Customer Service Hall of Shame
Paul in Cannon Beach
4,703 Posts
Did you see this article: [url]http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/Advice/TheCustomerServiceHallOfShame.aspx[/url]
Any of you work for one of those companies or shop there?
I absolutely hate poor customer service. Its like a crusade for me.
I am not a Sprint customer but it makes me wonder why they have such BAD customer service.
This may be a wake up call for some of these companies.
Any of you work for one of those companies or shop there?
I absolutely hate poor customer service. Its like a crusade for me.
I am not a Sprint customer but it makes me wonder why they have such BAD customer service.
This may be a wake up call for some of these companies.
Comments
It's just another Day.
long stated that someday I'm
writing a book on the death of
Customer Service. Instead of the
norm, it has become the exception
to find someone who is even polite,
but when I do, I let a manager
know about it. If retail stores
(like Home Depot)can't provide
you with service then it becomes
self serv anyway, so fire everybody,
lower the cost to me.
I like it because it has a very simple message that is easily communicated.
Walmart made the list of bad customer service and I tend to agree. For the gazillions of dollars Walmart makes, they could afford to invest a bit back into the development of their employees...and maybe clean their bathrooms occassionally.
I have a long memory for bad customer service. I still remember a negative experience at Circuit City when I was 17.
The scary part is you dont often hear from the customers. They just dont come back. With the amount of options we consumers have, there just is no reason to put up with bad customer service.
Why bother to list your companies e-mail address on your website if you dont respond to e-mails?
The larger an organization grows, it seems to be more difficult to maintain a consistent culture of customer service.
It would be interesting to study whether companies with bad customer service also have terrible internal customer service. Perhaps it starts there...
We then went about the store looking. On our way we admired a door and was helped, but we didn't ask about mail boxes.
After going all over the store and still not finding them, we asked someone else. The answer? Isle 9. We immediately asked a 3rd person who told us they didn't know.
We decided to leave. We were sniveling to each other about it on our way out and passed a young lady who worked there. She stopped us and asked if she could help us. I told her that 3 people had been unable to point us to the mail boxes. She then gave me specific instructions. The hardware isle had a little short isle just off to the side, and she told us how to get there. We headed off and she helped someone else.
Before we got to the hardware isle another worker came forward. She asked if we were the ones looking for mail boxes. She escorted us right to them.
I would have left disgusted with HD if it were not for this one employee going out of her way. She knew we were not happy and stopped us anyway knowing that she might have to take some flak. Though by now we were running late, I made a point to find her and thank her on our way out with our new mail box. I expect to return for the new door in a few weeks. I am sure I would not have been back for quite some time if it hadn't been for that one worker.
Nae
I go out of my way to one particular Starbucks almost every day because of a few people who work there. They act like they are happy that I walked in the door, and it feels genuine. (You know how desperate we HR people are for SOMEONE to act happy to see us!)
I use this to train our staff at Orientation. People come back to places where the employees appear happy to be doing whatever it is they are doing. In my company, that list includes changing diapers, wiping boogey noses, searching for a lost shoe under six inches of sand, and cleaning up endless amounts of spilled paint/milk/food/younameit. It also includes all kinds of wonderful things, if you choose to focus on them instead.
Every job can suck if that's how you choose to look at it. Unfortunately lots of people out there look at their job as something to "get through" every day, hence the indifferent, or even crappy service.
I love that commercial where one person's good deed leads to another person's good deed, and so on and so on and so on. You can't fix everyone's attitude malfuction, but you can make a small difference for some people, who will then make a small difference for other people, and so on.
End of "lecture."
Kumbaya, Paul. x:-)
My house payment changed about $25/mo this year for escrow. I have automatic payments set up, so the first one was short. When I received my next statement, they informed me that my last payment was in a holding account b/c it wasn't the correct amount. So I called and explained what happened and that I would be sending the extra funds immediately. Well, they wanted to charge me a huge late fee! I politely said I wasn't going to pay it. They had my money, they just put it someplace else. The rep was so rude, basically said I was stupid for not sending the correct amount, blah, blah, blah. I ended up getting it waived, but good grief it was a hassle! She acted like she was doing me a huge favor by waiving it "just this one time" since I had an excellent payment history. And don't even get me started on the cell phone companies.
The home depot illustration is a good one because it shows the power that just one employee has.
I am a big fan of walking someone to whereever they need to go rather than pointing them somewhere. Its more personal.
I checked into a motel on business recently. The first room they gave was dirty. The second was being painted. The third had someone living in it.
I started feeling like Goldilocks. I finally had the front desk person walk with me personally to the fourth room which was clean and un-occupied.
that so happy helpful employees. I wanna know
where THAT Walmart is so I can go there!!
A study in contrast...Target. Clean looking, organized, aisles clear..plenty of checkouts. A real pleasure, even if it costs a little more.
By the way, I have usually found employees at the Home Depot to be knowledgeable and helpful. By contrast, I have also done business with Lowes, who only hire arms and legs and they have no idea what they are selling.
On line shopping gets better and better!
Personally, I find the canned greetings you get at Hollywood Video and the Gap to be, well, canned. You walk in and an employee says "hello" with all the feeling of a wet rag. I actually prefer when they dont see me come in and dont give me the zombie greeting.
Our McDonalds actually has pretty good customer service. There is one employee there who always says "hey guy!" when you order as if you are best friends. It comes across pretty well. It also helps that he is smiling and appears to have a pulse.
Now there was a guy who understood that the customer is everything.
Hats off to you, Les!
Turn on your speakers and Enjoy!
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