This year started with a number of interesting customer
service experiences – good and bad. I think that we can all learn a lot from
our own exposure to other companies and the way they handle us as customers.
After all, news of a bad customer experience is more likely to reach many more
ears than a good experience – especially in today’s world where social media
provides such an easy way to get your message across.
Large high street consumer electronics retailer
I wanted to buy a new radio/stereo alarm clock and asked for
help in the shop. The customer service assistant was annoyingly slow with a vocabulary
that did not extend beyond ‘yeah’ ‘neah’ and ‘don’t know’. In the end I gave up
and said: ‘OK, if it doesn’t work, I can bring it back?’ The answer was ‘yeah’.
At home, we discovered that we could not get a signal for
DAB, so I went back to the shop to return said radio/stereo. I was over the
standard 24 days returns policy and frustratingly I couldn’t find the receipt. Thankfully,
the customer service assistant was fabulous. Very friendly, bubbly and couldn’t
do enough to help me. Even when he got tripped up by the system, he persevered
on my behalf, calling the manager, explaining, and being my advocate. He found
the sales record on the system, got the manager to extend the returns policy
and in that process made me a very happy customer. My faith was restored, I
will return!
Lesson 1: Your people
are your greatest asset. Unless you select the right people for the job and provide
appropriate training and development, you are doomed to fail.
One of the UK’s best known phone and broadband providers
How would I describe this customer experience? In a word:
Exasperating!
This company decided to single headedly change my contract
and restrict my business to 1Mb/s download speed. I ask you – how can anyone
run a business that way? I have now probably spent over eight hours on the
phone to the company, and talked to four different people in contracts and 4
people in the technical department. I even had an engineer come out. The
engineer and the technical team say that the contracts team has to change their
system to unlock the line and the contracts team say it is a technical problem.
So, I’m going round in circles! What is even more frustrating is the fact that
every time I call I have to explain the whole story again....exhausting. This
company does not appear to keep any records of my calls.
Lesson 2: Listen to
your customer, understand their problems, take ownership and resolve them. This
may sound very simple but you need to ensure that you keep your customer updated
until the case has been resolved to their satisfaction. Make it easy for your
customer to contact you.
Nationwide vehicle glass repair service
My windscreen had a crack (I know, the year is really not
starting well). I went online and booked my appointment. I received a voicemail
to say they needed more information and could I please call them. It was the
weekend and I thought it could wait until Monday. - My appointment was not
booked until Wednesday anyway. When I called on Monday morning it turns out
that my appointment for Wednesday was cancelled because they were not able to
complete my booking (they didn’t say that in their message nor did I receive an
email advising this when making the booking online!). The repair would
therefore be delayed for a week. In addition, they asked me to check my car
(parked down the road), make a new date (my diary was in a different building)
and then pay the excess on my insurance (my credit card was also in a different
building). I therefore ran around from building to building, up and down the
road. A call that should have only taken five minutes took longer than 20
minutes. This can’t be good for the company’s productivity or my nerves!
Lesson3: Be clear
about what you need from the customer and manage their expectations. When you
ask a customer for supplementary information, tell them what you need and give
them a deadline. Tell them clearly about the consequences of not receiving the
information.
And these are my thoughts on good customer service for 2016!
Susanne Hasselmann
Director, Scirum Ltd
