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My Business Tips
by Tim Shaw www.timshaw.com.au July 2008
User friendly customer service is essential
I cannot believe what I am going to tell you about
a recent customer service experience on the telephone. I
rang a telecommunications company to query my bill for a
particular service I buy from them. I spent one hour and
eight minutes on and off hold trying to get the answers I
desired. Sixty eight minutes! I was transferred overseas
to the Philippines twice. Incorrectly transferred back to
Australian technical services instead of billing enquiries
twice. When I finally got through the third time to a lovely
bloke in tech services again in Australia, I simply told
him my name and phone number and urged him to get someone
from the CEO’s office or the Australian corporate affairs
department to call me so I could complain and tell them of
my horror of spending 68 minutes on hold and talking to the
wrong departments in their company.
I knew I was waiting 68 minutes because I had been engaged
in a Skype instant messaging conversation with colleagues
in New York and I could track my log on time for that conversation
and the customer service call because at 11.52am I wrote
to them that I was on hold to a Telco and at 1pm finished
the Skype instant message meeting with colleagues and finished
the call with the last of Telco blokes as well.
Within an hour I had a call from a terrific senior bloke
who apologized profusely for my experience and asked me to
email my bill for assessment directly to him. He said he
would definitely be back to me within 72 hours with responses
to my queries. I am still waiting over a week later as I
write this story.
I rang another Telco on the same day about another matter
which involved disconnecting a landline and transferring
a number from another location to my new location within
the same caller code area. The whole call took 8 minutes
or less. The operator asked when I would like this work completed.
I said in the next 72 or so hours thinking that’s how
long it would take. The work was completed electronically
within the hour on the same day. Unbelievably good, professional
customer service.
Anyone running a business knows that unless you make yourself
fully available to your customers, irrespective of your pricing
structure or product offer, you must offer proper and professional
customer care contact if you want to keep your customers
happy. Don’t over promise and under deliver, just ensure
that you make yourself available. No one can properly calculate
call centre load peaks on an hourly basis, but why not adopt
an instant messaging style of customer query for customers
to use instead of hanging on the phone, waiting, waiting
and waiting.
So imagine if I could send a Skype style instant message
to an online customer service (some companies like Telstra
do this for new product sales) with my customer service or
account query, at least the company knows who I am, I have
a record of my contact with the company and the customer
service team can get important details like account numbers
and actual complaint info quickly and efficiently.
Happy Selling!
Tim Shaw can diagnose sales and marketing opportunities
available for your business today. Tim is available as a
keynote speaker for your next sales meeting or conference.
Visit www.timshaw.com.au or
contact Tim directly at timshaw@bigpond.com
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