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A Carol I. Kallendorf, Ph.D./Jack Speer Publication |
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My Customer, My Friend . . . Bad News Customers vs. Customer Service Departments . . . News from the War
Not so much now. For some organizations, when they talk about “customer relations,” they’re talking another relationship—the relationship of predator to prey. When Ripping Off a Customers Is More Profitable than Serving Them—Is Enron All That Unusual? You heard those dark recordings on the news earlier this
Yet is this conversation that unusual? I would bet that similar conversations about ripping off customers take place every day across many industries. Gallows humor? Letting off steam? Or expressed intent? How Did Customer Service Get Where It Is Today? Do you think customer service has deteriorated in the last five years? In BizWatch readers’ opinions, it has plummeted. Customer service has gotten lost in the shuffle for some of the following reasons:
The last recession, to many sectors of the American economy, was much more like a depression, especially to those who lost their jobs and continue to lose their employment. To these people, cost is in many cases almost the only criterion. The same is true of both small
We demand goods and services at prices that seem impossibly low, and we will change providers almost for pennies. Between producing the product and delivering it to us at a price we’ll pay, there is no room to take care of the possibility that I have problems with the product once it’s mine. That leaves no room for customer service. People in the U.S. rail against products made in China and customer service people from India. Yet job exportation continues because we as Americans will buy the products and services that are temporarily more affordable because of these strategies. It’s like a group of irate church members in the early 1950s who went to the owner of the local movie house and demanded that he not show movies on Wednesday night, because it conflicted with their mid-week service. The movie house owner assured them he would close his movie house on Wednesday—as soon as the members of this church quit coming! Corporations themselves are not entirely to blame for customer service. As a customer and a consumer, I am killing customer service. What Companies Don’t Give Consumers
Once the product doesn’t perform well or at all, you as the customer find yourself at war with a company that sold you a product that does not include enough margin to hire the following:
In all too many organizations, when something goes wrong with the product or service, from the moment the customer speaks to the customer service representative, the service representative knows that doing his or her job well will be proving the customer wrong. The customer becomes the adversary, the enemy. If the product doesn’t work, it’s the customer’s fault. The warranty does not apply. It doesn’t matter that the customer is angry. That can be good. What matters is that the customer goes away before they cost the company any money. Verizon: A Classic Example of Bad Customer Service Verizon, I have learned, has fought many customer lawsuits. They recently promised the Colorado Attorney General to do better. I bought from Verizon because the company has many areas of competitive advantage, including a large service area. My problem was that I immediately went out and lost my charger to the telephone. I wasn’t worried because you can easily buy a replacement—I thought. Only the charger that the dealer could sell me sucked the power out of my phone instead of charging it. It wasn’t his fault, however; the phone worked—it was my fault I lost the charger. I told him it was like losing the keys to a car and they couldn’t be replaced. The car would be useless. That wasn’t his problem. We got the customer service person on the phone and she was adamant. The phone was in warranty. It couldn’t be charged, but that wasn’t her fault. I finally found the official Verizon Outlet and repair center in Austin. I reasoned that they might have more resources to help. Upon arrival, I got into the customer service line.
“You’ve got food all over that phone.“ The tone changes from rage to derision. She laughs, “I don’t know what that food is. I didn’t follow you around all day to see what you eat.” She finds this her last comment incredibly clever and laughs again. The person behind me sighs wearily, “This is the third time I’ve been here. Verizon never does what it says.” My story ends happier, I guess. They told me they had a special Verizon charger [unknown to the dealers who didn’t know it existed]. I plunked down my money. It worked. Had the dealer or the person on the customer service line known that Verizon had a charger that worked and that generic chargers didn’t, they could have saved us all huge amounts of time and money. And I might have a more positive view of Verizon. Is Customer Service Still a Key to Success for Businesses? Companies like Verizon seem to place a greater value on cost savings than on customer service. They don’t seem to believe the old marketing dictum that says it’s ten times harder to get a new customer than it is to retain a current customer. Why are they taking this stance? They seem quite determined to say “no” to any customer request that will cost them money. We can only speculate as to why.
Good customer service is the underpinning of the market place. There are successful companies right now who are immediately in conflict with new customers after the sale is made. At least in the cellular phone business, the industry seems more like a gold rush than an industry. These companies want to get in fast and grab a share of the market by some really fancy footwork on their contracts and billings. But like the California gold rush of 1848, the temporary riches of these corporations will be replaced with empty mine shafts on pockmarked hills. Once corporations have lost the trust of companies and consumers because of poor customer service, tricky billing, and broken promises, these corporations will join other companies like Enron on the scrap heap of corporate failures. These companies are very like the long distance companies of the early nineties, when nobody could understand the bills, and the customer contract was a shell game. Most of these companies no longer exist and the companies that remain are those who maintained customer loyalty and good customer service. You can make a fortune even if you’re shortsighted, but customer service is ultimately the kingmaker that chooses the king. |
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