Who Says Customer Service Is Dead And Buried?

Who Says Customer Service Is Dead And Buried?

"Ahhh s***...that's just not right!"

Add in a couple more choice expletives and this was my reaction this morning on checking my credit card statement and seeing a reasonably hefty charge from a company who's services I hadn't used in months. It wasn't about the sum of money involved, it was the principle. How dare they deduct money from my credit card without my consent was my over-riding emotion.

I quickly jumped online, dug out my old password and checked my account settings. Lo and behold, they had an 'annual auto-renew feature' which had been automatically set-up on my account, requiring the user to disable it, as distinct from enabling it in the first place. This is a neat trick which many large companies use, ostensibly to save their customers the time and effort of paying their invoice once a year. Lets be honest, its really an unsubtle mechanism to ensure the vast majority of people continue to pay a subscription fee, many of whom won't check their statement closely enough to notice the error.

I'm sure you know where this is going. I eventually track down an email address and fired off a suitably curt note, explaining I don't take too kindly to companies trying to trick me out of my money. It's what happened next that surprised me...

Literally 5 minutes later, I received a personalized response from a member of the companies customer service team called Meg. She said..

"Thanks for getting in touch today! We didn't mean to surprise you with this charge, but all of our paid plans are enabled with an auto-renew feature by default in order to prevent any unintended interruptions of service. This explains why your account renewed automatically and generated this charge. I'm so sorry for any alarm this may have caused."

That took me by surprise. Firstly the speed of the response itself, which showed they had a proper process and took my complaint seriously. Then a genuine apology, not trying to apportion blame, but simply taking ownership of the problem and explaining why it occurred.

The surprises didn't stop there however....

"That said, we definitely don't want to charge you for a service you're not using. Of course I'd be happy to process a refund for you! We'll be sorry to see you go, but as requested I've refunded the most recent charge on your account and canceled your GOLD plan. Your account is now on our free BASIC plan, and hopefully we'll have the chance to work with you again in the future!"

Now that's some pretty impressive customer service I'm sure you'll agree. Why am I sharing this little anecdote with you, you might reasonably ask?

I'll tell you why. On a daily basis my company Trinity advise sales organisations on ways to better understand why they are winning and losing the deals they pursue. I'm fascinated by the way in which customers make their decisions and how little of their decision making process relates to product or price. We'd like to think most purchasing decisions are reached on a purely rational and non-emotive basis, but that's simply not the case.

Human beings are incredibly sensitive to nuance and non-verbal cues. Our decision making faculties absorb vast amounts of data to help us arrive at a decision. We don't just select one product or service over another. We select the personality and integrity of the sales person, we select the perceived cultural fit of the organisation with our own. Both consciously and subconsciously, we weigh a vast array of factors and eventually arrive at a decision based on the balance of all variables.

As Jerry Gregoire, former CIO at Dell explained:

"The customer experience is the next competitive battleground"

No longer is it sufficient to simply have a great product or service. You need to understand the way your customer wants to experience and interact with you and ensure you make their experience as enjoyable and memorable as possible.

Steve Jobs understood this lesson better than most. He always placed the customer experience at the forefront of his mind. Perhaps this stemmed from his fascination with the intersection of the liberal arts and technology or his obsession with design simplicity, where form and function are inextricably linked. He was quoted as saying...

" We love our users. We try very hard to surprise and delight them"

So perhaps that's the reason I decided to share this experience with you. I was both surprised and delighted by the customer experience I received this morning and it reminded me how important these small but significant factors can be in ensuring customer service is not just a slogan, but a way of doing business

Co-author of the Amazon #1 bestseller ‘Secrets of Business Success”, a regular sales and marketing commentator in the mainstream media including Sky News Business, SMH and The Age, Cian is a passionate proponent of an ethical, honest and authentic approach to sales. His company Trinity Perspectives is committed to helping sales organisation unlock the latent potential of their customer’s insights. To read more pop over to www.trinityperspectives.com.au

Angel Seymour

CEO-SeeMore Business Solutions, Owner/President-Mail N Ship Express LLC, Dreamer, Woman Achiever, Mother, Wife, Sister, Aunt, Grandmother, Activist, Pet Owner, and whatever I set my mind to do.

9y

In my opinion customer service is dead, but not buried it's just laying out to decompose, as many company employees stand around doing nothing. It's almost like a form of anthropophobia for me; not that I'm truly afraid of people, I fear encountering incompetence. Most times I feel much like the image used for this story when having to deal with a companies funneled attempt at customer service. Treating people the way you want to be treated should be the perfect catch phrase, but it's not anymore. Man, I want that era back so bad!

Maggi P. Kirkbride

Your Invisible Writing Partner℠ Ghostwriting, developmental editing, manuscript and sensitivity assessment, fact checking, and book doctoring of nonfiction books about *career *work *working *worker *workplace topics.

9y

Customer service is an important topic to discuss. Guns, too. I prefer more customer service and fewer guns. I wish you had chosen a different graphic as, although I get the concept, I'm really offended by the hand and gun and woman shooting herself. (I know, who cares and I'm overly sensitive, but my brain does not want to see guns like this and I doubt I'm the only one.)

So true. Customer service is the backbone of a product/service

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Colin Taylor

LinkedIn Top Voice, CX and Contact Center Pioneer, Advisor, Author, Speaker, Innovator, Investor. 40+ yrs-of Award-Winning Customer Service, CX, EX, and Inside Sales Advice (11K+)

9y

I think the rumors of the death have been greatly exaggerated. Only those who are not engaged in dealing with customers directly could believe that Customer Service is anything but thriving. In fact the stellar service that was received in this anecdote shows us that this is true. For all of the hype surrounding Customer Experience at its core it is about treating customers as the valued asset they are, which is what Customer Service has always been about. #custserv #custexp #callcenter #cx

Customer service is the beginning and completion of your services that you offer to your customers . I did a four year study on customer service, the whole focus was how much impact does customer service have on sales, purchasing . The answer 100 percent.

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