Good customer service: a nuisance or a differentiator?
Last week, I did call my mobile telecoms provider,
as my voicemail was not working. People did call me and tell me that they had
left a voicemail. But I did never receive those messages.
As part of the call menu, I did have to key
in my phone number. Okay and then I had to wait in the queue, where they didn’t
mention the approximate waiting time. Then a customer service repr did answer
and the first question is “what is your phone number?” That is so annoying and
a waste of resources. The repr did try
to help me and she said that if the hard reset didn’t work, I had to call
again. So, I did ask whether I could call her directly then. No, that was not
possible, I just had to get back in the queue again.
The reset didn’t work, so I had to call
again. Another repr couldn’t fix it either and said that my call would be
escalated to the technical services department.
They did contact me four (!) days later. And after some testing, my
voicemail is still not working. Another person from another department has to
help me further. They haven’t contacted me, yet!
Clearly this costs the provider and myself a
lot of time (and money) and my satisfaction level is certainly not increasing….
It looks to me that they have designed this
service, with only their needs in mind. And they didn’t test the service, from
a customer’s point of view.
Now, we all know that there is a cutthroat
competition between telecoms providers. Who is the first one to understand that
a good (and preferably, excellent) customer service is the true differentiator?
Enthusiasm drives Excellence!
