Posts Tagged ‘customer service’
“You are tenacious like bull… I like.” – Peggy
"Peggy" and his staff... at your service!
Saw this this morning and had to post it. Pretty telling, and, frankly, these ads should be effective… and it’s all about service. Go figure. How many of us have gotten to speak to “Peggy?!?”
Too many… Enjoy the article, and be sure to view the new spots at the link at the end of it. You’ll laugh… you’ll cry… and you will RELATE…
——————————————————
Discover Launches New Advertisements Featuring Customer Service
“Peggy” Ads Highlight Discover’s Superior Service, Taps into Consumer Frustration with Industry
RIVERWOODS, Ill., Aug 16, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Discover Financial Services today launched a new advertising campaign that highlights the superior, award-winning customer service Discover offers its cardmembers. The new advertisements will strike a chord with consumers who have endured poor customer service across industries while highlighting the best-in-class customer service that Discover cardmembers experience.
“Customer service is a key component of Discover’s long-standing commitment to delivering the best rewards, service and value,” said Julie Loeger, senior vice president of brand and product management at Discover. “These ads portray the common, frustrating experiences we’ve all faced with customer service calls and emphasize the difference good service can make. We believe that by featuring our promise to answer calls in 60 seconds or less by real people who are trained to solve problems on the first call, we will continue to differentiate ourselves to existing and prospective cardmembers.”
The television advertisements, which portray a likable but incapable customer service representative named “Peggy,” are the focal point of a marketing and communications strategy designed to convey the value of Discover’s superior customer service. The ads will remind viewers of some of the most common and frustrating experiences with customer service calls, such as long hold times, excessive call transfers and the inability to solve problems. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: call center service, customer service, Discover Card, outsourcing, poor customer service, service
Personal Service. The Mom and Pop Shop lives on… Enchante, Austin TX
I have taken up the revered mens pastime of shaving with a “real” razor over the past few months. The Double Edge, or DE razor has been around for a loooong time, and gives me a better shave – closer, less razor burn, and more fun than what I’ve been doing for the last twenty or so years – using a Gillette Sensor in the shower.
As with any hobby or niche, you find that the internet is a vast wealth of information on about everything. I quickly realized this with traditional wet shaving, and with a process called “Method Shaving.” Method Shaving is basically a pattern of shaving that is supported by a series of unique products that, bottom line, will give you the closest, most comfortable shave of your life. Seriously. I won’t get more in to it here, but will give you this link if you want to learn more: Clickety.
Charles Roberts, the man who created the Method Shaving system (or the RMWS, Robert’s Method of Wet Shaving) and the Hydrolast products is passionate about his craft and his business. Charles is a paramount example of how true passion about one’s work contributes exponentially to exceptional service. He and his wife Jean own Enchante, a store devoted to Mens wet shaving, Womens fine fragrances, candles, and other related items.
My experience with Charles starts with my wonderful wife and kids wanting to get me a new badger hair shaving brush for Christmas. This was an incredibly thoughtful gift, and quality badger brushes are not cheap, and are also somewhat difficult to find. They searched high and low – really low, in some cases, as often, men’s wet shaving supplies are in Pipe, Smoke and Cigar shops… places we do not usually support or visit. They were unsuccessful in their quest for a fine badger brush, until my eldest son came to the realization that Charles Roberts’ shop, Enchante, was actually here in Austin where we live. They decided to take me down there – a sort of pilgrimage to meet the man behind the Method…
My wife called the store one Saturday to see if it was open, as Weekend hours were off-and-on. There was no answer. She was going to try again, when a few minutes after her initial call, the phone rang. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was Charles calling back to let her know they were open, and there. How’s that for personal service?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Charles Roberts, customer service, Enchante, RMWS, Wet Shaving
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
Wal-Mart, winning me back, one associate at a time.
I was digging through a dresser junk drawer that has followed me around for years the other day when I ran across some old pins – Wal-Mart Distribution Center pins that I used to wear on my badge fifteen plus years ago. My “Trainer” pin was there. That particular pin marked the beginning of this career in Learning and Development. “Back in the day” when I started with Wal-Mart, the service culture permeated the entire organization. Sam had just passed, and the reverence for his way of doing things was still fresh, almost to a fault. I believe I have mentioned it here, but the very first time that the Wal-Mart Board of Directors met in a Distribution Center was in the facility I was based in, and I got to coordinate the meeting. The exposure to people like Rob Walton, David Glass and especially Don Soderquist really left an impact on me.
I’ve never forgotten sitting on the tarmac with Lee Scott in Porterville after the Board Meeting waiting for “the jet” and him saying, “If you ever need anything, give me a call.” Of course, he wasn’t the CEO then. I still have yet to call for that chit… I wonder if it has expired. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: customer service, Wal-Mart
Required Reading: The BBB/Gallup Trust in Business Index
I recently read a survey done by Gallup for the Better Business Bureau. The study focuses on TRUST in Business. I like that. If I trust a business, that is really saying something. Trust is one of those very elusive things that I struggle with in many aspects of my life – getting it, giving it, keeping it. I’m pretty tight with my trust distribution to companies I am a customer to. I have learned via loved ones in my life and traveling down my own roads that trust is earned, not freely given.
In the Gallup survey, it is reported that good customers service is the primary prerequisite for one in five people to trust a company. If you add honesty and integrity to customer service, the numbers skyrocket to a composite 50-60% of what make people trust companies. That’s not a surprise, really, but if you look at what people look for in a company, the data falls nicely in to the Pareto principle, or 80/20 rule. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: customer service, research, survey, trust