Hello, and welcome to the first post ever on my first blog. I decided to start this for two key reasons: 1. It seems like every day I have some new customer service issue that I’m ranting about, so I might as well vent online. 2. Hopefully if any of you out there are having similar customer service issues, you can use my experiences as a guide toward getting your issue resolved.
The philosophy of this blog is that you are the customer, and the old saying should still be true: “The customer is always right.” You may find in your daily life that this age-old saying has lost its luster in recent years…with the economy forcing many companies to focus much more on the bottom line, customer service has gradually fallen by the wayside. Many companies outsource their customer service centers to foreign countries, resulting in countless phone calls that feel like a script-reading. In some ways, this focus on the bottom line is only rational…if most people have a simple question or two, why spend all the money on a top-of-the-line, domestic customer service operation. But what gets lost in the shuffle is the intangible loss of customers feeling like they are being taken care of by businesses…it’s getting harder and harder to find a business where you, the customer, can get a quick and easy resolution to an issue.
Those of you who know me well know that I have taken a bit of a hard-line stance on this issue; I tend to have extremely high expectations of most companies when it comes to customer service, and I typically stop at nothing to ensure that my issue is resolved. Often times, I lose sight of the actual issue at hand or the minimal cost involved and instead start to focus on the principle that my issue should be resolved in a way that is satisfactory to me…regardless of the time and effort it takes. On occasion, I take things a bit too far…those who have overheard my customer service phone calls when I’m not getting a resolution know that my tone can become quite disorderly. But that is never my goal; I am always hopeful that my issue can be resolved quickly and effortlessly…somehow, that rarely seems to happen.
And so that’s where this blog comes in; when a simple phone call isn’t enough to get the issue resolved, I begin a well-honed process of speaking to supervisors, speaking to their supervisors, and eventually going as high as I can up the corporate ladder until the issue is resolved. Sometimes I “win,” sometimes I don’t. But I always walk away knowing that I escalated the issue as far as it would go before giving up. And most times, even if I don’t get exactly the resolution I want, I’ll still end up getting something. The question to ask yourself before attempting any of my techniques is, “How much effort am I willing to put in to get what I want, and is it worth it?”
In the comments of these posts, I’d love to hear your stories about similar issues you’ve had and what techniques you’ve attempted in getting what you want. Do you know of a secret phone number to call when your issue isn’t being resolved? Is there a particular email address that’ll get your issue to the top of the pile? Do you need advice on what your next step should be? Post away, and hopefully our small community of disheartened consumers can step up to the plate and hit it out of the park for you.
I’d also love to hear from those of you who actually work in customer service. Are we getting it all wrong? Do you have suggestions for how we can get issues resolved faster and easier? If we start learning what happens on the other end of the phone line, we’re much more likely to empathize with you during our next issue.
So welcome to Let Me Speak to Your Supervisor: Blogging My Way to Customer Success. Of course I don’t have a new problem every single day, so my posts will likely be on a bit of an irregular calendar. And every once in a while, I’ll try to relay a story of a past experience that can hopefully help you out in your quest to be treated like a worthwhile customer. I’ll also have occasional Tips and Tricks; this will be general advice that can apply to many different customer service situations. Let the consumer revolution begin!
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