Archive for July, 2009
A paramount example of Customer Service complicated by Corporate Policy…
Photo from the Austin American Statesman photo blog.
Strip away process and policies that do not allow your employees to serve customers… I say it all of the time. There are also times when you need to make exceptions to policies that are meant to protect both customers and employees. This is one such example. See the link below.
Tags: Policy, poor customer service, Randall's, Safeway
Treat me like a valued customer and I’ll stick around…
Customer loyalty is really important in today’s world. There have been numerous studies done on the cost to source new customers versus the cost to keep the ones you have, and the results are ALWAYS that keeping customers is easier and more profitable. That makes sense, so why is it so difficult to do?
There is a reason I (and thus my family) have been a member customer of AAA for over eighteen years. Way back when, we were brought to the company by a family friend who was an agent in Porterville California. Duane was a guy we went to Church with, that my wife knew since birth, and he took care of us as family. It’s easy, or easier, when you are a friend or family member, but we left California shortly after that and have lived in four or five places since. Oddly enough, every interaction except one over eighteen years has been a good one. The one that wasn’t was more about a phone agent who didn’t know the rules in the state we were in, as she was in another one. The service after we got that runaround was timely, well mannered and accurate, as expected.
Whenever I call, I am thanked for my years of being a customer. I think that’s cool, and more so because, well, I write things like this about serving customers, and IT MATTERS to me as a customer. I like that they recognize I’ve stuck with them. Hopefully my rates reflect that, too. I’ve never checked… hmmmm.
A few weeks ago, my eldest child was involved in a mutual backing parking lot kiss. He was, a bit freaked out, as every driver in their first (however minor) fender bender is. He called and was doing everything he should have, and to make matters worse, the other driver just left, not wanting to exchange the pertinent information (which, by the way, is technically hit-and-run in Texas… but that’s another story.)
His little endeavor has exposed me to another insurance company – I won’t mention any names, but there’s this little green gecko that is on TV… Well, that company’s adjustor and agent have been flat out rude, in writing and in person. Amazingly so. Suffice it to say I will never entertain their services if I ever am in the market for insurance. Ever. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: AAA, Auto Club, customer service, service, Service Experiences
This makes sense…
I found this on the NPR website after reading a little about this book elsewhere. Looks like a must-read.
You can listen to the NPR article there – Head over to NPR and listen!
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Facts And Tips from ‘Your Call Is (Not That) Important To Us’
by Emily Yellin
10 Unexpected Facts About Customer Service
1. Americans make an estimated 43 billion calls to customer service per year. That’s an average of 143 calls per year for every man, woman, and child in the United States. That means every second of every day, 1,363 Americans are making a call to customer service.
2. Mark Twain wrote one of the first letters complaining about customer service in 1890. He called his local telephone service “the very worst on the face of the whole earth.”
3. The Customer Rage Study found that about 70 percent of customers feel rage toward companies about service problems. And they react in one or more of these ways: 57 percent never do business with the company again; 28 percent yell or raise their voice at a company employee; eight percent curse, eight percent threaten legal action. Fifteen percent say they want revenge on the company, but only one percent report getting it.
4. In 1882, a Cincinnati man’s phone privileges were revoked for shouting “damn your telephone” when an operator connected him to the wrong number. He sued and lost. Swearing at telephone operators became illegal in many places in the U.S. And in 1902, a doctor in St. Louis was arrested, put on trial and found guilty of using abusive language toward an operator. He was fined $5. Read the rest of this entry »