Service Untitled

I live in a community with a Homeowner’s Association, and Comcast high speed internet is part of our package, so basically there are no other  options. The past few weeks have been wrought with intermittent service, and as is true to form for those of us dependent on the internet, the problem gets very frustrating.

I repeatedly called the first level of support, but as it is with most companies, the representatives are not very skilled. Dare not deviate from the procedure the representative orders you to follow; otherwise their standard response is they cannot be of help. Each time I was assured the problem had been fixed, and for a day or two that may have been true, but the problem kept happening. When finally a technician appointment was scheduled for a few days later, the internet was working and nothing was done to resolve the problem. It reminded me of taking my car into the dealer when I hear a noise; that noise is never apparent when the mechanic is listening, but it’s still there. More calls to the customer representatives; more technicians coming to my house, and eventually a new modem (a different brand) has seemed to solve the problem.

Comcast claims to proactively monitor equipment and empowers their customer service representatives to perform home checks to determine some of the causes of trouble and to focus on network reliability known as “node health.” Their Customer Guarantee briefly includes:

• A 30 day money back guarantee on all equipment and services.
• A promise to treat you and your home with courtesy and respect.
• Answer your questions at your convenience 24/7.
• Easy to understand statements and bills.
• Best and most video choices.
• Address any problems customers experience.
• Schedule appointments at customers convenience and be mindful of customer’s time.

While I commend Comcast’s pledge of service, my own experience would suggest that customer service representatives need more training and be able to either send a customer to the next level or be better trained to evaluate initial problems and how to more efficiently deal with customers. These people are first impressions, and as the old adage rings out, there is only one chance to make a first impression.

On the Comcast blog, Rick Germano, SVP Customer Operations writes about how Comcast employees took it upon themselves to help others in the recent heavy snowstorms in the Northeast. Some employees drove their coworkers into the office; others helped to plow out driveways, some slept in the offices to be ready to help or even prepared food. That truly shows the ability of employees to think out of the box and go beyond the basic manual, so why not follow that lead in the customer service department?

photo credit: dmuth

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.

There has been an “Oustanding Blog” meme going around, which Service Untitled is proudly a part of. It was started by Troy from OrbitNow. There are a lot of great blogs here and there is a lot you can learn from them. Feel free to post the list on your blog.

1. 100 Bloggers
2. 37 Days
3. 3i
4. 43 Folders
5. A Clear Eye
6. A Daily Dose of Architecture
7. The Agonist
8. All Things Workplace
9. All This Chittah Chattah
10. Angela Maiers
11. Antonella Pavese
12. Arizona High Tech
13. A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye
14. Badger Blogger
15. Bailey WorkPlay
16. Being Peter Kim
17. Brett Trout
18. Best of Mother Earth
19. Beyond Madison Avenue
20. Biz and Buzz
21. Bizhack
22. BizSolutions Plus
23. Blog Business World
24. Bloggers Showroom
25. Blogging for Business
26. Blogher
27. Blog Till You Drop!
28. Bob Sutton
29. Brain Based Business
30. Brains on Fire
31. Brand Autopsy
32. The Brand Builder Blog
33. Branding and Marketing
34. Branding Strategy
35. Brand is Language
36. BrandSizzle
37. Brandsoul
38. Bren Blog
39. Business Evolutionist
40. Business Management Life
41. Business Pundit
42. Business Services, Etc.
43. Busy Mom
44. Buzz Canuck
45. Buzz Customer
46. Buzzoodle
47. Career Intensity
48. Carpe Factum
49. Casual Fridays
50. Change Your Thoughts
51. Chaos Scenario
52. Cheezhead
53. Chief Happiness Officer
54. Chris Brogan
55. Christine Kane
56. Church of the Customer
57. Circaspecting
58. CK’s Blog
59. Come Gather Round
60. Community Guy
61. Confident Writing
62. Conversation Agent
63. Converstations
64. Cooking for Engineers
65. Cool Hunting
66. Core77
67. Corporate Presenter
68. Crayon Writer
69. Creating a Better Life
70. Creating Passionate Users
71. Creative Think
72. CRM Mastery
73. Crossroads Dispatches
74. Cube Rules
75. Culture Kitchen
76. Customers Are Always
77. Customer Service Experience
78. Customer Service Reader
79. Customers Rock!
80. Custserv
81. Craig Harper
82. Daily Fix
83. Dawud Miracle
84. Dave Olson
85. David Airey
86. David Maister
87. David S Finch
88. Design Your Writing Life
89. Digital Common Sense
90. Director Tom
91. Diva Marketing
92. Do You Q
93. Duct Tape Marketing
94. Empowerment 4 Life
95. The Engaging Brand
96. Essential Keystrokes
97. Every Dot Connects
98. Experience Architect
99. Experience Curve
100. Experience Matters
101. Extreme Leadership
102. Eyes on Living
103. Feld Thoughts
104. Flooring the Customer
105. Fouroboros
106. Franchise Pick
107. FutureLab
108. Genuine Curiosity
109. Glass Half Full
110. The Good Life
111. Great Circle
112. Greg Verdino’s Marketing Blog
113. Hee-Haw Marketing
114. Hello, My Name is BLOG
115. Holly’s Corner
116. Homeless Family
117. The Idea Dude
118. I’d Rather be Blogging
119. Influential Marketing
120. Innovating to Win
121. Inspiring & Empowering Lives
122. Instigator Blog
123. Interview Chatter
124. Jaffe Juice
125. Jibber Jobber
126. Joyful Jubilant Learning
127. Joy of Six
128. Kent Blumberg
129. Kevin Eikenberry
130. Learned on Women
131. Life Beyond Code
132. Lip-sticking
133. Listics
134. The Lives and Times
135. Live Your Best Life
136. Live Your Inspiration
137. Living Light Bulbs
138. Logical Emotions
139. Logic + Emotion
140. Make It Great!
141. Making Life Work for You
142. Management Craft
143. Managing with Aloha
144. The M.A.P. Maker
145. The Marketing Excellence Blog
146. Marketing Headhunter
147. Marketing Hipster
148. The Marketing Minute
149. Marketing Nirvana
150. Marketing Roadmaps
151. Marketing Through the Clutter
152. Mary Schmidt
153. Masey
154. The Media Age
155. Micropersuasion
156. Middle Zone Musings
157. Miss604
158. Moment on Money
159. Monk at Work
160. Monkey Bites
161. Movie Marketing Madness
162. Motivation on the Run
163. My 2 Cents
164. My Beautiful Chaos
165. Naked Conversations
166. Neat & Simple Living
167. New Age 2020
168. New Charm School
169. Next Up
170. No Man’s Blog
171. The [Non] Billable Hour
172. Note to CMO
173. Office Politics
174. Optimist Lab
175. The Origin of Brands
176. Own Your Brand
177. Pardon My French
178. Passion Meets Purpose
179. Pause
180. Peerless Professionals
181. Perfectly Petersen
182. Personal Branding
183. The Podcast Network
184. The Power of Choice
185. Practical Leadership
186. Presentation Zen
187. Priscilla Palmer
188. Productivity Goal
189. Pro Hip-Hop
190. Prosperity for You
191. Purple Wren
192. QAQnA
193. Qlog
194. Reveries
195. Rex Blog
196. Ririan Project
197. Rohdesign
198. Rothacker Reviews
199. Scott H Young
200. Search Engine Guide
201. Servant of Chaos
202. Service Untitled
203. Seth’s Blog
204. Shards of Consciousness
205. Shotgun Marketing
206. Simplenomics
207. Simplicity
208. Slacker Manager
209. Slow Leadership
210. Socially Adept
211. Social Media Marketing Blog
212. Spare Change
213. Spirit in Gear
214. Spooky Action
215. Steve’s 2 Cents
216. Strategic Design
217. Strength-based Leadership
218. StickyFigure
219. Studentlinc
220. Success Begins Today
221. Success Creeations
222. Success From the Nest
223. Successful Blog
224. Success Jolt
225. Talk to Strangers
226. Tammy Lenski
227. Tell Ten Friends
228. That Girl from Marketing
229. Think Positive!
230. This Girl’s Weblog
231. Thoughts & Philosophies
232. Tom Peters
233. Trust Matters
234. Verve Coaching
235. Viral Garden
236. Waiter Bell
237. Wealth Building Guy
238. What’s Next
239. Writers Notes
240. You Already Know this Stuff
241. Zen Chill

I’ve written a very popular series on service calls, but as far as I can recall, I’ve never written about delivery experiences. I read about one the other day at Phil’s blog, Make it Great. Meikah, Becky, and Maria all wrote about Phil’s experience and I’ll also add my two cents.

• Redundancy. I don’t know about the pizza delivery industry, but in technical industries, redundancy is important. Can’t they call in another driver or like Maria suggested, have another employee deliver the pizza? Redundant solutions should be available to prevent problems.
• Work around the system. Robert Stephens says that his employees can break policies if it is for the purpose of “protecting the company’s reputation” – the store manager should have broken a policy and issued a gift card and/or refund to Phil.
• Keep everyone in the loop. When Phil arrived at the store, the pizza was on a truck somewhere. They should have made him a new pizza for him while he was there and/or started making it as they knew he was leaving – for free.
• Keep everyone in the loop (part 2). If the store knew there were going to be delays, they should have called and/or emailed Phil to let him know about it and offer other options.
• Follow-up. The company should have followed up with Phil after the experience. He should have gotten a phone call later in the evening to confirm he got the pizza and later, a nice email or letter from a corporate executive or the manager apologizing and including a $25 or $50 gift card. Don’t be afraid to bribe customers – it may really help make the peace.
• Apologize. Throughout the entire experience, Papa John’s should have been apologizing, explaining, and fixing. They should train their employees and managers to know how to apologize and to fix things.
• Watch. If Papa John’s watched the blogosphere, they would have seen Phil’s blog post and dealt with it. Now, they would have to deal with the post on several other customer service blogs and all of the commenters who read about Phil’s experience on them.

I know that if I were in Phil’s situation, I would have given up and ordered from someone else. He was extremely patient and much more mellow about it than an average customer would have been. I admire his patience.

Have a great weekend! If you decide to order pizza, hopefully it will be a better experience.

This is the third part of the interview with Robert Stephens, the founder of The Geek Squad. In this part of the interview, he discusses how they manage schedules, the common challenges, what they are doing to improve, and more.

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The service calls series went rather smoothly. I don’t have anything to add, but here are the main points:

• Ensure time slots are as small as possible. Never arrive before or after the time slot.
• Always try to follow the Etiquette of Service Calls.
• Always call to confirm and keep the customer in the loop.
• Make service calls personal.

Service calls can be a good customer service experience if they are done right. Hopefully this short series has provided you with some information about how to properly do service calls.

Very short post today, but I don’t have too much to talk about.

It is every customer’s nightmare when a customer service representative says anything to do with a timeslot. “We’ll call you back between 1 PM and 9 PM”, “The technician will be at your house between 8 AM and 7 PM”, “We’ll start caring about our customers and trying to improve customer service between the years 2035 and 3261.” The list goes on and on and it gets even more frustrating.

The best way to fix the issue with customers being inconvenienced with timeslots is simply by getting rid of them. No timeslots are the best timeslots.

Unfortunately, since we don’t live in “Customer Service Paradise”, no time slots are unlikely to happen. They do have a function, but they are almost entirely created to make it easier for the company and not the customer (there is a reason the word customer is in customer service, not company service).

The second best way to deal with timeslots is to make them as small as possible without them being wrong. If customers are told a representative will be there between 4 PM and 5 PM, the representative better show up at that time. Not earlier and not later.

Throughout the timeslot, the customer should be kept in the loop. If the representative is running early, late, or even on-time, he or she should call the customer and let them know the status. A call before the representative is ready to leave the previous stop is an excellent idea and will make the customer sure that they haven’t been forgotten about and that someone will be showing up on time(slot).

The key to timeslots are to keep them short and keep the customer informed. They are almost always customer service nightmare (despite how well they are done), but it’s best to keep them at acceptable instead of bad.

Tips:

• Do not be early. The customer may not be home.
• Do not be late. The customer will be home and will be furious.
• Call early in the time slot if you’re going to be late.
• Follow the Etiquette of Service Calls throughout the whole process.

There is a lot of etiquette involved with service calls. Again, it is the little things that make a big difference. I think it is best to outline them in order that they occur:

Before an Appointment is Made:

• Have the ways to contact your support methods clearly published.
• Menus should be simple and hold time should be reasonable.
• Have customers do troubleshooting steps (if necessary), but make that experience pleasant and personal.
• If available troubleshooting options have been exhausted, arrange a service call.
• Have the same representative arrange the service call – do not transfer the customer.
• Arrange a service call at the customer’s convenience, not the company’.
• Keep time slots to a minimum (1 or 2 hours is probably okay, but anything above that is really pushing it). If possible, have exact times (we’ll be there at 2:00 PM).
• Get directions.
• Read back the service call information to the customer and confirm.
• Ask them if they have any questions, comments, or concerns.
• After the customer hangs up, go back to the computer system and verify the service call appointment was made correctly.

After an Appointment is Made:

• Someone should verify service call appointments daily to ensure they have been entered correctly.
• The customer should be called and asked to confirm the service call appoitment 24 hours prior. If the appointment was made within that 24 hour period, do not call.
• At the beginning of the time slot or about 1 hour before the representative is expected to arrive at the customer’s home or office, have the representative call to confirm any directions and the time of the appointment as well as give the customer an update (running on time, early, etc.).

During the Appointment (steps for the representative):

• If possible, park on the street (wide streets only) or in a nearby parking space. Do not annoy neighbors, but try to avoid the customer’s driveway (cars leak, etc.). If you need to park in the driveway, confirm that with the customer before the appointment (see the previous step above).
• Wipe your feet thoroughly.
• Use the doorbell. If there is no doorbell, knock three or four times.
• When the customer answers the door, introduce yourself and greet the customer by name.
• Wipe your feet again (this time it’s for show).
• Ask the customer if they would prefer you put covers on your shoes before entering. (They have plastic things you can put around your shoes.)
• Give any personalized gifts as necessary.
• Do what you have to do to fix the problem.
• Do not bring any food or beverages in the house. You can ask if the customer is okay with you brining water in the house, but if they say no, it’s no.
• Avoid going in and out if possible.

After the Appointment:

• Call 48 hours later and ask if the problem is fixed or if the customer had any problems. Give a basic customer satisfaction survey.
• Call in another two weeks and ask if everything is okay.
• Send a card or a letter in the mail another week (total three weeks later) thanking the customer for their time and patience and apologizing about any issues.

Throughout the Entire Process:

• Everyone involved should be friendly.
• The customer’s convenience and satisfaction should be the ultimate goal.
• Hold times and amount of transfers required should be as little as possible.
• The customer should be addressed by name.

If you do all of those things, you’ll have an amazing customer service experience for your service calls. The keys are to keep time slots as small as possible, be nice, and confirm everything.

On Monday, we’re going to have some unrelated content. Then, on Tuesday, there is going to be more about time slots.