Service Untitled

I’ve written about firing your customers before. It is a topic that interests a lot of companies, especially smaller ones that don’t have the time to deal with really annoying customers on a constant basis. A reader made an interesting suggestion about how to deal with the problem, though. He suggested using what he described as a star system; essentially, you rate customers on some sort of fairly objective basis (i. e. 1 to 5 stars). The rating is based on their value as a customer - how often they buy, what they buy, who they’re referred, how often the company has screwed up with them in the past, if they are an active customer (i. e. lots of feedback, etc.). Customers that meet certain criteria are given a star rating.

Say I am a customer of company X and I’m a good customer - I buy their most expensive products, I visit their store and buy something at least once a week, I refer others, I have a store credit card, they have screwed up one or two times and I am still a customer, I talk to the store manager every now and then, etc. Basically, I am a good customer who helps the company / store. I would be a 5 star customer. If, on the other hand, I was a customer of a services company and used their lowest end plan, called them 3 times a day, never referred anyone, and have canceled twice before, that would make a 1 star customer.

The idea behind the system is that no one is ever really fired. However, the 1 star customer is not given any extra attention when he threatens to cancel. To that 1 star customer, the company offers little to no rebates, credits, future discounts, etc. When that 1 star customer calls and complains that his hosted service was unavailable for two hours, he gets an apology. The 5 star customer gets an apology, plus two months of free service. They may even get a call from their account manager offering a second apology. As the reader who emailed me suggested, they “get the red carpet rolled out every time they call, visit, etc.”

This motivates the less profitable (and/or more annoying customers) to take their business elsewhere, but encourages the more profitable (and/or less annoying) customers to stay with your company. The general idea is good and I think it is something that a lot of companies use and keep in mind when they are deciding what to do for a particular customer. It is more formalized at some companies than it is at others, but the general idea is very similar.

Something that you have to be careful about, though, is how your algorithm works. It should be fairly objective (though I think you should be able to add some subjective points to it as well), but you have to keep certain situations in mind. Say I am a 5 star customer and I refer my neighbor or best friend to your company. He turns out to be cheap and annoying (a 1 star customer). If you don’t give him the same great service that I’m used to, that could be a problem and reflect negatively upon your company. You may have to tweak the algorithm to be setup so that if a 4 star customer refers someone, the new customer will never go below 2 stars, etc.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Customer Service Experience, Firing Customers, Operations

In its most recent issue, Wired told us why customer service sucks (their words, not mine). They blamed:

- Some call centers’ focus on getting customers off the phone versus resolving issues.
- Outsourcing and offshoring to places like Bangalore, India and Manila, Philippines.
- Unmotivated and untalented customer service representatives.
- Customer service representatives that are distracted when serving customers.

The best customer service companies don’t run into these issues: they focus on resolving issues and customer satisfaction; they rarely outsource and if they do, they outsource to quality companies; they hired motivated and talented representatives; and they don’t force representatives to help more than one customer at once.

The issues that Wired pointed out are interesting because none of them are difficult to fix. It’s really easy to change policies to measure customer satisfaction and stop outsourcing. The most complicated one is the issue with unmotivated and untalented representatives and by the way Wired words the paragraph, the companies could just tweak their personality tests and avoid that problem.

The short article (part of a series of explanations about why things like traffic, batteries, and customer service suck) also cites some interesting statistics that I had never read before (no source is listed):

1. Employees in Bangalore will work for 85 percent less than equally qualified US employee.
2. One out of three call centers don’t measure customer satisfaction. One in two don’t measure employee satisfaction.
3. The ideal customer service rep (according to personality inventory tests) is uncreative, has low incentive, and demonstrates limited empathy.
4. Half of all service reps are talking, emailing, or IMing with another customer at the same time. One quarter handle up to four people at once.

I’m curious as to where Wired got these statistics. They seem like customer service hyperbole to me, but they’re interesting nonetheless. My thoughts:

1. I’m not an outsourcing expert by any definition, but I don’t think the cost savings are that dramatic, especially not in Bangalore. The wages that Indians are getting are only going up. The Philippines is looking like it’ll be the next India.
2. I would say that most measure customer satisfaction. How much they care about it is likely a another story. Only 50% measure employee satisfaction seems believable, but I think HR would put more of a effort into that than the survey shows.
3. These aren’t ideal qualities for a customer service representative. Tests are relatively easy to tweak to look for ideal qualities, so this is surprising and doubtful.
4. For email or live chat support, I might believe this. For phone support, I seriously doubt it. 

What are your thoughts about the Wired article? Were they right on or did they miss it totally?

Illustration credit: Wired’s Martin Woodtli (full size here)

ISPs have a reputation of providing terrible customer service. My experience with Comcast over the last two weeks or so was an example of the company living up to its reputation.

I had been having intermittent issues with my Internet for a while. Comcast had been out once before, looked at the computer for about a minute, and said nothing was wrong. Everything was fine for a month or so and then the issues started happening again. My Internet would go out for an hour or two and then come back. No apparent reason for it going out randomly - it just did.

Since I couldn’t stand my Internet randomly going out, I called Comcast again. They tried to troubleshoot (which consists of blaming my router for the problem) and realized they couldn’t get a connection to the modem. A service call was scheduled for later in the week after 5 PM.

I was home by 5 PM and waited until 8 PM before calling Comcast. I called them and they said the service call had been canceled. They didn’t know who canceled it or why it was canceled, but the service call was canceled. I had waited at home for three hours and the call was canceled.

They had no additional information about why it was canceled, which was ridiculous. Their best answer is that they (the people who do the service calls) sometimes call in advance to make sure someone is home. Apparently, I had to wait home all day, in case someone from Comcast called. I asked to talk to a supervisor, but instead spoke to a “team lead.” He told me that he would try to get it rescheduled to Saturday (my preferred time), but at the moment, the only available time was Wednesday after 5 PM. I told him that I wanted to hear back from Comcast by 11 PM that night with a yes, no, or still working on it answer. He assured me that I would hear back.

As 11 PM rolled by, I had not heard anything from Comcast. They failed to do what they said they would do once again. I called on Tuesday evening to confirm my Wednesday service call and it was still scheduled.

At exactly 5:00 PM on Wednesday, my phone rang. It was the Comcast represenative confirming I was home and available. He told me he was in the area and would be there in a few minutes. By 5:15 PM, he was working on my computer. Apparently, nothing was wrong with it. After trying to sell me a modem about 5 times, he checked outside to confirmed nothing was wrong at the street level, and left.

The entire experience was absolutely terrible at worst and mediocre at best. I’ve written quite a bit about service calls and this experience was not the best by any means.

Companies that do service calls can learn a few lessons from my Comcast experience:

• Communicate the times very clearly.
• Never cancel a service call without talking to the customer.
• If a service call is canceled, ensure you record all the details.
• The company’s central office should have a better idea about what the field representatives are doing.
• If you make a promise (whether it be to show up or to return a phone call), keep it. If you’re unable to keep that promise, don’t make it.

For Christmas, my parents gave me several DVDs that they purchased at FYE. Of the four DVDs they gave me, I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing two of them (it’s the thought that counts!) and went to return them at the store last night. I figured I’d have about $36 from the return that I could put towards some new DVDs.

I go to FYE every now and then and have always had okay experiences. Not bad, not great. I’ve always been fairly indifferent towards the store, which for a store I don’t shop at too much is just fine. However, my most recent experience annoyed me as both a customer and a customer service writer and consultant.

I had receipt for the DVDs and the credit card that was used for the return. I went into the store and browsed around for a while. I picked out two DVDs that I liked and figured I would even have some money (roughly $8) left over to use for a future purchase. I took everything up to the counter, waited in line for a bit, and got to the employee.

The first employee was friendly enough. She seemed a bit confused about how everything was going to work, but she was working. I gave her my name, address, etc. for the return. Apparently, though, what she was doing was not working because she went away (without saying a word to me) and got someone else to help her.

This second woman (who I think was named Tonya) did not even acknowledge me (I was simply he for the entire customer experience). Tonya talked to the first employee about what was going on (and what I/he bought and did) and apparently there was a problem (I was not told of this). I gave my name and address again and that did not matter. There were still problems and she asked for the credit card to refund the extra $8 or so. They couldn’t give me a gift card, but that was fine. I gave her the credit card and then I was suddenly made aware of a sale that my parents took advantage of that included buy two DVDs, get one free. One of the DVDs I was trying to return was the free one (since it was the cheapest). The sale was no longer going on, so the value of my DVD was $0.00. The receipt said it was valued at $7.99 or whatever it was, but apparently there was a sale on “select items” which had completely disappeared and was no longer valid.

That was the fatal flaw in the experience. The whole point of bringing in a receipt for a purchase is to have the clock set back to the time of purchase. If prices change, it doesn’t matter - the receipt is the way of proving that. Apparently, at FYE, that is not the case. The sale was no longer going on, so I didn’t have the option of picking a new DVD to get for free or getting a refund of the price of the DVD at the time of purchase (which I think would be fair). Tonya didn’t want to honor what the receipt said.

I pointed out to Tonya that I was getting a refund of $0.00 for one of the two DVDs I was trying to return and that I might as well keep it. She really didn’t appreciate that observation and it made her even shorter and ruder than before. Reluctantly, she gave the DVD back. I paid for the second DVD I wanted and left. Not one apology for the misunderstanding or hint of empathy from anyone.

Personally, I found the situation to be unethical. I can see and understand FYE’s position, but I think the practice is generally unethical. A receipt should let you set the clock back. The experience was horrible. Tonya was the quintessential example of an employee who clearly did not like her job/the customers she was dealing with. The experience was just a negative one and I don’t forsee myself shopping at or recommending FYE again.

This situation can teach customer service providers a few things:

• Keep your customers in the loop. One of the reasons this experience failed completely was because no one told me what was going on, took any time to explain anything, etc. Keep your customers in the loop and let them know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
• Acknowledge the customer. Tonya should have introduced herself and addressed me by my name. They had my name (I gave it to them twice) and never used it. Using “he” or “she” when the customer is standing right there is unacceptable.
• Don’t be cheap. I had expressed interest in buying more DVDs at FYE (hence why I asked for a gift card) and was obviously an interested customer. If I were Tonya, I would have just given me the 8 bucks and have been done with it. Nordstrom would have done that. Most stores would have.
• If you can’t, be nice. If the computer wouldn’t let Tonya do it or she would get yelled at by her manager for doing it, that is okay too. It isn’t really about the eight bucks for me. She could have apologized, expressed empathy, or done something besides just glaring at me. There is always something you can do and she did nothing.

I filled out the store survey mentioned on the receipt and will send the URL of this post to FYE. Let’s see what, if anything, happens. In the mean time, I think I will buy my DVDs from Amazon.

I saw this “tweet” on Jeremy Wright’s (friend and former boss) Twitter feed yesterday:

Bad appetizer at restaurant (*really bad*). Waitress response: “well you’ll know for next time”. Hah. First time for that comment evar

I laughed out loud when I read this. Then, I came to the realization that the waitress actually did say that. At point, I got a scary reminder of just how bad customer service can be. The particular phrase isn’t on my “Big List of Things Not to Say,” but I do feel it is implied.

There are so many things about that comment that are so bad. Here are my thoughts about the comment, how to avoid it, and what to do if it happens:

It is completely unacceptable. Saying something like that is completely unacceptable. If I overheard an employee saying that, I would fire him or her on the spot. If your company culture tolerates those sort of answers, your customer service has no shot at being any good.

Don’t hire people like that. If at all possible, do not hire people who give answers like that. See this post on avoiding bad job candidates. If you have to, use personality tests and potential employees assessments. You must screen for (and avoid) people like that.

Train people to do the opposite. Part of your training should focus on being empathetic towards customers and their concerns, dealing with common problems (i. e. bad food in a restaurant), etc. If you train people to do the right thing, the chances of them doing the wrong thing will decrease significantly.

I don’t know if there will be a next time at that restaurant from Jeremy. With bad food and bad service, I would hope not. It is a lot easier to lose a customer than it is to gain one. Make sure you aren’t losing customers because of ridiculously unacceptable answers.

This is part two (part one is here) of the guest post written by Jennifer Harris from Ruby Receptionists.

Some may think it is a good idea to agree with everything the angry caller has to say, “Yes, that is awful, I totally agree 100%.”  The problem is this can be patronizing and the caller will pick up on that.  We have found it is better the only empathize when we really do agree with the caller.  It is often easier just to get the caller on your side.  “Here is what we are going to do… Why don’t we try all of his lines, and if we are unable to reach him, we will leave him a voice mail and a written message that I will mark urgent.  That way we attack from two fronts.”  By doing this you bring them on your side, so the two of you are working together.  Then you give them a plan of action, so they know everything about the process, making them feel more in control.  Finally, by saying something like this, you are letting them know that you are doing everything in your power to get them what they want and hopefully they will stop being angry … at least with you.

One more trick I like to employ is just to smile.  The caller cannot see my smile, but it tends to show up in my voice.  No matter how horrible I find the caller, I just keep grinning and even if I do not succeed in cheering them up, at least I feel fine when the call is done.

Sometimes there is just no pleasing a caller.  They want to yell, and you are the lucky person who will receive the yelling.  Just remember to stay calm, use the tricks above, and if they don’t work, end the call politely, when you have done everything you can, and forget about them.  If you are able, walk around the block, eat something crunchy (I like carrots), and remember, they are not mad at you, they are mad at their situation and you got caught in the crossfire.

Jennifer Harris works as the sales coordinator for Ruby Receptionists, before which she worked as a receptionist for 5 years, learning all the ins and outs of phone etiquette.

This is part 1 of a 2 part guest writer post on keeping your cool on the phone. It’s written by Jennifer Harris from Ruby Receptionists.

What do you do when you work primarily on phones and have an irate caller on the line? The easy thing would be to match their annoyance level. Get angry right back, and throw some well places obscenities in for good measure… right? Well, sure, if you want to lose your job. I work for a virtual reception company and all day long we talk to people over the phone. We get happy callers, angry callers, callers with crazy stories, and callers who did not dial correctly. The happy callers are easy; they call in ready to be pleased. The angry callers, not so much.

A receptionist is able to tell right away who the difficult caller will be. They are the ones who, rather than saying, “Hello, may I please speak to Joe Bloggs,” say, “JOE STILL HASN’T RETURNED MY CALL! ARE YOU EVEN DOING YOUR JOB?” The inexperienced receptionist will get flustered in this situation. He or she will make excuses and often end up sounding worse than if they had just yelled back. The bad receptionist will actually yell back. In a situation like this, it is best not to match the tone of the caller. Instead, as one seasoned receptionist told me, “I put on my preschool manners basically. By lowering my voice they have to really listen to hear me and they usually end up matching my tone.” When someone is about to blow their top, she demonstrates the behavior she would like to see from the caller. She speaks calmly and brings them down to her level of calm.

(more about handling angry callers on Wednesday)

Jennifer Harris works as the sales coordinator for Ruby Receptionists, before which she worked as a receptionist for 5 years, learning all the ins and outs of phone etiquette.

I just got finished writing about how classy American Express was with their advertising. It’s sad, but another company did the complete opposite to me a few days ago. Their method of marketing was tacky at best and unethical at worst.

The story is pretty simple. A company I thought was Toyota (though I’m still not sure who actually sent it) sent me a postcard saying that there was important information about my warranty and I had to call immediately. I figured it was something to do with a recall or with registering my warranty to ensure they knew when it’d be over.

I call the number and am connected to this guy with a really strong southern accent. The accent in general doesn’t bother me, but he was difficult to understand since it wasn’t that refined of an accent. He was actually fairly nice, but I recognized it pretty early on: the call was just a sales pitch.

The guy started talking about how there were a lot of recalls on my make and model (which isn’t true) and how I should get an extended warranty. I started to ask a question and he transferred me to a sales representative.

One good thing was that the sales representative (who was much easier to understand than the first guy who answered the phone) had all of my information already. He didn’t really make that clear until I asked a question or two, but he had all the information I had given the previous guy.

I asked the sales representative a few questions and tried to get a price. After being somewhat forceful, he gave me a price. The price was too high, so I said thank you and told him I wasn’t interested. He wasn’t able to say a response for some weird reason and just made noises (I’m serious!) until I hung up.

My main contention was the way the warranty company presented the offer. If they sent me a nice brochure or mailing about what their warranties covered, how they could help me, and the general prices, I would have been much happier. I hate “bait and switch” offers as a customer and as a professional. They’re tacky and do nothing for the brand.

If you have an offer, say it up front. It’s your job as a marketer to get the potential customers’ interest - not to lead them on.

Rackspace had a really bad week last week. A truck literally crashed into a part of their power system (which from my understanding was already having a few problems that day) and their entire datacenter in Fort Worth, Texas was taken down because it was at risk of overheating. When an entire Rackspace datacenter goes down, a lot of web sites go down - many of them well known, an even great number mission critical to the client’s business. All of their customers pay a lot of money and have high expectations of Rackspace, so the situation was tough.

Rackspace, though, handled a very tough situation very well. The outage got a lot publicity because many well known web sites were down for a period of time while Rackspace was working on restoring the service.  A lot of blogs reported on the outages during and after the downtime.

From what I can tell, Rackspace did a fairly good job at handling the outage and its related affects. I’m not a Rackspace customer, but am pretty familiar with the company (see my interview with an executive from the company here). During the outage, they follow the guidelines I suggested for “keeping customers in the loop” almost perfectly.

Firstly, the company setup a dedicated blog to update customers during and after the outage.  The blog doesn’t have an archive, so I can’t tell what they posted as the outage was going on, but their follows up are good. They’ve posted in depth information about what happened, what’s being done to fix it, etc. They posted a very nice timeline explaining what happened as well.

The company’s CEO, Lanham Napier, has made himself very visible. A majority of the posts (and a video) are from him. The CEO getting involved and talking to customers is important.

The company also kept customers in the loop via their account portal (where they submit tickets, etc.) and through the points of contact for the various customers. The company kept their employees in the loop, which is critical. That way, when customers called, they didn’t have to hear the “we know nothing” excuse that many companies (especially ISPs) give when there is an outage.

Here are some things they can still do / should have done:

• Had perspectives on the blog and in press releases from people besides the CEO (who didn’t do poorly at all). Different perspectives help. IT people might want to read a more technical explanation than the sales people.
• Briefed journalists and their customers more frequently - the more information to the more people, the better.
• Offered refunds or credits to the affected customers. (I’m not 100% sure if they did this.)
• Follow up with customers in a month or two and make sure they are happy.

Overall, Rackspace did a good job at managing the events. It only turned out to be a couple of hours of downtime, but that is a couple of more hours a month than Rackspace customers are used to.

It is pretty sad that I look for (and notice) customer service when I’m scrolling through channels. On Saturday, I happened to scroll past a show about wedding dressed. The woman works in alterations for a big wedding store and deals with a lot of customers who are often very testy to say the least.

Her strategy for resolving issues with angry customers?

1. Let the customer vent and ask all the questions they need to ask.
2. Get to the bottom of the problem.
3. Try to come to a resolution.

The lady’s strategy is not only time tested and proven effective, but smart. Letting customers vent is extremely important. It is the best way to deal with angry customers.

I usually like to initiate the venting by asking questions like: could you describe the problem? or could you tell me what you think should have happened and what actually did happen? You will also find that a lot of the time the customer will just start venting (without any help from you).

Letting customers vent is a subtle science. There is a fine line between actually letting them vent and just thinking you are letting them vent. A lot of customer service representatives (and their bosses) want to interrupt customers while they’re venting - this doesn’t work.

Part number two is just as important as letting the customer vent. Once they’ve finished venting, your job is to get to the bottom of the problem. You need to figure out what their actual problem is and why it happened. You don’t want to make excuses, but instead want to work towards a resolution of some sort.

Remember, let the customer vent and always be working towards a resolution. Do those two things and you’ll be dealing with angry customers like a pro.