Category: Complaints


Expectations

Filed under: Complaints, Customer Service — Leave a comment
January 4, 2017

So I recently had an interaction with a company that I am a subscriber to and it got me thinking about one of the most important aspects of customer service.

Managing your customer’s expectations.  I don’t mean that in the way that many people do which is to let someone down gently.  What I mean is that, as a business, you begin establishing expectations with your first interactions with your customers.

Let’s say you are a service provider of some sort and you have on site appointment arrivals that you have to manage.  Very few companies promise arrival inside of an hour because it’s not practical to promise that someone will be able to make house calls exactly on time when you don’t know what the whole day’s schedule will look like.  Imagine if fed ex tried to promise half hour windows where they would deliver your packages inside of.  Not possible.

So when booking with these companies the communication to your customer has to begin to set that expectation from the very beginning.  Words like “Great! We have you in this time-slot.”  and explaining what the time slot means, whether it’s a phone call or an actual arrival window are very necessary to explain to your customer.

Likewise, in other situations where things can be a bit nebulous and hard to nail down it is better to simply explain the process and how long thing’s might take on the higher end rather than give a customer the impression that it could happen relatively soon.  If I’m waiting on a permit to change a street sign or something like that then I want someone to detail to me the process and potential pitfalls of the product and give me a worse case estimate to help me understand when I need to contact them if I haven’t received my order/product/service yet.

Most companies will find more amicable customers ready to agree to wait a longer time when they are signing up for a product or service rather than asking people who have waited a period of time to wait longer.  The first rule of customer service in my book is always: Set proper expectations!

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Customer Satisfaction

Filed under: Cellular, Complaints, Customer Service, marketing, Telephone Service — Leave a comment
June 14, 2016

Just because the bar is set extremely low in your industry doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t strive for optimal customer satisfaction.  I’m currently with Sprint right now, I left Verizon back in 2010 because I was sick and tired of the poor customer service that they were providing me with.  With Verizon it was more about hidden extra fees than anything else, in fact, this is something that I have continued to experience up through 2015 on my tablet’s data plan.  With Sprint I don’t expect better customer service but at least I’m not paying as much to where I would expect it.

Still, if you follow my twitter feed you’ll see that, there’s no end to my frustrations with trying to accomplish the simplest things.  They recently resolved my last issue but it took a full week to figure out exactly what went wrong and talk to the right people.  A truly satisfied customer is an evangelist, a soldier, a brand representative. This is someone who will represent you and even convince others to give you a second chance.  I’m really not talking about doing anything different here other than following through on set expectations.  That’s why it’s so hard… You’ve got to actually follow through on what you tell others you can accomplish.

Still sometimes it’s hard to get that part perfect every time.  That’s why you should remember to do a few key things.  The first is follow up.  Call your customers and ask about their experience.  Ask key questions like “How can we improve our process for you?” and “Is there anything you didn’t like?” Documentation is key. Document the reasons people chose not to go with your service and try to find out what would change their mind in the future. This last thing is simple but more and more difficult these days: be available.  You are going to have customers contact you who aren’t happy.  Don’t make it difficult to solve their problems. Have a person or system that allows someone to be available for their phone calls with the power to help. 80% of my customer service frustrations with these phone companies could usually be resolved by 1 person in 3 minutes accessing something that I can’t.  Which would you rather have? The 3 minute conversation or the 2 hour long one after I’ve been hung up on and transferred around for 4 days straight?

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ClickBait

Filed under: Complaints, Customer Service, marketing, Networking, Politics, Social Media — Leave a comment
June 2, 2016

A catchy title can drive traffic to your blog or website but, if it isn’t related, it can damage your credibility. Here are some thoughts to consider before being too catchy. Does the reader actually want to read your content? Does the title explain what is in the blog post or article? Do you tell the truth with any graphics associated with the post? If the answer to any of these are no then you might be on the verge of selling out for clicks.

Consider the following:  The title is a weighted link for blogs and articles, for SEO purposes, using a non-content title will lower your search rankings for the information in the blog. The title is also a preview to your post. People who want to read about your title-topic will click on your link and be happy to read about your content. If you encourage the wrong person to click on the wrong link, you run the risk of them clicking options on Facebook like “Ignore all posts from ____”.  I can’t tell you how many sources of information I have un-followed for posting misleading links. If your picture is semi-related to your topic, but not really, you’re really going to irritate readers who otherwise might have been inclined to share your information.

Possibly the worst thing to do in this situation is type something like, “Something in your backyard might kill you.”  And post a picture of a little girl riding a tricycle in a backyard because it’s a back yard.  People are going to click the link expecting to read about the dangers of tricycles on grass, and the moment you start talking about weed-killer or cobras or something else, they are never going to trust you again. This happened to me with an article about foods that were bad for you and showed a picture of yogurt. I was curious to find new research about yogurt, (Sugar content? Fructose?) did they mention yogurt?  Nope. As a result I have disabled that website on all my browsers on most my devices permanently. Did it have bad information? Nope, it simply lied about the information it might have.

Use these questions to guide you in your online title crafting.  Catchy is good, but don’t lie to your readers.

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Finding Value in Complaints

Filed under: Cellular, Complaints, Customer Service, marketing, Networking, Social Media, Telephone Service — Leave a comment
May 26, 2016

I have had a lot of interactions with customer service lately.  Some of it I pursue aggressively to actually get to a resolution but for the most part I think I am just looking for answers.

The bottom line with any form of complaint is transparency.  When you are in a sales situation being transparent with your process builds value.  An example of that is what the membership sales staff at LA | Fitness would walk their prospects through on the tour.  “This machine has Kevlar belts on it to ensure the smoothest operation possible and prevent any interruptions to your workout schedule day after day because it’s more durable than the alternatives.” You don’t need to be an almanac of knowledge but it is really good to know some of the things about the product you are representing to make the sale.  When you field a complaint to customer service it should really operate the same way.

Even if the result is the same you can improve your customers’ perception of you by building value in the offer of resolution.  “So just to let you know, the reason we charge so much for roaming services in Canada is because we have to strike agreements with Tel-West and they charge us an arm and a leg for every MB we don’t prepay for.  That’s why as soon as we detect you’ve entered the area we send you a notification where you can opt-in to our travel plan where we pre-pay for your service.”  Go deeper, explain the process, this can also help you refine your service standards.  Is the notification sent to the travelling phone or just the account holders?  Was it sent by text? Email? Maybe there is a better way? Explaining this process will allow you to even make corrections for the future.  What if you are notifying an email the customer no longer checks?  Or communicating with an employee who no longer works for your clients company?

Build value in the process, you and your customer will both appreciate identifying where the error occurred and this makes you partners in it’s resolution.

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Cheap Service?

Filed under: Cellular, Complaints — Leave a comment
April 8, 2011

Customer service typically comes as a premium feature.

I argue it is one of the most basic needs and the foundation of any business.

Why should the customer service I get with a $70/m cellphone bill with sprint be any worse (and it is)  Than when it was $100/m with Verizon Wireless?

difference in network, infrastructure, cost, frequency, coverage are all things i can accept for price differences.  The ability for someone to say I’m sorry we messed up and we still want your business is not an acceptable difference for the dollar.

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