What's the deal with customer service?

05 Jul

Posted by Andy Brudtkuhl under Business, General

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I have also been infuriated with customer service over the last month. Since buying a house I have had to deal with a wide variety of service providers as well as a few retailers. In one instance of the many was there excellent customer service, and it was a small, local heating and cooling business. If you are in Des Moines, IA and looking for good heating / cooling service call Joe’s Heating and Cooling - you won’t be disappointed. See - excellent customer service wins you free PR through recommendations. It earns you repeat customers. It betters your brand image.

Now, how can we invoke cross industry change in a fundamental business process like customer service? At Emergence Marketing, francois claims it is partly the consumer’s fault for not speaking up for themselves and calling out bad customer service.

If more people were to talk back to companies or report customer service abuse to their local local consumer affairs departments, the overall state of customer service would improve.

Emergence Marketing: Customer entropy partially to blame for poor customer service

That will not solve the problem but it is a start. Does it work? Probably not. Will you feel better about the situation? Probably. Giving your 2cents to a bottom level call center operator (who increasingly is not an employee of the company for which you are seeking service) will not get you far. Why? Your beef is with them and they are not going to do anything to jeopordize their position.

How can we improve the state of customer service? I can see two ways. We can use our power of creating discussion (bitching) about companies who have horrible customer support to inform and educate consumer’s choices. Companies need to seek help, from the people who they will be helping in order to provide a satisfactory experience.

Customer service is an essential aspect in managing the edge. If you are a large company and cannot have the kind of passion Joe has when dealing with his customers than use technology to make the edge a better experience for your customers. Get a blog and start a two-way communication. If Qwest had a blog I would have left my share of comments by now. Create a wiki for knowledge management - let your customers add input to your knowledge base. Use a simple customer -> call tracking utility. By know Qwest should know not to run through the reboot your modem script with me. Be proactive and seek customer input rather than reactively receiving it. Proactive customer service has many benefits including the fact your customer is not pissed off when you talk to them. For instance, GoDaddy calls me every six months or so if they have not heard from me asking me if everyhing is alright with their service. Proactive support also gives them a chance to upsell, which happens to be much easier with a happy customer.

There are many things ‘we’ can do as a community of consumers but the responsibility ultimately falls on the business. So be smart and manage the edge properly — or at least care about your customers like Joe because that can go a long way.

technorati tags:business, managingtheedge, customerservice, support, edge

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5 Responses

Francois Gossieaux

July 6th, 2006 at 7:30 am
1

For a company it’s all about applying lifetime customer relationship economics to the customer service center instead of transactional economics.

While I like the idea of managing the edge a lot - customer service should not be at the edge but at the core of any business. After all, if companies are all about conversations, then the customer service center is one of the few places where conversations with customers actually happen…
Andy Brudtkuhl

July 6th, 2006 at 9:31 am
2

The problem with most companies is the edge is not at the core of their business - where it should be. Proper edge management should create transparency within the company.

There should also be more avenues of communication between customer and company aside from customer service.
Brian Kaldenberg

July 6th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
3

GoDaddy.Com has come to dominate the web hosting and domain name industry. Why? I believe it is because of their great customer service.

That company has taken complicated technological matters and turned them into customer friendly processes.

If they ever go public I’m jumping on board.
Andy

July 7th, 2006 at 8:07 am
4

GoDaddy has nearly commoditized the domain registrar and web hosting markets - which is definitely good for consumers. My only problem with them is they try to upsell you worse than waiting in line at Best Buy. They should have a separate process for those of use who are very frequent domain buyers.
john

September 11th, 2006 at 12:42 am
5

Well considering our family returned from Europe (Germany) were we lived for 4 years with the USAF, I initially thought the Quest request for a new phone line within 5 business days resonable. Then it got intersting… So the new phone line/service to our new (make that pre-owned) in Idaho should have been installed by the date they gave us. When it got to the install date @ 1200 I gave them a call, since we still were living in the house now for 5 days, without a phone (BTW, Qwest was the LAST utility to hook up). So I call from work, and go thru the maze of “press 1 for…” and finally talk to a person. Then they tell me that I have no order for my address, AND when they finally get down to it they DO “find” the order, but have my last name misspelled. Now she tells me that in order to get my phone service connected, I will have to wait 5 business days, did I mention that I already did? Oh yeah, now I’m hopping mad. This is the USA, 22nd century! I had better service with T-online and TKS. So I rant and rave and finally get my point across; I’m not waiting 5 more business days (It’s a Friday, and thru the weekend)for phone service. OK, so later that day they do come out and hook up the line. Not that they need to do anything at the house, it’s all done at a center. Now, my phone is up and running and my bill is in the wrong name (misspelled). I call the customer service center twice to try and resolve it. Not done! So, now I start getting junk mail in the wrong name, some of it XXX offers! Now I’m not a prude, but I am not happy that my “name” was sold. So I call Seattle office direct and talk to some upper level manager. He “assures” me Qwest does not sell mailing lists; really! Qwest is the only company that has my name misspelled!!! I threaten FCC action, and wala! my name is changed and I am removed from their promotion list (yeah you got to tell them you want off their list). Still, from time to time I get junk mail in my other name. Oh yeah, I had to tell them they need to change the name in the listed phone book!

Now I am a little tired of my old ISP provider jacking up prices twice in a year. So I call Qwest, and what a deal they got to offer! I can bundle my phone, TV and DSL into one package! Really, it does cost me less, but then factor in customer service. Direct TV, who I ordered from Qwest, fails to show up on the install date: no show/no call. So I call them (Qwest) and and referred to Direct TV, with my order #. Well, the customer service woman tells me that they will reschedule for another date, but since the regional office is closed I have to call them on Mon and find out why/when they will come out. Now I took a day off, I’m salery for the goverment, but the taxpayers didn’t get their money’s worth. Now I got to take another day? So I call and leave a message at the regional office, no call back. So I call Direct TV again, and get them to comp me $20 on the install; WOW! Then, come to find out the regional failed to order the satellite routers and didn’t have a ship date. Poor planning in our growing community. Of course, Qwest will not help, as Direct TV is not a subsidary, Qwest just provides billing for Direct TV. So after 3 weeks of no TV/DSL we finally got it all up and running. Their customer service stinks when you have a problem!