I phone Citibank.
The agent there that I speak with reviews my information and comes back to me and tells me that the transactions on my card had been verified by the vendor [Facebook] and were therefore legitimate.
I asked her why two of these transactions had been reversed and two were still standing, particularly when Citibank had phoned me about these four transactions within a few minutes of them being made?
She also said I failed to notify Citibank about these activities, and I pointed out to her that it was Citibank who notified me.
She placed me on hold again for a few minutes and then returned to me to let me know that there was a change of position and that all of the transactions were now being reversed.
And she gave me transaction ID numbers to verify this.
And I said…
Thank you.
But then I said how I was disappointed that after being a Citibank customer for over twenty-five years and transacting plenty of money on that Credit Card, and with an exemplary payment in full record, that in this process about these fraudulent transactions, I had been made to feel as though I was a criminal.
And I told her that when there were [rare] disputes of a similar nature at American Express, it is Amex’s policy to immediately refund the amount and make the vendor provide evidence.
And I also pointed out to her that I had needed to spend over two hours of my time on the phone to Citibank about this matter, which had occurred due to no fault of my own.
And how I was not feeling as though I was a valued customer…
I then asked if I could be compensated for those feelings and also for that time spent on the phone to them with some payment to me of reward points or by some other measure?
Can you hear the sound of a door being slammed in your face?
I told her that I couldn’t understand why they [Citibank] had made me feel like a criminal.
I told her that I couldn’t understand why my call on March 25 had not been acted upon [she answered that it usually takes 6-8 weeks] yet the verification of the purchase was finalised in 16 days.
I told her, that in my business, whenever there had been a service failure, we sent flowers or champagne as a gift to thank our customers for their understanding that mistakes can happen..
BTW we never made our customers feel like criminals…
I told her that I now had a very bad taste in my mouth and I would be looking at spending time finding a new Visa Card Provider.
How are the Service Recovery Systems in your Dental Practice?
We all know that thingsCAN AND DO go wrong from time to time. And when that happens, restitution is the name of the game.
Blaming is not the answer.
Yet in a dental practice, when a patient calls to say that a piece of porcelain has sheered off their new crown, I often hear the response:
“What were you eating?”
“Let me check with our lab and see if they’ll guarantee it.”
When the best response is simply:
“Betty, how soon can you be here. Let’s get you in and have a look and see what we need to do to fix that for you…”
Always strive for WIN-WIN.
There is no other acceptable option.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
I often say, when teaching The Ultimate Patient Experience, that things need to be done in a certain order.
And cannot be performed in a random order.
There are some things, where doing things out of order has diabolical consequences.
Like baking a cake.
You need to follow the recipe in the order that it is laid out.
Adding the eggs at the end won’t cut it.
And it’s the same getting dressed in the morning.
You can’t put your socks on after you’ve put your shoes on.
That won’t work.
And you can’t put your undies on after you’ve put your trousers on.
Unless you are a superhero.
It’s the same when answering the phone in your dental office.
There are certain questions that need to be asked when you are the person responsible for answering your dental office phone.
And those questions work best when asked in a specific order.
And asking those questions in a random order does not give a good result.
Asking the questions in the APPROPRIATE and RECOMMENDED ORDERwill result in the caller scheduling an appointment with your office.
And not only will they schedule with your office, they will be looking forward to their appointment with such anticipation that should a change in your schedule occur, they will be hoping your office will call them and bring their appointment forward.
This is the desired outcome of every new patient enquiry call to your dental practice.
And it can only be achieved by following the phone answering protocols and asking the correct questions in the correct order.
Why would you make life more difficult for yourself?
It beggars belief that employees do not follow the protocols and end up with less than optimal results.
If our role at the dental practice is to serve and help callers by solving their problems, why would we not want to do everything in our power to achieve that desired result?
People who call a dental practice do so because they have a dental problem that needs to be solved.
As Jayne Bandy says:
“They’re not calling your dental practice to order a pizza.”
They are calling because they have a dental concern.
And although they may have difficulty in expressing that concern and enunciating their problem, it is our duty to assume control and be HELPFUL and SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM.
When we do not make them an appointment we have let them down.
If you answer your dental office phone by asking the correct questions in the recommended order, then you will make more appointments for your callers.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Because of Coronavirus [COVID-19], things are different.
We are social distancing.
We are watching who we touch and what we touch and who we don’t touch and what we don’t touch.
These are crazy times.
When two people pass each other on the street, they now don’t pass each other.
They now CIRCLE around each other.
It’s weird.
Will this distant behaviour continue when conditions relax?
Who is to know… we might all just accept our enforced conditions as the new normal…
In business things have changed.
In business there used to be three types of people:
Those seeking business opportunities
Those interested in taking a look at business opportunities
Those not interested in looking at any business opportunities.
In these current difficult times there are now only two categories:
Those seeking business opportunities
Those not interested in looking at any business opportunities.
The people in the middle space, have gone.
The people in the middle space have morphed into the not interested in looking category.
And so now, in current difficult times, there are many more people not interested in looking at anything.
There probably are the same number of people still who are interested and still seeking business opportunities.
Sadly, the number not interested has swelled dramatically because of the category change of the interested in taking a look
people becoming not interested people.
This is good
This is good because in a way, before, the interested in taking a look people have usually just taken up and wasted a lot of time, because ultimately, a significant number [or most] of them were never really interested anyway… [these are called tyre kickers].
Now, in this climate, the people looking to improve their lot are benefitting because the tyre kickers have now moved laterally to become not interested people, and as such, because they aren’t taking up any explanation time, they are getting out of the way in a more expedient manner.
This is now far more helpful in allowing those who want opportunity, and those providing opportunity, a far less interrupted passage of meeting and getting together.
This is very good.
If only we had only two choices all the time.
Wouldn’t life be simpler?
It certainly would be better.
Remember:
Successful people make decisions quickly and change their minds rarely.
Less successful people take longer to make their decisions [if at all], and change their minds more often.
In this FREE LIVE WEBINAR Jayne and I will be discussing the very latest URGENT STEPS that the smart and savvy Dental Practices need to be following to survive during AND AFTER the Corona Virus Pandemic.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
I was chatting with one of my coaches this week, and an interesting utterance emerged from my mouth…
And yes, I have coaches.
Some of you might say:
“Why does a coach have a coach?”
Or multiple coaches?
And the reasons are simple.
A coach sees things that you don’t see.
A coach talks you through the things that you need to improve.
A coach celebrates your wins with you.
And a coach keeps you accountable.
Just think about it… who are the number 1 people in their fields that have coaches?
Politicians have speaking coaches.
Sports stars have coaches…. Federer, Woods, Steve Smith, Michael Jordan, the Williams sisters.
And these guys don’t just have one coach. They have multiple coaches for various disciplines in their field.
And for personal disciplines as well.
Anyway, what I said to my coach, in conversation was this phrase:
“You didn’t mean to offend them, but you have….”
Now I wasn’t directing this comment to my coach. It was a generalised comment that I was making about what happens when somebody TAKES offence when no offence was intended.
And if and when that ever happens, then an [immediate] apology is in order.
A very good friend of mine who I look up to, once said to me:
“The outcome that you receive is a direct response to the communication that you send.”
And she said:
“If you want people to respond differently, then you need to improve the communication in the message that you send.”
She said:
“For you to have people respond in the way that you want them to, then your communication to them needs to be crystal clear.”
Finally she surmised:
“David, there’s no point in getting upset when people behave in a manner different to your expectations.”
What’s this all mean?
Ultimately, different people will respond to the same message in different ways, depending upon their intellect, their state of mind, and their emotional state. Their responses will also differ depending upon their “overall” states, as well as how their states are at that point in time.
I don’t believe that it is most people’s intention to purposefully offend.
Or offend intentionally.
But there will be some people who will offend.
When you do meet someone who seems to be hell-bent upon being offensive, give them a wide berth.
“Loose lips sink ships.”
My mother used to say this, and say it often.
It was a reminder that the spoken word, once uttered, cannot be retracted.
When giving World Class Service:
When providing a world-class experience to your customers and guests, it is imperative that everything spoken is said for a reason and a purpose.
And said with the intention of improving the experience of your guest or customer.
Nothing said, offered or intended should ever be able to be “taken the wrong way”.
Truly World Class businesses know and understand the importance of every last, and lasting moment, of each and every customer experience they are engaging in.
Don’t let one rash moment destroy those experiences for your customers and guests.
People will always remember the way that you’ve made them feel.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
