Posts Tagged ‘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…
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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
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
P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Austin TX
Eat there.
Our server last night was incredible. I wish I remembered his name (kicks self.) He is actually the reason I juiced this site – I wanted to send kudos to Chang’s. Awesome food, atmosphere and SERVICE!
If you’re in or around Austin, it’s a worthy place to satisfy your Asian food cravings (plus, the “shot glass desserts” are brilliant…)
So, to the young man who helped the couple that ordered dumplings, Moo Goo Gai Pan, and Honey Shrimp… and two of the dessert shots, thanks so much! From the guy who put away too many glasses of the iced tea…
I wish I remembered your name! I’ll ask the wife…
Edit! The Mrs. of course remembered our server’s name. Big kudos to our man JOSH!!!
Tags: p.f. changs, restaurant, service
Remedy Roofing, Houston, Dallas and Austin TX
Sometimes, service is not about the product, or even the before and during the sale or service. Every once in a while, a good product and sale can go wrong from a service perspective in the follow-up stages. This is one of those times.
The same hail storm that ripped up my car did a number on my roof.
I waited a couple months for the rush to recede and collected the multitudes of pamphlets that arrived on my doorstep, seemingly an endless supply of targeted marketing. I watched as houses up and down the street received new roofs, and decided to go with Remedy Roofing, a Texas outfit.
They came and did an estimate quickly, and I was impressed. The job went well also. Good follow up and a quality job – my roof appears to be well done, and my gutters are as well.
Then things went a bit south. My insurance company splits the payments, and I had given Remedy two thirds of the bill as soon as the work was done, and then requested the remainder from my insurance. Oddly, when I asked them to fax a bill to my insurance Company, the salesman asked me – “What’s the biggest number on your adjustor estimate?” – I didn’t quite understand, and asked what he meant… “I need to know the total – the biggest number on your estimate from your insurance Company.” I gave him the numbers and total – not thinking twice…
My insurance company recieved an invoice that day, for the EXACT amount of the full adjustor estimate…
A week later I had a check to mail to the roofing company. My insurance company has been stellar through this and my car repairs. Of course, within that week, I was called twice by the roofing salesman, telling me his boss was breathing down his neck (after a week? what type of cash cycle model are they using?) and to “Just write a postdated check and stick it under your doormat.”
I wrote the check and called them, requesting an itemized receipt and any additrional paperwork I might need for the roofing warranty. He said he’d get it, and that the estimate/contract would suffice as warranty. I wondered… what if the estimate didn’t take something in to account? I was confused. Still am…
Nothing came.
I called again, two weeks later, again requesting an itemized receipt and the paperwork. The sales guy blamed the office staff and told me he would get them to send it…
That was a month ago, and I still have nothing.
So today I decided to call the office… interestingly enough, you can’t get through to the office. You can only leave a voice mail. I used the email contact form… but I don’t have much faith that anything will come of it.
Lesson for today? Service does not end after the sale. It merely begins another dance between company and customer… Honesty is always the key, and follow-up is as important to the customer as presale service. I will not recommend this company to anyone in the neighborhood, not because they didn’t do a good job with my presale experience or on my home, but because they didn’t do a good job after the sale…
Tags: follow-up, remedy roofing, service
Caliber Collision, Hwy 620, Austin TX
After a major hail storm ripped up my little car, I had to file the first claim in some time longer than a decade with my current insurance carrier. The interaction with them is another post that could be titled “Service Recovery.” They gave me a list of “Preferred” repair shops, and my car has been gone for two weeks tomorrow… Which brings me to my first point.
Honesty in time and date estimations with customers is not an option. When you tell a customer a time or date, you’d better either get the job or task done before that date or at the very least let the customer know the status and when they can expect the work or service to be done. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: auto body repair, honesty, poor service, service, timeliness
Get a human!
I’m conceptualizing a post about surviving service in the world of Interactive Voice Response (IVR, an oxymoron and acronym all rolled neatly together.)
In the mean time, I’ll share one of my favorite links, the “gethuman list.” Read the rest of this entry »
The outsource dilemma: It’s your ears.
Thank you for calling XYZ Company, welcome to Gurgaon!
A primary focus of my roles in the last twelve or so years of work has been training agents in contact centers.
My first interaction with call centers was in Sandpoint Idaho, when Coldwater Creek was a small company of 250 people. I was the training department in its entirety. We trained our agents then to be virtually ominpotent uberagents – the calls were answered within three rings (or less than one ring much of the time) by a well spoken, happy, smiling human being who could handle all of your product questions, place or track your order, basically help you with anything you could think of, including supplying the returns address for our major competitors of the time.
Fast forward a decade or so, and I find myself traveling through the bustling streets of Delhi, Bangalore, or Hyderabad. The industry has changed, as now the agents my team is supporting are supplying technical support to consumers in the US rather than selling clothes to the “Land-Rover Woman” but the premise is the same: People on the phone serving customers. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: call center service, India, Philippines, service
Six Sigma and Service…
I currently work in a six sigma shop… and while I understand and use the process, there are some places it just is NOT the right thing to do… That said, this is a favorite article of mine. Enjoy.
Six Sigma Doesn’t Belong in Customer-Centric Environments
Some tenets of a Service Culture
If I collect these momentary brain dumps in to lists of Service Tenets, who knows, maybe someday I’ll have a good list. Here are two to start.
Service Culture Tenet: Everyone serves each other first.
I started my professional career as a training manager for Wal-Mart logistics. Back in those days, Sam’s philosophies were still very much alive and well. My job was to train new supervisors and managers in the distribution centers, and whatever else, of course. There are a few memories I have of that job that have helped shape my philosophy of service interactions. The interesting part and point of this post is that those experiences were provided me by the leadership of the Company at the time.
I don’t remember how or why I ended up there, but a group of fellow training managers and I were at Sam and Helen Walton’s modest home in Bentonville for some sort of event. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: culture, customer, service
Quick thoughts on Service & Leadership
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.”
Max dePree wrote that in his “Leadership is an Art” book over fifteen years ago. I once wrote a training class based on the contents of that book, and it is still one of the definitive pieces of leadership literature in my mind and library.
While this site is about service, I have to relate service to leadership and management. Leadership and management have been an integral part of my career from the beginning. I remember the first management training class I led as a brand new Training Manager in a huge company. There I was, a kid in his early twenties, trying to tell battle hardened frontline managers how to get the most out of their receiving dock workers… it was really intimidating. It would have been much worse had my new boss not sat me down and told me that “as a Training Manager, you have to be the ideal. You of all of the managers here MUST walk the talk, or you will have no credibility.” Then he handed me a copy of Robert Greenleaf’s paper “Servant as Leader”… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: culture, leadership, service
Firehouse Subs, Round Rock TX
Jeff, someday I hope you find this post. Jeff is the current manager of Firehouse Subs in Round Rock TX.
Firehouse Subs is our family’s “go to” lunch and last minute dinner spot. Whenever we can’t decide where to eat, we all know that if someone says “Firehouse” there will be no complaints. The food is really good, sub sandwiches that have MEAT on them, unlike some more popularized unnamed sub chains… with yellow and green logos… and there is a huge selection of hot sauces – all arranged by “heat index” on the counter for you to put on the sandwiches. That fits with the firehouse theme nicely. If you’re a sauce lover like me, the sauces themselves are a big selling point.
Good food and a unique twist is a good start.
Good service is a good finish. Read the rest of this entry »