Note from Art, OK, this is a bit of a rant on the state of customer service in some firms. If you find the topic disagreeable, leave me an e-mail or dial my phone and press 1 to…
Perhaps my age is showing here, but sometimes, you just need human contact! For customer support that is!
The issue is customer service and specifically, the increasing number of businesses that I am running into that offer no or extremely hard-to-find contact with a human for support or account questions.
I’ll admit that my “0 for Operator” button is worn thin from attempting to power my way through automated dialing systems at every possible encounter. I view it as my inalienable right to attempt to foil the evil machinations of automated systems that I suspect are responsible for a societal rise in average blood pressure.
I get that we are in a digital age and you can bet that I solve many, many problems through searching on the internet before I ever reach for a phone. Survival in this age almost requires you to be a super sleuth on the search engines, artfully choosing and scientifically iterating on word choice combinations like, “Why is my *&()(*)* g-mail account inaccessible?” or, “Google-mail problems 9/1/09.” The latter selection worked better than the first.
I also understand the cost implications of having people available to answer questions. Taken from a cost-only perspective, I’m sure it’s tempting to consider either the nefarious off-shoring option, where “Arlene” with a thick accent will spend 20 minutes running you through the script on rebooting your DSL modem that you could recite in your sleep, or, to automate on the web or on the phone. Cost smart and revenue and loyalty blind!
Note to those firms that think your FAQs answer everything. They tend to do a great job answering everything that I might need to know someday. They generally fail on the question I’m trying to get answered right now1
Ordering a Hamburger in the Drive-Thru Just Got Off Shored!
From the school of non-essential news on interesting and potentially silly advances in customer support systems, did you know that some fast-food chains (they prefer that we call them Quick Service) have been experimenting with drive-thru off shoring?
You pull up to the drive-thru. “Arlene” with the thick accent puts my DSL support call on hold and greets you, takes your order, asks if you want to supersize it and then places the order for the store employees to fill.
You’ve just gone halfway around the world and back to ensure that you can get your daily dose of “build your own heart-attack” in a bag, but I guess they maintained the human connection. Sort of. (OK, I confess that I’ve seen the reported statistics on labor savings, increased store productivity and increased drive-thru throughput, and they are impressive. Doesn’t mean that I have to like it!)
A Classic Case of a Poorly Conceived Support System or How to Destroy Value & Reputation in a Hurry!
My particular “beef” today is with an as of yet unnamed service provider that offers no way whatsoever to reach a human being to deal with account issues. Customers can sign in and check up, but they apparently cannot check out!
The service provider appears by all measures to be highly reputable and clearly offers a quality service for business professionals. The billing is monthly to your credit card, and in my case, after a few months of experimentation, I decided that as much as I liked the service, I wasn’t ready for it yet.
I set about figuring out how to discontinue my account only to discover that there is absolutely no way to do this. There are no instructions. There are no life-lines. There are no people!
Eight Frustrating Steps:
- I looked for a corporate phone number. Nothing.
- I scoured the FAQs and used the Help function on the Web. Nothing.
- I scoured the regular e-newsletters from the company for information on support or for evidence of the phone number. Nothing.
- I submitted an on-line help-desk ticket and waited for a response. Nothing. (This was in contrast to all other help desk tickets that I had submitted which had an auto-response indicating that the message had been received and fairly prompt (within a few hours) follow-up. Nothing.
- I checked my credit card bill for the phone number and dialed it. Answering machine. The “0” button took me in an endless loop. I hung up.
- I searched the web and found some legal information on the business including the phone number. Same as the number on my credit card. There was another search engine result that indicated that this business regularly has a phone mailbox that is full.
- I dialed, recorded a polite but clear message and even praised the product. This is absolutely not about customer satisfaction. I asked for the courtesy of an e-mail or phone call to confirm that my account was closed. After a week, nothing!
- I attempted to login to my account and noticed that my access was denied. I’ve made a small leap of faith and suspect that this is my confirmation. You can bet I’ll be monitoring my credit card bills and if a charge shows up, I will let the guard dogs at the credit card company fix this. In contrast to this particular service provider, the two times I’ve had disputes, these people have been incredible.
The Bottom-Line
So many customer service approaches today are cost-focused and revenue and loyalty blind. In my opinion, many of these systems create new vexing problems for their customers. At a minimum they add stress.
In spite of the quality service of the thus-far unnamed service provider described above, I will be ice-skating in you know where before I come back to this firm. In fact, I will seek out a competitor, assuming I can find one that doesn’t operate like a “Roach Motel.”
Would it have been so hard to set up a friendly procedure to cancel accounts? Why send otherwise happy users away ticked off and vowing never to come back?
Solve problems with your customer service and support approaches…don’t create new ones.
Rant over.
Art,do you think there is any possibility that the current economic situation will change the way firms with lousy, low-touch customer service work to something that is more “human” (i.e., any chance they’ll wake up and realize that good service hits the bottom line?).
Mary Jo, great question! I’m biased by my own appreciation for the high-touch approach, but my gut tells me that “yes,” the more astute and customer aware firms are starting to get this. It may be industry and firm specific, and ultimately, we as consumers can vote where it counts…at the point of sale. Hope some others jump in on your very interesting question. -Art
Art, great post and one of my personal pet peeves. Why is it that customer services has deteriorated at some companies and other thrive on it. Is this a leadership gap that “someone” doesn’t get and is willing to sacrifice customer loyalty, customer retention and perhaps revenue for the sake of the precious “bottom line.”
While the industry can site Nordstrom’s and other companies, I know there are more hidden gems out there. Will you please standup and be counted.
Jim, that noise you are hearing is me “cheering” in the background after your “stand up and be counted” statement! Thanks. Art
The way to discontinue your account, if they email you, is to file an FTC complaint. After I did that, GoDaddy eliminated my account, which they would not do after tweets, emails, and phone calls. You are never the hostage of corporate policy wonks. They are hostage to the law.
No. You don’t talk to the FTC. You fill out a form on their CANN-SPAM webpage.
Art,
Great post we all can relate to.
My concern for Mary Jo is I am seeing companies go the wrong way, more automation in response to the goal of reducing head count.
Something that may surprise you is I feel one of the departments that have failed at your yet to be named service provider is Marketing.
If marketing was in the market, and not at the water cooler they would know common questions and they would provide tools proactively. If they were in the market, with those scary things called customers and users, they would understand how critical your need is for human service and drive efforts to solve those needs.
Mark Allen Roberts
David, thanks for that definitive sounding way of handling this problem.
Mark, thanks for the reminder about marketing. So true in many instances.
-Art
Art,
Excellent post that brought to mind many of my experiences!
From my experience, automated systems are only good if you are looking to save time, such as in paying your bills (avoiding waiting on hold). I personally prefer automated systems for that.
However, once anything even slightly goes wrong, I need to hear from a person in order to resolve the issue. Last Christmas, I had some issues with the activation of a gift card. They only gave an email tech supoport option. They were not able to answer my question.
However, this week I had difficulty installing a CD from a textbook on my computer. The company gave me the option of calling their technical support (live) people or emailing them. I did not hesitate to call the real person. They resolved my issue quickly because thy understood my explanation in person.
With nearly every company having financial trouble, I understand your point about the cost of customer support personnel. I do think that offering knowledgeable in-person customer service would help these businesses regain profitability.
My personal work experience is that people get annoyed with any automated system if the slightest problem crops up, so it is better to have in person service to preserve customer satisfaction.
-Mark D. Cohen
Thanks for sharing your examples Mark! -Art
Art,
Given similar experiences from this summer I can’t agree more. I can understand cost-savings but there is something to be said about human to human interaction. With your example about canceling service it seems to me that some people might be canceling accounts given the economy. If people leave disgruntled the chances of them coming back to that company are probably lower than if they were able to leave fairly easy once they feel financially stable to return.
I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Kyle
Thank you for this rant! As a consumer who understands the joys of time optimization and the boon to human society that is automated service I too am frustrated with the lack of human customer service options across many industries. It is not just the automated account specialists directing us on the other end of the phone lines that I find frustrating and cold, I also find myself concerned with the do it yourself check out counters in mega-store chains. How many jobs are being lost or hours cut for human employees when stores turn to the “automated” check-outs or automated representatives? I truly wish these companies would understand how important having human customer service is to continuing business-client relationships. I find myself hitting random buttons to bypass the automated reps on the phone, screaming customer service or representative to cut short the automated voice on the other end…a robot does not understand how to address my frustrations or fears, I would rather wait the extra 5 minutes on the line to talk with someone who has the ability to at least apologize, reassure, and/ or just ask me how the weather is in my part of the world. The more client-focused and human accessible a company is the more likely I am to use their service again.
Great read! This is something so frustrating to me as well. I personally end up doing what you mentioned earlier, which is trying to figure out the right phrase to search for online. My best bet is usually to find someone who has already asked the question such as, “How do I cancel my truecreditreport account”. This is a little pathetic to me as it has come to this to get some answers now a days.
I really do believe that a lot of these companies not only use automated systems to save money, but they purposely do so to be deceiving as well. They give you a try free for 30 days offer just so when you try and cancel on the 29th day they try to confuse you enough to put it off an extra day so they can charge you some outrageous fee. Sadly I don’t see customer service getting any better as technology evolves even more.
Siraj, I share your concern about the intent. There are no good, ethical business reasons for making it difficult for customers to cancel. As such, we are left to assume the worst. Thanks for your comment! -Art
Art;
I totally agree with you. In the name of saving a dollar, companies across the board have seemingly forgotten about pleasing their customers. I myself spent the greater part of two weeks dealing with technical support of my laptop manufacturer, which is based out of the Philippians I might add. I remember one particular day when the gentlemen I was speaking to took a break from fixing my problem to make a sales pitch to me. To my disbelief, he told me if I upgraded to the platinum warranty (an extra $125 a year), that I would be guaranteed to speak with a representative based out of North America each time I called and would not be placed on hold for any more than two minutes. Has it really come to this? Do we actually have to pay extra in order to receive decent customer service?
Keep up the good work Art!
Zack, thanks for sharing. I can feel my blood pressure rising a few points as I imagine the sales pitch on platinum warranty that you received. Having worked in and around large technology companies, I understand how these programs generate and how they are justified inside the walls of corporations. And in fact, there are circumstances where tiered support makes great sense. It’s the feeling of helplessness and the anger that develops from the programs that are so horribly executed. -Art
Although completely automated customer service team is aggravating, at least when you get an automated response, with patience you can normally find an answer.
What I find even more aggravating is that lack of care or concern that is displayed by real people, especially in the retail environment. There’s a particular electronics chain that I visit about once every 24 months. Why so infrequently? Because when I walk inside, I feel invisible. Last weekend I made my biannual trip and within about three minutes of being in the store, I remembered why I had not considered setting foot inside in more than a year. Standing at the customer service counter, waiting for someone to give me their attention I noticed at least seven other employees who seem to be just standing around conversing or too deep into their own thoughts to notice me. I stood there for 10 minutes waiting, looking around, and watching others look in my direction. Not one person came over to ask if I needed assistance. I walked over to two chatting employees and kindly asked if they could get some assistance at the customer service desk…. The response was delayed, just as was getting an actual person to walk behind the customer service desk and answer my question.
This situation makes me think, would I rather deal with an automated customer service team or take the time to go through online FAQs instead of waiting for the assistance of a real human? It might take more effort than just standing and waiting, but at least it allows for one to avoid the humiliation of being purposely and completely ignored. I believe that across the board, those employed today need to value their employment. Personally, I feel that I cannot afford to be lazy and careless and I struggle to understand why others do not feel the same.
Perhaps there are more reasons than cost-savings for switching to automated and off-shore customer service teams….
Kristen, I think I shop at that same store! I never go in there unless I’ve done all my homework ahead of time. Thanks for your well-thought out vote for the alternative. Best, Art
Art,
Maybe this site will help http://www.gethuman.com/extended.html
I usually find pressing 0 repeatedly helps (more often than I thought) 🙂
Ajo, great link!! Thanks! -Art
Art, very interesting article about customer support. There is one more angle here. I know of a company that used customer support to grow their business. Real people answered the phones and were very helpful, going beyond reason to make the customer glad they called. The phone support was a significant factor in accumulating customers.
Once the company reached the target customer base, they exchanged the human customer service with “dial 1 for …” In the end, the great customer service was really a marketing tool and not meant to be long term. I’m not sure what the long term results were, but it was a crafty technique. My guess is that even in this economy, companies that want to grow will spend money on customer support..
Art
I couldn’t agree with you more. I have even canceled credit cards and bank accounts because it was impossible to talk to a real person. I don’t think simple human connection is too much to ask for. I understand pinching pennies in this tough economy is a necessity, but unless you offer some sort of customer service you will not be receiving a penny from me.
Whether it is a grocery store, winery, hospital, or coffee house, I expect to be greeted with a smile and for the company to do everything that can to make my experience memorable. If this is achieved, I am a customer for life. I understand these seem to be high standards when it comes to customer service today, but simple courtesy and friendliness will go a long way with this consumer.
Thank you for the rant!