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Your Customer Service Sucks! (No Hyperbole Here).

by Rod Cortez
9 replies
Warriors,

Since I've been a member of this forum I have repeatedly stated that "mediocrity abounds in the market place". And it's rings more true when it comes to customer service. Here's my take on it:

1. In July of 2011 a fortune 500 Insurance company commissioned my team of renegade customer service agents to simply survey 20 of their closest competitors along with 50 of their top brokers.

We surveyed 156 of them by actually calling them and e-mailing them. The results were worse than in 2010 (which was done by a different company but still...). Two company PR reps didn't even know what Facebook and Twitter was......are you kidding me? Really?

2. I personally dealt with over 41 vendors this year, of which more than half got the axe because their customer service sucked my left eyebrow.....threading anyone?

3. I've repeatedly received replies via e-mail that never answered my question. I'm all for using outsourced workers, but for the love of all that's holy, put some quality controls in place!

4. The worst by far was a support ticket I sent to a $247 a month membership site and their response was to send me to a $97 a month membership site to retrieve the answer! I am not kidding. I cancelled quicker than Kim Kardashian's ex-hubbie lol.

For those of you who have known me over the years know I'm not one to rant about things, but today's customer service debacles have only reinforced what Brian Tracy talks about in his book, Creating Your Own Future, and that is this:

You can differentiate yourself by offering BETTER, world-class customer service.

Please share your customer service experiences (both good and bad), though please refrain from naming the company or individual as it goes against the forum rules.

RoD
#customer #hyperbole #service #sucks
  • Profile picture of the author lotsofsnow
    Hi Rod,

    I can completely understand your frustration.

    Maybe I should follow the suggestion of one of my customers:



    Don't get me wrong, this is not to show how good I am. No, I just wanted to show how easy it is to make a customer happy.

    Basically just answer their questions in a timely manner.

    HP
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    • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
      Originally Posted by hpgoodboy View Post

      Hi Rod,

      I can completely understand your frustration.

      Maybe I should follow the suggestion of one of my customers:



      Don't get me wrong, this is not to show how good I am. No, I just wanted to show how easy it is to make a customer happy.

      Basically just answer their questions in a timely manner.

      HP
      Now that's an excellent idea. I think you should do it.

      And I can relate to your customer's last paragraph.

      Keep those customer service stories coming (with naming names of course). I genuinely like reading them.

      RoD
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Peters Benn
    Some of the offline clients I've worked with, actually make money from customer services. Not by upselling people, but by solving the problem, then compensating them with vouchers. One of the biggest corporates I spoke to, made a £1 million a year profit from the customer services department and had very good satisfaction as well.

    So - they got more loyal customers, they were generally getting very good feedback from customers, and the department covered it's own costs and generated revenue!
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  • Profile picture of the author DianaHeuser
    Hi Rod,

    That just rings so true for me at the moment. I placed an order for a custom designed fan page a few days ago and the designer has not even bothered to reply to ask me any details.

    If he's this tardy with an order, I can only imagine what the after sales service would be like.

    @hpgoodboy - I would love a product that explains how to run a help desk properly.

    Di
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  • Profile picture of the author AndreStoelinga
    In my opinion it's quite simple.

    If the product or service is serious and the merchant stands for what he's providing, the support is usually good. If support sucks, it tells me just one thing: All they want is ripp you off, take your money and "bye bye, good luck...". That also tells me the product isn't what you would expect, meaning hyped up cr@p with worthless promises.

    I guess those who "want to make money fast" don't realize that support is one of the biggest aspects that would build your reputation for your business.

    If you've paid so much money for a membership program and you get crap support you even have to pay for....a big bell starts ringing with me shouting "SCAMMER".

    These people don't deserve any customers...

    Andre
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  • Profile picture of the author AlexDoerian
    Sometimes people buy just because the customer support
    even the products are at average standard.
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  • Profile picture of the author Thierry Samuel
    aftersales support is extremely worth for product/services...
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  • Profile picture of the author sonicadam123
    Hi Rod,

    I've been getting a lot of them support responses that never answer my question lately .. mostly from my current web host.

    I wouldn't mind as much but their service in general is a bit lame.

    I thought it would be time to shop around for a new web host, but I wanted to find the best one possible so I didn't make a mistake. -I decided to mail their support and ask them some pre-sales questions.

    Out of 3 which a lot of others seemed to be having good experiences with .. the first just didn't respond to my email .. it's been almost 2 weeks now.

    The second responded within 30 minutes directly answering all my questions .. great!

    The third I used Live chat, questions answered in seconds ..

    the first one has been scratched off my list and won't be getting my custom. As for the other two .. their services are more expensive but because their support was so good, even just for answering pre-sales questions I'm much more likely to buy.

    Not responding is worse than responding and not answering the question, so it'd be a step down from where i'm at now lol.

    @hpgoodboy - it is that automated blah blah blah that I keep getting from my current host, not helpful in the slightest, reading doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for employment these days lol.
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  • Profile picture of the author nicheblogger75
    As a small business owner, customer service is of the utmost importance to me. I make it a point to respond within 2 hours to any request for help, and then to go above and beyond.

    I've even done free installations of some of the blogs and websites I sell just to make folks repeat customers. And, it reflects in my sales. You'd be surprised how easy it is to make a customer happy. Sometimes just responding quickly so they know someone is on the other end is enough.
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