My cable modem was down one morning last week. So I went to pick up the phone to call them (the lovely Charter Communications, kept afloat by Paul Allen’s largesse), and then realized the sad fact that since I have an IP Vonage phone, I wasn’t going to be making any calls. On to my cell, and the customer service number was busy. Busy! I guess this means I am not the only one without Internet service. Or else a lot of people aren’t getting TV service, either. Luckily, I was back in business in about an hour.
Skype’s customer service didn’t fare any better last week either. Seems like they were the target of a phish attack, and because so many people clicked on the bogus links, or because the attackers used bogus email addresses, their email system crashed. And how do you think you get ahold of Skype customer service? By sending them email, of course! Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just, I don’t know, CALL them on the PHONE and talk to a real person?
Both of these episodes point out that you need multiple communications paths for your customer service department, if you want to have adequate customer service. You can’t just have an 800 number, if anyone can actually get through to it and not wait forever and a day on hold. You can’t just have email, if anyone’s job is to actually to answer it within a few hours of receipt. You need Instant Messaging connections, Web click-to-call, and what about those people that take the time to send you an actual postal letter, before they go postal on you? Yes, yes, and yes. Do it all.
It doesn’t take much, particularly in this era of reduced expectations, to rise above the mediocre level that most of us have experienced. Is this because of off-shoring? Because of corporate cut-backs? Because no one gives a hoot about their customers? All of the above! Plus, it is how we have come to think of the customer. My favorite anecdote: what does the telecom industry call their connection to the customer? The last mile. Hah! News flash: we are the first darn mile, and don’t forget it.
Sprint is finding this out first hand. Their new CEO, Dan Hesse, put his email address in the new ads, saying that Sprint will now actually listen to their customers, the few of them that haven’t yet switched to Verizon or AT&T. Yet, Dan (I feel like we should be on a first name basis) readily admits that he doesn’t actually have time to READ all these emails that he is supposedly getting – he gets a summarized (and presumably sanitized) update once a day. Once a day! I guess the world’s biggest all-fiber optic network that operates at the speed of light (or whatever their current marketing pitch is) doesn’t have to move that fast. Yes, Dan is making some progress, empowering all of his line managers to be more responsive to customers, as opposed to just pissing them off. But they still have a long way to go – a friend of mine, who has been a Sprint customer with five, count ’em, five phones is about ready to bolt, because she can’t get a correct bill from them and has to call every month to fight the over charges. How many more times does she have to call before just being another one of their churn statistics?
It isn’t just the computer companies. For the last two months, I have been trying to get my health insurance provider, Anthem Blue Cross, to correct my birth date on my health policy. I have tried faxing. I have tried calling. I have tried begging my doctors to just change my real birth date to the one that Anthem has listed so I can get treatment and not go through the song and dance with their billing departments. I got someone to help me and they promised it will be fixed by next week. Yeah, I have heard this tune before.
As I have said in the past, those companies that don’t provide decent customer service won’t have their customers much longer. If you are in charge of your department, think about ways that you touch your customers and make a pledge to do something small to improve what you do, and that you will provide some incentives to your crew so that they actually follow through with it. Sometimes, all it takes is for the customer service rep to listen to the complaint, apologize, and make some small token of appeasement.
This column was also posted on Pajamas Media this week here.
And for more suggestions on technologies that even small businesses can use to improve customer communications, check out this post.
One reader says: Couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you for your Web Informant about providing better customer communications. You touched a nerve. So many of us baby boomers remember what it was like when intelligent people provided good, reliable service…or any service.
From the lack of manners of people on their cell phones in every nook and cranny of life (I just LOVE being a captive audience to some nit wit in a doctor’s office, Long Island Rail Road car or in a restaurant, listening to his/her over-modulated dribble about their date, the previous night) to companies’ philosophies of “Here’s our website. YOU take the time and figure it out!” The onus of providing customer service has transferred from the company to the consumer. When did that happen?
I spend hours each week, talking on phone, emailing, faxing or navigating web sites, trying to get hold of customer disservice. It doesn’t matter if it’s the alarm company, health insurance, retail store, Internet provider (incidentally, my power went out twice this morning, and so did my computer. I was on the phone with Cablevision for 30 minutes). It’s all the same. Companies don’t seem to care whether you are a customer or not. Don’t these companies realize there are other fish in the sea and we can go elsewhere? Do they know the meaning of the word, “retention”?
The biggest offender, last week was the NYC Department of Education. I didn’t receive my last school paycheck. I spent hours on the phone, on Thursday, listening to voicemail messages directing me to speak to offices that don’t exist or with the payroll secretary. Hey…on July 10th, if the payroll secretary was sitting at her desk, I would have been delighted to speak with her. She would have had the issue resolved in five minutes.
Unfortunately, the situation continues to get worse. Customer service agents…excuse me…they are now specialists, in India. Agents reading from a script, irrelevant to your issue. And, if I hear one more person tell me, “I am trying to help you.” I will scream. Usually, I respond with, “No, if you were trying to help me, you’d listen to what I have to say, which is why you have two ears and one mouth. You should do twice the amount of listening as talking!”
It’s a sad state of affairs. It seems to get worse (“Your call is important to us. Please hold on. The average wait time is 35 minutes.”), and I don’t see an improvement, any time soon. I suppose that’s why the late great George Carlin and Jerry Seinfeld had so much material to share with us.
Another reader (an IT manager) writes:
Good stuff.
The interesting part of this is that once things like that become a commodity, the rub is in taking the baseline cost and adding some value proposition that raises the level back above the commodity cost.
I always find it interesting how many organizations (IT included) actually front-face the dregs or lower capability (people skills especially) people on the Help Desk.
I mean it is your single most influential contact point with your customers and sometimes you wonder if the people you are talking to actually get physically ill when calls come in. I have found a couple companies lately changing that SOP and including really nice level one folks. Within my own organization, I had to recently completely refocus both the Training and Help Desk simply because of that problem.
Hell, I knew better and still went operational capability over touchy-feely at the outset. That will not happen again.
Another reader and former Sprint customer writes:
RE: Sprint — I’ve used their LMDS service to
get a 1.5 + meg connection to my house for about 10 years. They’ve collected
$54 from me every month and I was happy. Two months ago they said the were
no longer going to provide this service and as of the end of July I could go
with another Sprint offering. Something about losing FCC spectrum.
I tried to call customer service and spent 20 minutes with them trying to
find my customer records so I could get moved over. Looks like the new
sprint and the old sprint don’t share records. I would be getting the save
service with EVDO (yeah right, with a 5gig /month cap) but would have to buy
additional equipment for it to work in the house the way the existing
service was working. On top of that I’d have to have a contract and other
‘features’. After this lousy customer service experience I ended sticking
with Verizon EVDO and up going with another provider that was more
responsive for a slower hard line to augment my unrestricted Verizon line.
Sometimes having multiple contact methods doesn’t mean better communication
methods.
Hi there Dave.
Spending a bit of time reading your articles and researching your site…wow, this is going to be a great resource for us.
And this article, on Customer Service, really hits home. Earlier this morning, I was reading an article on a woman ‘trapped by United’ at the O’Hare airport. So much of the time a disaster has many opportunities just hiding inside.
Wanted to share with you her blog post…enjoy!
http://www.barefeetstudios.com/2008/07/01/be-here-now-marketing-how-united-airlines-can-take-advantage-of-flight-delays/
Great job Strom!,
To answer the question! It all started with gas-station self-service, and now U see it at Home depot (no work force). I come from the day when all you had was the customer. Most of the employees and employers now days forget one thing, the customer sign their pay check. With the companies I owned this was one of the hardest things to get through to the work forces. That is one of the reason I lost everything (burned out on dealing with incompetents and the lack of employees caring for the customer they go through the motions), they want good paying job but when you ask for them to show up on time that say they are doing the best they can. But at the same time if I were to say I’m doing the best I can to have your check this week, they would walk out or threaten to take legal action. We have created a society of wimps and pussies and they are getting their way. And you wonder were customer services went, it is going to hell. People need to care to be able to give customer service. In today’s environment all companies want is to profit and grow, not give customer service (they have given up on our work force they go were they have control). Call Verizon some time for tech support you will be talking to someone in India that you can not even understand what they are trying say, oh this is after spending about 15min. to get to them.
Thank you
I will be back and I will send to about 1500 companies that I know.