Report on Business Television - SqueezePlay with Amanda Lang and Kevin O'Leary 
Interview with vice-president of business development Scott Griffith.

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Interview Transcription

Lang: If you’ve ever had shoddy service in a store or restaurant, you know how frustrating it can be to get your message to the people who count. That’s where a new Canadian company comes in. Tell Us About Us finds out what customers really think, then it helps companies fine tune their performance. Scott Griffith is the Vice-President of business development with Tell Us About Us. Thanks for joining us.

Griffith: Oh thank you!

Lang: How did the company come about? What’s the background here?

Griffith: Well, kind of like you said. It was about eight years ago and our President and founder, Tyler Gompf had a really terrible experience at a retail store and we all know how frustrating that can be. He really just felt it’s important to get these messages back to the management so they can do something about these types of issues. So he unfortunately couldn’t find a channel and then embarked on creating this company where we could help customers and companies communicate to kind of solve some of these problems.

O’Leary: So tell us how this works Scott, if I had a bad experience with somebody or some company, do I call you guys up or…take us through the process here.

Griffith: Sure, typical scenarios are our surveys are advertised on guest receipts in restaurants or retail locations so that customers can respond about their most recent experience. So they’ll call a 1-800 number or they’ll visit a website to provide feedback about the experience. Further, we’ve added instant response lines where customers can connect with a live agent and have their problem solved right there on the spot really just to build that trust with the customer.

Lang: How much of this is about technology and how much of it is about just old fashioned listening to people and giving good feedback?

Griffith: Well the moral of the story is that it’s really about the listening to people. Technology just serves as an enabler to help this process happen. In companies that have grown tremendously over the last few years, you know companies that have thousands of locations distributed across North America.

O’Leary: Take us through some your clients, who are you working for or who are you gathering this information for?

Griffith: We work with large restaurant and retail chains, some financial services companies, even as diversified as energy companies. Most companies have specific PR policies, so we don’t typically give out names but you can visit our website to find out some of the clientele that we’ve got.

Lang: And in terms of the range of things you can do for companies. What makes a company come to you? I mean what are they really asking you for when they come?

Griffith: Well a lot of companies have historically done a lot of different types of research across the multiple departments that they have. They might do some customer survey work, some marketing research work and some customer response work but typically these pieces of information have all been kept in separate silos. With our programs they are able to combine all these sources of information together to create a complete picture of their performance. It really simplifies a lot of the processes that they’re used to. It allows them to serve their customers better.

O’Leary: Is that what’s going on here? Cause if I have a problem with a company, my instinct would be, even in a restaurant, is to phone that restaurant or phone that head office as opposed to you guys. Why the shift to phoning you guys instead?

Griffith: Oh absolutely, the shift really comes down to the fact that you can track and get the kernels of information from across the chain as well as just dealing with the immediate problem. So you’ve got kind of a two-phased approached where you’re dealing with the immediate customer concern but also archiving all the types of concerns that you receive so you can attack the root of the problem.

Lang: And give us some examples of the biggest complaints that you’ve heard.

Griffith: Ha Ha. Biggest complaints that we hear…you know, one of the things that causes most companies to under perform is their problem resolution process. For instance, in a banking or financial services situation, if a customer has a problem, they can become really frustrated if it takes one, two, three, four and five calls to resolve that issue. That’s something we hear again and again so we can help companies identify what these issues are then get to the root and solve those problems quickly.

O’Leary: Now I’m presuming the people calling don’t pay you guys. I’m wondering how you guys make your money, I’m presuming you charge a fee to your clients, is that right?

Griffith: Yeah absolutely, it works like a subscription service. Our clientele pay us a monthly fee to provide the back end services and support to do the ongoing research and provide customer support.

Lang: And in terms of drumming up new business, how do you find that companies learn about you, other than this kind of thing? How are you building your business?

Griffith: Well we’ve grown our business quite rapidly with kind of a combination of word of mouth, a little bit of PR here and there and we do a lot events and tradeshows to introduce our company to new prospective clients.

O’Leary: Now I wonder though Scott, if you’re on the phone to somebody who’s got a complaint about one of your clients, are you pushing PR for that client as well? Trying to convince that person, trying to do a sales job on them or are you just trying to solve their problem almost like an ombudsman almost?

Griffith: It’s more of the ombudsman approach at that point.

Lang: And in terms of companies that do well at hearing this kind of thing, what do they have in common when you talk about dispute resolution. What’s the commonality between companies that manage their customers best?

Griffith: Well the commonality is the fact that their entire executive team gets behind the idea that valuing the customer is important and serving the customer is important and that there is more to a relationship with a customer than that transaction. It’s about the lifetime value of that customer and what they can bring to the company for the future.

Lang: Now your business has been influenced, I guess, by a strong Canadian dollar. Tell us about that, has that been a problem for you?

Griffith: I wouldn’t necessarily call it a problem; it has definitely changed the landscape for us, being a company that exports ninety five percent of its services. The shift in currency causes us to adjust, but if anything I think it just makes us stronger and more competitive in the global market place.

Lang: Scott, we appreciate you joining us.

Griffith: Thank you.

Lang: Scott Griffith is VP Business development, Tell Us About Us.

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