Last week I had the misfortune to have something go wrong with an oven which I have covered by an insurance policy. I say misfortune because it was bad enough it went wrong just before dinner - but also because it was the start of some dreadful customer service and PR.
Of course the insurance company blamed the manufacturers for not being able to get to me quickly and passed me on to them. It seemed I would have to wait ten days for an engineer to call as no-one would be in my area. And no oven-cooked meals till then!
I'm not going to go into the lengthy process I encountered but suffice to say the young woman, third or fourth on the list of customer service assistants I had to speak to, gave me a quote upon which I will dine out for years (excuse the pun). She said, when I asked to speak with a manager, "Our managers don't talk to customers". Excuse me??! Are they too important or aren't they capable of communication, in which case why are they managers?
The result - an angry customer, presumably what the company least wants. An angry customer will tell other people how they feel, resulting in bad PR. An angry customer probably won't renew their insurance policy so they'll lose business.
This angry customer sent out a tweet. Within an hour, the manufacturers tweeted back with a direct email and I had a new part fitted within the day - as it turned out the engineer was in my area that day after all. I didn't have to wait the ten days originally quoted.
Now that level of customer service was clearly achievable so why did I have to blow a gasket (that's another insurance policy altogether!) for it to be done?
Companies, please raise the bar and remember your customers are paying for reasonable service. Here's a thought: get rid of managers who won't talk to customers, get more people on the road and get some common sense training for your customer service teams.
Now that's what I call enhancing your reputations.
