Marketing 18th Edition by William Pride,Ferrell

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American Express Delivers Service with Calls, Tweets, and Apps
Imagine the customer service challenges involved in satisfying 100 million customers worldwide who use their credit or debit cards to make $888 billion in purchases every year. That's the situation at American Express, the New York-based financial services firm that rings up $31 billion in annual revenues and has 63,000 employees spread across dozens of countries.
Although American Express has been in operation for more than 150 years, it began as a delivery service and did not enter the credit card business until the late 1950s. Since then, the company has expanded to offer a wide range of credit and debit cards for individuals, corporate employees, and small businesses. Its vision is to "make American Express the world's most respected service brand." To do this, it must provide convenient, responsive around-the-clock service to the consumers and executives who carry its cards, as well as to the merchants and small businesses that accept its cards.
Customers usually prefer to call American Express when they have a question or a problem. At the company's call centers, service representatives can view account details such as demographics, purchasing patterns, and payment patterns while they talk with customers. Thanks to sophisticated software, the reps also have access to special codes that indicate whether a customer is likely to remain loyal or leave. All reps are trained to listen carefully and ask questions that will uncover the source of the problem and lead to an acceptable resolution. Instead of reading from a prepared script, reps are encouraged to take as much time as needed to engage customers in conversation. This allows reps to learn more about each individual's underlying needs, identify a suitable solution to the problem at hand, and-if appropriate-recommend other American Express offerings, all with the goal of satisfying customers and earning their long-term loyalty.
American Express offers customers a number of ways to manage their accounts, check on features and reward benefits, and submit inquiries. Cardholders and merchants can log onto a secure website to access their statements and transaction activity, arrange payments, and request account changes. Online, American Express offers live chat as an option for customers who have a quick question or need immediate assistance while they're at their keyboards. For today's busy lifestyles, the company offers apps for smartphone users to access their account information on the go and to pay for purchases in stores and restaurants. In addition, it maintains a dedicated Twitter account for customer service inquiries, an account that has nearly 45,000 followers.
Because many of American Express's best customers are frequent flyers, the company is opening exclusive VIP lounges in large airports. In addition to lounges in busy U.S. airports such as Las Vegas and Dallas-Fort Worth, the company has customer-only lounges in several overseas airports, including Buenos Aires and Delhi. These luxury lounges offer free food, free Internet access, free concierge service for travel arrangements, and family entertainment areas.
American Express promotes its services and polishes its reputation in traditional advertising media such as television and magazines as well as with posts on its brand specific social media sites. The company has 5 million Facebook likes, 700,000 Twitter followers, 20,000 people in its Google+ circles, and 31,500 Instagram followers. Drawing on its long history as a service business, American Express recently attracted social media attention and positive response by posting a series of historical brand images, such as a 19th century photo of its New York office and a picture of its earliest credit cards. Social media fans appreciated the nostalgic images and shared them with others, resulting in higher brand awareness and favorable word-of-mouth comments.
The company has also received a lot of publicity from its involvement in Small Business Saturday, an annual event it created to encourage shoppers to buy from local and small businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Launched in 2010, this high-profile event focuses on the "shop small" message, not the American Express brand. The company urges shoppers to buy locally using any payment method, not just its own cards. In 2013, Small Business Saturday resulted in an estimated $5.7 billion worth of purchases from small, independent businesses. The goodwill this event has generated for American Express over the years adds momentum to the company's marketing as it competes for cardholders and for merchant acceptance, day after day.
Question for Discussion
When American Express says its vision is to be "the world's most respected service brand," what are the implications for how it manages service expectations?