Customers? We're Supposed To Talk To Them?
from the listening-to-who-now? dept
We've had numerous stories about how bad many companies are at returning customer support emails, but it seems that things don't get much better once you get on the phone. The NY Times is running a story about just how hard it is to reach people on the phone at many companies. Apparently, quite a few companies take their customer service strategies from satirical posters from Despair, Inc. This doesn't mean that automation is always a bad thing -- sometimes people don't need to talk to a human. However, when they do need to, it shouldn't be so hard to reach one. Still, as the article points out, perhaps an even better strategy is to improve the products enough that your customers don't need to call you so often.
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I've also worked Tech Support, and believe me, the average caller should not be calling. 80% of all calls should be to a computer school to learn how to use their own computers, and not to a technical support dept.
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customer non-service
After waiting and waiting on the phone I finally left a message. Evidently they never listened to the message because I never got a return call.
Their loss.
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it's hit and miss
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No Subject Given
Now I'm not advocating MCI. I'm sure they suck as much as Sprint. The point is that if a service doesn't work, cancel it right away and get a replacement service -- I know that doesn't work for monopolies like the cable company (unless you can get DirectTV), but it works in 90% of the situations.
Also, if a product is satisfactory, return it right away. Don't call tech support to debug the problem. I don't care how trivial the problem is, I don't get tech support the chance to fix it because my time is valuable. If it doesn't work as advertised upon delivery, it doesn't work. Give me my refund or I'll have my credit card company issue a charge back, which increases the credit card processing fees of the merchants and they don't like that.
The fact is that it is easier and faster to switch to a competing product or service than it is to deal with web or phone based support. The people running most companies believe that their existing customers are locked in and will not switch to a competitor because of the hassle. That is why they don't care about good customer/tech support.
The best option the customer has is to walk away. If enough customers do this, the companies will change. If not, at least you didn't waste any of your finite time on Earth dealing with those scumbags.
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No Subject Given
Also some sound advice here, like trying to contact them via phone before doing business with them.
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www.nophonetrees.com
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broken link on techdirt.com article
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