Another use for a hammer

I've been on both sides of the phone with regard to call center operations and customer service centers. I've answered sales calls and made sales calls and I've answered technical support calls. All of this behind the scenes experience does not make me much more lenient on the poor agents that happen to get my call when I need help.

Customer service has been going down hill fast. More and more companies are looking for cheap ways to get the customer off the phone, to stop emailing them, or in general just to leave them alone. "Just go buy our product and leave us alone" is the attitude being put off my a lot of companies -- big and small -- nowadays. It doesn't matter which survey you read, or who you talk to, it just plain ol' sucks!

Yes, there are shining stars out there that truly realize the value of the customer and don't just look at how many hard dollars they are spending on support. Some companies actually view customer service, technical support, etc as a marketing opportunity -- and I'm not even talking about up-selling! I'm talking about using a good customer service experience to build brand loyalty. To build brand trust. To build a force of non-paid sales people who talk about, blog about, and otherwise talk up your product or service to a lot more interested people than those that channel surf or turn the page when they see your ad.

But beware. Those same aggressive free sales people can turn on you if you screw up. Take the woman in this article from the Washington Post. She was probably pretty excited about the service she was receiving from Comcast -- enough to add additional features in the form of phone service. Or, yes, it might have just been about saving money, too, but that doesn't fit my story, as well... :-)

Seems Comcast make another misstep. Perhaps they overextended themselves. Perhaps they weren't paying close enough attention to the staff. Perhaps they really just don't get it. Unfortunately, I don't think that the national attention this article is receiving will make them change much of anything (except maybe to make a more secure area for their executives).

What will it take for companies to wake up and realize that they can't treat customers this way? I'll tell you what it'll take -- US! WE have the power in the form of our hard-earned dollars, in the form of blogs like this, in the form of speech, in the form of e-mail, to tell companies to stop treating us this way! I'm not talking about some spammy "don't buy gas on October 17th" kind of rebellion. I'm talking about a grassroots, personal effort, "power of one" kind of thing. If a company treats you well -- tell them. If they do something wrong -- tell them. You gotta give them a chance to make it right. Sometimes it's more about what they do to correct the issue than that the issue happened that shows you what the company is made of.

All you Dominos, Old Kent Banks, Chryslers, KMarts, McDonalds, etc out there -- are you listening? It's about what you do to rectify the situation that shows people what you're all about! Not rectifying the situation, one that's in your control and duty, shows people even more sometimes... And word spreads fast...

All you CXOs out there... Stand up and look around. Who's providing the face of your company to all of your customers? Call your company's customer service number once a month and see if that's the image you want portrayed. Go into your store occasionally. How are you treated? Would you want to come back and shop some more? Look at your customers. Are they being serviced, or ignored? Buy some of your products. Use them as a customer would. Do they perform as promised? You'd be surprised if you actually took a step down occasionally and lived like the rest of us.

I saw an article recently about a Chrysler exec who, upon sitting in the Sebring for the first time, suddenly realized why its sales were slacking -- the cheap plastic feel! And that from a car that was sold as affordable luxury. Are you overselling your products too? Spare the customer having to use a hammer, and do something...