I recently had an email exchange with the “support” department of a company that has a Twitter client, which is currently in a closed beta.  I put support in quotes because I didn’t receive any support at all, only a bad attitude.

Here’s an excerpt of one of the emails I received from them:

its a closed beta in development we have zero time to answer any emails yet we do.  each user costs us money today…so to be very clear here providing this service to you costs me money.  you are not our customer we were kind enough to provide you with a useful service.

There are two immediate problems here:

1. Offering a popular product and then complaining to one of your customers that they’re costing you money and leave you no time to answer emails is shooting yourself in the foot.
2. Users of your free products are, in fact, your customers.  In this case, the customers are also de facto employees since they’re testing the product and providing feedback, and thus should be treated as the valuable asset they are.

And also notice how poorly the email was formatted.  The punctuation is poor, and each sentence begins with a lower case letter.  Perfection is not required, but competence is.

What sense does it make to launch a startup and offer a product if you’re going to resent the users of that product?  This experience reminded me of the Demotivator titled Apathy: If we don’t take care of the customer, maybe they’ll stop bugging us.

This customer certainly did.

I’ve been doing a lot of shopping at Lowe’s and Home Depot recently, and I’ve noticed an interesting behavioral shift in the employees at these stores.  I’m very seldom asked if I need help finding something.  (Face it, after the fourth offer it starts to get annoying.) Instead they greet me with a simple, “How are you today?”  Now this, this doesn’t get annoying.  Quite the opposite, it makes me feel welcome in the store.  It also opens the door for me to ask for help should I need it, leaving me in control rather than putting me on the spot.

This is a perfect zero-cost improvement in customer service.

I see this happen nearly everywhere I go.  Voice mails go unanswered.  Email messages too.  Tweets, if your company uses Twitter. Every communication from every customer should be responded to in a timely manner. Prioritize, sure, but you have to respond.

The worst is when this happens face to face.  A restaurant patron waits and waits to get a table.  You’re in a checkout line at some retail store and the cashier never acknowledges your presence, preferring instead to chat with a coworker about their weekend.

Problems don’t go away when ignored, but your customers just might.

I served on a quality control committee at one of my employers.  In the QC meetings the various department heads would report on how many mistakes were made in their areas, the impact of those mistakes, and what was being done to prevent the mistakes from recurring.

Except that they refused to use the word ‘mistake.’  Instead they used the word ‘variance,’ even when speaking with each other informally.

‘Variance’ completely eliminates any sense of urgency when it comes to resolving problems.  It sounds great if you want to make a good impression when talking to someone outside your company, but removing urgency is the last thing you want internally when it comes to solving problems.

I’ve never liked the saying, “The customer is always right.”  If you work in customer service for more than a few days, you’ll discover that this is untrue.  Some customers will run over their cell phone with their car and expect a free replacement.  Others will greatly overdraw their bank accounts and be adamant they shouldn’t be charged a fee. You get the idea.

When the customer is wrong, it does no good to remember the old saying I quoted above.  In fact, it can be frustrating to do so, and that frustration could get in the way of providing good service.

I propose we scrap that old chestnut completely and replace it with, “The customer is always welcome.”  The chances of this new maxim being wrong are exceedingly small, and brings with it a positive attitude that says, “We value your business. Let’s get this problem resolved.”

Let me know what you think.

The best customer service interactions I’ve ever had, both as a customer and as a customer service provider, have been those in which a somewhat personal connection was made.  Professionalism is a requirement for both customers and providers, definitely, but only to get things started.

People are people.  What I mean is, never forget that it’s an individual, a human being, on the other end of the phone.  Professionalism is a layer we wear on top of our ‘personalness.’  Peel back that layer from time to time, make a connection with the human being underneath.  A little goes a long way.

Citibank, for reasons unknown publicly, closed number of gas station credit cards on Wednesday of last week.  They mailed notices out on Monday, two days beforehand. Citibank customers trying to use those cards obviously had them declined, at least one of them italic she had already filled her gas tank. This person obviously had to pay for her gas using some other method.

It is inexcusable that Citibank mailed notices out only two days beforehand. With only two days notice, it is inconceivable that all of these notices would have arrived in time. They surely must have known that this was going to inconvenience a great many people, yet they did it anyway.

Let’s give Citibank the benefit of the doubt and say they had a legitimate reason for closing these accounts. We’ve heard too many stories in the news about credit card companies closing accounts on consumers that were in good standing to think this wouldn’t tarnish Citi’s reputation.  Giving their customers two weeks notice before termination of the accounts, rather than two days, would’ve gone a long way toward preventing this.

You know what else is inconceivable? That Citibank did not think all of this through beforehand. They knew this was going to negatively impact their customers. They knew this would negatively impact their reputation. Yet they went ahead with it anyway. I have to wonder if this is the best way of serving Citibank’s shareholders. In light of this, however, it does not surprise me that Citibank is in trouble. Would you open an account with Citibank right now? I know I wouldn’t.

Here’s a link to the story on MSNBC.com: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33388210/ns/business-consumer_news/

Image courtesy roland

As soon as you make a customer unhappy, they no longer see you as being professional.

There’s great potential for misunderstanding here, so let me clarify.  I’m not saying that you’re unprofessional, I’m saying that unhappy customers SEE YOU as unprofessional.

Now, I don’t mean customers that have to have their passwords reset or something equally small, I’m referring to the customer of the transmission shop that has their tranny fall out a week after it was replaced, or the customer of the florist that arrives at the reception hall the morning of their wedding to find pink carnations instead of yellow roses.

What you must do in these situations is demonstrate, perhaps not for the first time, that you are indeed a professional and will fix the problem to your customer’s satisfaction.  It’s for these situations that the phrase, “Every problem is an opportunity” was created.

When you’re solving a problem for a customer, what you’re also doing is recovering your reputation.  Thinking of customer service this way – just a little bit selfishly, just a little bit personally – is a good and healthy thing.

Picture courtesy thejonoakley

I saw an article on MSNBC.com yesterday that really raised my eyebrows.  A traveler had reserved a car from Alamo for three days and paid the $390 reservation in advance.  His flight was canceled and he had to delay picking up the car by a day.  He contacted Alamo and they said they’d hold the car for him.  The traveler ended up only using the car for two days, meaning the time he was supposed to return the car had not changed.  Alamo, since he’d essentially changed his reservation, charged him an additional $1116.

The traveler apparently contacted Christopher Elliott, a Travel columnist for Tribune Media Services, who wrote the article on MSNBC.com.

Mr. Elliott writes:

I suggested you write a brief, polite e-mail to Alamo, asking it to reverse the charges. The response? A snippy note that said, “Any changes to the basis of the reservation makes the rate subject to change,” and adding, “We are disappointed that this policy is a source of dissatisfaction for you.” Alamo denied your request.

Let’s take those quotes one at a time.

“Any changes to the basis of the reservation makes the rate subject to change”

This policy is far too black and white to be considered fair.  After all, in this case, the car simply sat on the lot for a day – which was still paid for – and returned at the time originally agreed upon.  This situation cost Alamo absolutely nothing.

Allow me to state the obvious: Policies like these are used to justify fleecing customers, most of whom won’t put up a fight. Also, black and white policies like this strongly indicate how lazy a company will be when it comes to customer service.

“We are disappointed that this policy is a source of dissatisfaction for you.”

Who on Earth would actually be satisfied by this policy?  How is it reasonable to charge someone over $1000 for picking up a car a day late, especially when the return time hadn’t changed?

The travel industry in particular is absolutely rife with these ridiculous policies.  (Example: Airline change fees.  You have to pay the airline a fee if you want to change your ticket.  Do airlines ever reimburse you for delays or cancellations that change your schedule?  No.)

After Mr. Elliot contacted Alamo on the traveler’s behalf, they refunded the extra charge.

It shouldn’t take a consumer advocate contacting you with a complaint to get you to simply be reasonable.  What Alamo should have done in the first place is obvious – merely let the original charges stand.  If they’d done that, there would have been no problem at all.

It is generally considered rude to, figuratively speaking, step on someone’s toes.  I think the point is arguable.

Why?

In my experience, the people who do the toe stepping do so either because they’re ordered to by their boss or because the person whose toes they step on dropped the ball.

For most people, their default reaction when their toes get stepped on is to get annoyed, act indignant, and let their ego get in the way.  This is completely the wrong attitude to have.  Your default response should be to ask yourself why your toes got stepped on.  Chances are pretty good you’re being presented with a learning experience.  Ego should never get in the way of learning.