Setting the Bar for Customer Service? 275
meburke asks: "Computer repair, copier repair, customer support: It seems to be mostly done the same way for the last 40 years. That is: 'Something breaks, call the repair guy.' But customers expect more, and they can't tell us what they expect, so where do we develop guidelines for customer service and how do we improve? I've searched the net for three days now, and I haven't found a comprehensive list of actions or standards that distinguish the excellent tech from the average tech. Can anyone point me toward some sources?" It seems that as our technology becomes more complex, the service that is offered to customers continues to fall shorter of the mark. What kind of service do you expect from your vendors, and how close is reality to your expectations?
As an aside, shooflot wonders: "If the definition of 'news' includes 'rarity' then good service must be news. My usual experience includes the kind of sulky and dismissive attitude I got from an Apple rep when my new iPod wouldn't charge (I eventually got him to exchange it). However, I was recently surprised by Rogers, my cellphone provider, when I followed up on some charges for ringtones I'd never downloaded. The service rep not only cancelled the charges but discovered I'd been wrongly charged an extra air time fee for the whole last year and credited me for the entire amount plus tax! What great service stories does Slashdot wish to share which (I hope!) may inspire all those other reps in the trenches?"
ITIL (Score:5, Interesting)
And to blantantly plug the message board in my sig [smallbizgeeks.com]... this is a topic that we discuss there frequently as well. "What's the difference between a 'computer guy' and an 'IT consultant'? [smallbizgeeks.com]" was one of the threads that comes to mind. I know that one of the more frustrating aspects of my job is having to clean up other techs' messes. And worse: having to charge the customer for my time to do that when they already paid the last guy a pretty penny. With PCs now in the magical $300 range, the divide between the two types of techs seems to be growing. I don't know whether this is helping my business or hurting it yet though.
Can't find all the answers in a book (Score:5, Interesting)
good question ... speakeasy good, dell bad (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know what customers expect, but if the service was modeled after Speakeasy, I can't see many people complaining. I think part of the trick is that it's a very flat support organization - you don't need to escalate to a level 2 or level 3 person on the phone. The person you get on the call can do everything short of showing up at your door.
Dell, on the other hand, makes people jump through hoops when they call in with a problem (like a dead hard drive). This even happens on corporate accounts - the field techs at work have been known to spend 4 hours on the phone going through dell's script.
There are some weird expectations out there. (Score:4, Interesting)
Having also worked on an ISP helpdesk, some of the customer expectations there are equally insane. One business had thousands of business cards, letterheads and other stationary printed with their email address listed as "http://www.businessname.com/". Who did they immediately phone? us - demanding that when someone sends email to "http://www.businessname.com/" that it get to them.
Pity their hosting wasn't with us, even if their net service was.
The technically clueless just want someone to blame if something doesn't work to their satisfaction - and that's entirely fair - however when they come on all insistent that their problems can be fixed by places they can't, or they don't realise their expectations are entirely unrealistic it's when service providers just turn off and want to go "piss off, idiot"
Re:In IT (Score:5, Interesting)
The first company I called came out and fixed the AC. When I called them, the office assistant was short (almost rude). I had to take the day off waiting for the technician. When he arrived, the technician grunted and mumbled a lot. He did his work and left.
The second time my AC broke, I called another company. The office assistant was very pleasant to speak with. She offered to call to my cell phone to let me know when the technician was "on his way". So, I was able to work most of the day and saved a vacation day. The technician was also pleasant to talk with. Not only did he fix my AC, but he explained how it failed and how I can catch it in the future. He also went over some preventative maintenance tips with me.
The next time I have any AC problem, I will call the latter company. I passed along this info to my friends. Good customer service. Repeatable business. Referrals.
Great Service Story: Staples (Score:5, Interesting)
A nice man helped me get it all set up for delivery, and gave me the information on some people that can assemble it for me. Wonderful. He says they can email me a delivery time estimate, and that he knows personally they don't sell it or anything like that, so no spam even from them. Very cool.
Yesterday I get a call on my cell, its the delivery guy at my apartment and the managers office won't take delivery or let him in (even at my request) to drop off my stuff. The delivery guy is very friendly, especially considering he's gonna have to come back. He gives me the number I can call to reschedule.
I'm dreading this call. Ohhhhh gawd I think, I'm gonna have to talk to some phone jockey retard who couldn't care less about helping me. So I call. It asks me if I want English or Spanish. BEEP! For a moment, I start to groan to myself as the customer service hoop jumping is about to begin. Wait? What's this? Hello? Holy smokes! A live person, right away! He's friendly and asks me for my name and whats wrong before my order number. He tells me he's going to have to get someone from another department. My stomach sinks again, oh junk, here we go, its the run around. I get about a minute of hold music, and then, woah wait a minute, its the same guy! He's doing a warm/live transfer, and the new guy already has all my info and knows my situation! WOW!
The new guy is friendly too, he gets me set up for a new delivery time, and we part ways.
What's the moral of this story? I mean you'd think it sounded pretty plain. These days, it doesn't. I've come to expect to be punted, lied to, have to jump through 3 dozen hoops until I yell at a manager, just to get the simplest requests past the call center guys that are paid to reduce the amount of customers that want stuff that costs the company more money. Treat me right, give me a little customer service with no bullshit, don't get in arguements with me over who's fault it was I didn't get the email, answer the phone when I call, don't cold dump/punt me, and I am now a Staples customer for life (or at least until they go down the shitty customer service is cheaper route).
~Rebecca
Expect no service but lip service and marketing (Score:3, Interesting)
At the end of my hourlong session on the phone, the lady then asked:
Can I interest you in our phone
At which point I cut her off stating I was a life-long non-customer of AT&T based on this experience. Then she launched right into:
How about broadband
At which point I said again something like: "I'll never ever even consider AT&T - I want you guys to delete me from your DB completely, don't just flag me as closed. Never call me, never send me mail, don't email
The lady on the phone actually giggled when I said "don't even think about me!"
I'm sure I'll get to reuse the joke next summer when the AT&T bills start coming again (I ignore them and wait for the calls to start -- I figure it costs AT&T more money that way).
Re:Insource Call Centers (Score:2, Interesting)
I would disagree with this, and for a very good reason. I work for a very small (read: Boss, Me, New Guy) general PC Repair/System Builder type store (you know the type). For the last six years the company has had 25-35% growth every year, precisely because people don't want to call India to find out why their AOL connection isn't working. They call us. These are the same people that seem to be dropping their Dell's after the second HDD, Mobo, etc. failure to buy one of our (higher priced) systems. Granted, I'm absolutely positive we're not making a single noticeable dent in Dell's sales, but on the other hand, that almost non-existant dent in their sales translates to outstanding growth for a business our size. So keep up with that outstanding customer support big guys! Daddy needs a fat christmas bonus check...
Re:good question ... speakeasy good, dell bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, Dell support sucks. I got my Dad a Dell PC, and the CD burner didn't work properly - it was intermittent when burning CD-RWs - sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. Seemed pretty obvious to me that the drive was screwed in a hardware type way, esp. as sometimes the burn would 'succeed', but the disc would be blank (using media from the same batch).
Anyway, rule #1 with Dell support - you do NOT have an intermittent problem. It goes wrong all the time, every time, ok? If you have to lie, then lie. Otherwise as soon as it works, they say "Oh, it's working now, sir - bye!"
Then I tried CD-Rs - XP cd burning failed every time. I call back, and get passed from pillar to post - they kept wanting me to reinstall the POS burner software they ship out with the system, I keep insisting on keeping it simple and using XP's built-in burning software. They bitch about this because they are not 'trained' to use XP burning software. WTF? You put a blank CD in, open the CD drive, drag some files on, click 'Write to CD'. How much training do you need?
Also one of the guys I talk to tries to tell me that they don't test the drives with XP burning. I point out that it should still work, no? He says they don't test it, and tries to wriggle out of helping me. I ask him if Dell has sold me a burner that doesn't work with XP. "XP is made by Microsoft, not us, and we don't test the XP burning software." So I reply, "So you're telling me that you've sold me a PC with a CD burner that you know doesn't work with XP? Your product doesn't actually work? Isn't that illegal? You've even put one of those 'Designed for Windows XP' stickers on the box and everything." Not surprisingly, he backs down.
Eventually they say it's a software problem, so I'll have to pay for a software call to resolve it. This pisses me off no end, but I confirm that if it turns out to be a hardware problem, then I won't get charged. They try to convince me that it's not a hardware problem because the Dell diags program tests the burner drive and reports success (despite it stating that it does no burning testing).
So anyway, I call the software team and explain the situation. I am told that it can't be a problem with the hardware because otherwise I wouldn't even be able to read normal CD-ROMs, which I can. I query this in-depth analysis, but they are adamant. Riiiight.
Anyway, surprise - the software team fail to get it working. They tell me to reinstall XP. I hadn't realised that people still do this. I tell them this is a pretty unreasonable thing to ask me to do, but the guy says it should only take an hour and a half to reinstall XP and set up all my apps and data again. Sure.
So in frustration I install XP on a scratch hard-drive. Hey guess what, CD burning still fails every time on CD-Rs.
I call the hardware group back, they grudgingly admit my initial diagnosis of hw failure might be correct, and arrange for an engineer to visit the next to day to replace the drive.
He arrives, changes drive, new drive works perfectly.
Total time on phone - about 5 hours, talking to about 8 different people.
For a duff optical drive. Hardly rocket science.
Before anyone replies with "Dell aren't a service company", well, they sure charged me for the next-day on-site service contract.
And before you tell me I'm a mug for paying for that, I live about 120 miles from my parents, and the alternative is to ship the PC back to base, where Dell could sit on it for 6 weeks. My Dad cannot afford to have no PC for 6 weeks.
In summary, I have the service agreement so if they need to repair it, they will come to my Dad, and
Re:In IT (Score:3, Interesting)
but how do you make someone understand the signal won't reach 30 miles? i tried the radio station analogy - if you go 100 miles away, you get different radio stations. he blew up and said that i told him it would work anywhere.
i'd meant anywhere in the house.
Which is what you should have made clear to teh customer when you installed it. You know it won't work 30 miles away, I know it won't; but someone who pays to have a newtowrk setup *probably* doesn't realize it won't work 30 miles away.
Part of teh problem is we assume people understand the basics when often they don't.