You Get What You Pay For

A few weeks ago, PrettyLittleThing courted controversy by announcing the closure of some customer accounts.

Well, I say ‘announced’. They wrote directly to some customers to tell them of the deactivation, word of which immediately spread around the internet as the angry and outraged sought a way to vent their frustrations and create a groundswell of support for their cause

The problem was - it seemed - that these customers were buying a huge number of items, and returning almost all of them. This was on top of PrettyLittleThing’s decision to start charging customers £1,.99 per return just a few weeks earlier.

It’s fair to say, their shoppers were not happy:

(Admittedly, if the clothes sizes are a joke and awful quality, I don’t know why you’d continue to buy from there, but anyway…)

The response to this story was more mixed than I expected.

Many were up in arms. The company has chosen to be an online retailer, forcing customers to buy and return in this way, so of course they should honour any returns.

But others had a different view. They’re a private company, they can have whatever rules they like, and if they want to restrict returns and some customers don’t like it, well, those customers can just go elsewhere.

I had similarly mixed feelings when I saw the below on a car insurance website, as I was scouring for a new provider. Firstly, framing using the online service as a ‘saving’ feels a bit, well, 1996. And then, more pointedly, and more deliberately in red, an admin fee for having the tenacity to want to actually speak to someone.

There are two ways of looking at this approach.

One is that it’s anti-customer, creating a highly transactional relationship (if you can call it a relationship), giving a minimum viable service to maximise profits, knowing that people are going to receive a sub-standard experience and may well be left to fend for themselves if things go wrong.

The other, though, is that this is radical transparency and customer empowerment at its best. Let’s show customers the plumbing of our business, give them complete insight and control over the type of service they would like, and pass on the benefits to them in the form of lower costs. If it’s not for them, that’s ok, we’re not for everyone.

GiffGaff are one of the best examples of this, taking the mobile market by storm with an online-only, community-based model of customer experience. Decisions are crowdsourced with customers, prices kept low, service kept high. And, fifteen years after their inception, things still seem to be going pretty well.

It feels to me like the difference is one of positively framing the choice, setting expectations for what you, as a customer, and buying into. RyanAir, until their recent change of heart, had been very clear that their low prices came with a simple service. Unfortunately, this was often compounded with confusing charges meaning it was hard for people to know exactly what they were paying for. The anger from PrettyLittleThing’s customers is, I think, less about the policy, and more that it was unexpected, given they’d shopped in such a way for many months and years.

However, the second big difference between companies who do this in a customer-led way and those who are simply trying to cut corners is whether they’re there to help when things go wrong. We might all sign up for a simple online-only service if we think we’re never going to need their help. But when the unexpected happens, we want someone to speak to. That’s why GiffGaff has an ‘ask the agent’ option for things that need a more personal, more immediate resolution, and why telephone-only bank first direct allows people to access HSBC’s branch network.

Ultimately, whilst I’m not a fan of being made to pay more to speak to someone, I’d much rather a company was transparent about what I was getting, than one that promises everything and delivers little. Too many organisations promise be accessible, then keep us on hold for twenty minutes whilst repeatedly asking ‘Did you know you can do this online?’ because ‘we’re unexpectedly busy’, before announcing a few hundred million in profit that could surely have gone on employing a few more folk.

As a customer, we have choice over where we spend and the service we choose to accept. If you’re not happy, then moaning about it on social media is one option. But taking your money elsewhere is likely to get far more attention in the long run.