Customer Service: Fact or Fiction

Monday, September 24, 2007 - By: Linda Talley

Usually it’s fiction! We give a lot of lip service to customer service but do we provide it? If you ask your customers, they might tell you what you don’t want to hear.

Most companies say they train on customer service regularly. “I hope we’re providing “We train for it.”

Unfortunately, there are a lot of customers out there who don’t think they are getting good customer service—if any customer service at all--and the interesting thing is that these companies think they are giving good customer service. If you believe your company is giving good customer service, here are 3 top mistakes customer service people make. Are you customer service people making these mistakes? A better question: Is anyone who has contact with a customer making these mistakes? If the answer is Yes, there are ways to serve your customers better.

1. Your customer service person gets into an ego match/fight with the customer rather than building a relationship. For example: Since I recently moved my offices, I had to change the address on my driver’s license. When I tried to call the local DPS to find out what I need to bring, no one answered the phone. (I guess I should believe that they are out there catching crooks rather than taking my call.) So I showed up at the DPS Driver’s License division with insurance card but I didn’t have my social security card. The woman who called me up to the desk told me that if I didn’t have the social security card, I couldn’t receive a new picture ID but I could mail in a slip of paper and just write my social security number on the slip of paper. I said that seemed strange and wanted to know why that was possible. She raised her voice and said to me: “You are required to show your social security card.” Needless to say, my blood pressure went up and I turned around and left. She did not serve me—she made me angry. She hooked my ego with her ego and I was ready to fight! Fortunately, I was smart enough to walk away. There was another gentleman there who got into an argument with one of the women and was escorted away by a DPS officer.

2. Your customer service people use intimidation to make them right and the customer wrong. For example: When I tried to get my Southwestern Bell Call Notes moved from my old phone number to the new one, even with a month’s notice, it didn’t happen. I called the 800# and told the customer service person it wasn’t working and asked why wasn’t it working? Her response: “I don’t know why it’s not working!” I responded with: “Well, you work for Call Notes.” She told me that she knew how to do her business and if I would only let her do it, she would get me fixed up. When I replied that she wasn’t the first person I had talked to and no one else seemed to be able to fix it, she replied: “Do you want me to fix this for you or not?” (Just to let you know, it took 2 more people, one a supervisor who worked one full day to get my call notes up and running.)

3. There is no follow-through by customer service. How many times are customers told that something would happen and it didn’t or that someone would get back to them and they didn’t? No wonder customers get angry when promised something and then it doesn’t happen. They’ve been promised so many times. It’s kind of like Bill Clinton, you don’t expect him to tell the truth. You know he will lie. That’s what a lot of people think about customer service. For example: Warner Cable was scheduled to send out someone to connect my cable service. They sent out a subcontractor who didn’t have wire cutters or the cable to connect me. Yet, he wanted access to my office. I said “no” and asked him to leave. I called Warner Cable, told them the situation and they said they would have Dispatch call me and reschedule right away. That was 2 weeks ago and I haven’t heard a word. Do I expect them to call? No.

The bottom line is that customer training focuses on the customer service person and not the customer. There are companies, a major airline, that tells its employees that the customer is not always right! When I read about such customer training strategies, it makes me sick because at one time or another in our lives, we are all customers.

The challenge for customer service people is to keep the focus on the customer. Dealing with upset and angry customers is not about the customer service person, it’s about the customer and what they believe YOU, yes YOU did to them (by way of working for the particular company). They wouldn’t be calling if they were happy!

When the customer calls, that’s the time to make them right, even if they’re wrong and after you have the relationship with them, put in the correction. Making people right is the only way to build a relationship quickly. A key to remember is that results come from relationships and not the other way around. Your customers want results and unless you form a relationship with them when they call, you’ll have a difficult time winning over that person—no matter what you do right.

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