I’ve had some recent experiences as a customer that demonstrates that stellar customer service is a very rare thing. It happens so seldom that when it does, it is almost shocking. But what I find really interesting is that when I receive great service, I talk about it to other people! And I really don’t think I’m unusual in this respect. People are eager to share both extremely good and extremely poor service. So the upshot is this: customer service at either end of the scale gets you publicity. If you are in the average range, you get no mention at all. So as a company, you should think about giving stellar service and consider it not just customer service but advertising as well. And word-of-mouth advertising is considered the best of all.
Here are my experiences of the last few days:
Episode 1
I purchased a laser printer yesterday from circuit
city. It was advertised at Best Buy for
$129.99.
Circuit City had it for $179.99. Circuit City is closer to me (1/2 mile) and would rather save time and pick it up there, but for $50, it was worth it to drive to the local best Buy (5 miles). So I called up the Circuit City toll free number and they did some leg work. First they verified the $129.99 price by looking it up on bestbuy’s website. The lady then called the local store to get permission, per Circuit City policy, but the manager was out for 30 minutes. The agent told me to call back in 30 minutes and they’d repeat the process. This was mistake one: never put the burden on the customer to return (ever hear of always be closing?). Well I did call back, they then called the store, then came back and told me they would honor the price and gave me a total price well above $129.99 because they add shipping charges (not trivial for a laser printer). They claim they do that because the Best Buy website adds shipping! But I said I can go into a brick and mortar Best Buy and not pay shipping and get it for $129.99. The ad I saw was in the newspaper! It didn’t matter. I ended the call in disgust and was upset they wasted my time (mistake 2: never do stupid things and make a customer upset). It would have been far better to say they couldn’t match the price and be done with it. I could have accepted and even understood that. Because I didn't want to drive to Best Buy, I didn’t give up. I called the local Circuit City store and the manager said he’d give it to me for $129.99 - no problem at all! I just had to bring in the ad. So Circuit City did get my business, but only because I was persistent. They really tried to lose the sale and normally I would not have rewarded them with it.
Episode 2
This morning I read an email from google saying my credit card was declined for my adwords account and my ads were suspended. My bank switched my credit card recently from visa to a mastercard and I didn’t remember to update my adwords account. Oops! So I logged in but in the login process, google asked me if I use other google services, to which I replied yes (gmail) and then asked if I wanted to merge these accounts, so I said sure! Big mistake! All of a sudden all my ads were gone. So was any link to update my billing. I realized this required human-to-human contact. I had to talk to someone who could fix this and emails or reading FAQs wasn't going to cut it. The trouble with google and many large company websites, is they really don't want you calling them. Good luck trying to find a phone number, let alone a toll-free one. I finally did manage to get a number by sheer dumb luck and out-waited the hold time and finally reached a very, very nice customer support lady who really tried to help me. Except it was too big a problem and she had to “escalate it” and I would presumably get a call back, but no prediction as to when. Meanwhile, I’m was not getting adword promotion for my website and that was effectively costing me sales. I finally took the initiative and called back late in the day (this time I had the right phone number and the secret button sequences to get in queue). This time I got another very helpful employee who eventually got two engineers on the problem and my account was restored. The upshot here: I believe google trains and / or hires well. Both employees were well-mannered and were sincere in trying to solve the problem. They were pleasant and really did a good job and the problem got solved.
Now the bad-side: I only was able to solve this because I was
persistent. I found a phone number, I believe
through a newsgroup google search, not through google’s website. In fact, if you search the google.com website with google and the toll-free adwords number, you'll find it isn't on their website at all. I did manage to find two matches in groups.google.com, which is how I hunted them down! I have since found it on ebay! It’s like a secret club to reach a
human. In fact, these arcane bits of information
are available to the common man for some of the larger companies at
gethuman.com. Google: don’t try to
prevent your customers from talking with you. You have great reps. Let them give you great PR.
Model Citizen
So who is a good role model? Southwest Airlines. Look at their website and see how quickly you can buy a ticket. Simple fares, all the flights are listed for a given day and you can see the return trip on the same screen. One glance, you see everything. Try that on American or United or another of others. I can literally book a flight on Southwest in a couple of minutes. And should I need to talk to someone, I always get a real person answering the phone. Unbelieveable! No silling computer robot talking to me making me press silly buttons. So which airline is making money? You got it – Southwest. All the rest are losing money.
P.S. - the google adwords support line is 1-866-2GOOGLE. Now you're in the club.