Bad Customer Service – Learning from the Big Boys
April 10th, 2009 | Author: Dan Harrison
Something that some of my friends will know of me is that I absolutely hate bad customer service. There are a number of large companies in this world who put profits first, customers last. Thing is, if they put customers higher on their lists, they’d actually increase their profits! Happy customers mean more repeat business and more word-of-mouth referrals.
Here are some examples of bad customer service that I’ve received recently, as well as what I’ve learnt from each of them. It appears that most companies don’t even care that there’s a recession, as they seem to be doing everything they can to lose customers! To avoid legal issues, I’ve decided to remove the company names from this article.
Manage customer expectations
The Problem: I was buying a new laptop from a large computer company. Delivery time on the website was stated at 3 days. Great I thought. In reality? It was 3 days for the company to dispatch the laptop, it was an extra 7 days for actual delivery! Nowhere on the website was it clear about actual delivery time after ordering. I only got an update about expected delivery dates after it was dispatched from the company’s warehouse.
The Lesson: Ensure customers are fully aware of what service or product you provide. Also ensure they understand your commitments. If you allow customers to become misled, and customers get frustrated as a result, you will lose customers quickly.
Allow customers to give you feedback
The Problem: The above-mentioned computer company did not provide any means for making a complaint about their service! No phone number dedicated for complaints, and they completely ignored emails I sent them. (and no, I won’t be using them again).
The Lesson: Accept it, any company will make mistakes. However, if you don’t allow customers to complain, you can’t find out the areas in which you need to improve. Whilst running a company, it’s virtually impossible to see your business from the perspective of a customer. From a customer’s perspective, you might be doing a terrible job! However, unless you find out what you’re doing wrong, you’ll just lose customers without knowing why.
Do what you say you’re going to do
The Problem (1): I had a “While You Were Out” card left by a courier. No problem I was out, however, the note on the card said “we will not redeliver”. Right, ok, decided to talk to customer service. Customer service explained that it was a misunderstanding and that redelivery would be sorted for the next day.
The next day, I checked online, and the tracking details had no mention that the item was being delivered. Not happy. Called the courier again, “no, it’s not been sent out”. So I said I was told that it would definitely be delivered that day. To their credit, the customer service representative called up the depot, and requested it be put out for delivery for the same day.
The Problem (2): I had an issue with a broadband company charging the wrong amount for an internet package, which was based on a special deal. I also had an issue getting them to change the package in the first place (took 3 attempts!!). Several emails to customer service have yet to resolve the issue with incorrect billing, and that’s after 3 weeks. I will be leaving them when the contract is over.
The Lesson: If you’re going to arrange delivery, then do it. Don’t allow the customer to remind you to do what you said you’d do. Failure to do what you said you’d do means you can’t be trusted. Companies without trust will lose business.
Conclusion
It’s shocking how bad customer service is in this country, and nobody seems to care. I had all these issues in the space of just 2 weeks! So if you’re unhappy with a service, complain. If you receive a complaint, act on it! Complaints can be very useful, so don’t consider them to be purely hassle.
Remember a simple rule, a satisfied customer tells 1 person. A dissatisfied customer tells 10. Good customer service takes work, but in the long run, you’ll be more profitable.
Update Charles from PiggyBankPie made a point that customers who complain and then get their issues resolved, typically tend to be happier customers than those who experienced no problems at all. Something else worth bearing in mind!
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Hi Dan – good advice. It’s easy to see complaints as hassle but you’ve got to always remember that those people that complain are actually doing you a massive favour in pointing out the flaws in your site or customer service.
Research also shows that customers that complain and have their complaints resolved actually end up being more satisfied (and therefore tell more people) than customers who received a good service all the way along. So there’s a good incentive there for companies to resolve problems and therefore benefit through more positive word of mouth.
That’s a very good point Charles, and one I completely forgot about! I’ve added your point to the article.
Dan
Customer usually looks at the Customer Service offering as a right to own and sometimes expects way too much than what the company might even promise. Hence, it is very important for the customer and the companies to make sure the customer understands the Service Policy completely. And ofcourse, as Charles mentioned above, Customer Feedback is definitely a free (rather say paid by customer to us by buying and testing our product) consultation for Business Improvement.
I completely agree Krishna, you need to manage expectations, otherwise the customer will be disappointed before you do anything!
Dan
Hello,
I’m wondering, do you know of any companies that have gone out of business due to bad customer service? Or companies out of business, and bad customer service contributed to the down fall?
Hi Annlynn
I believe that MFI in the UK actually went out of business as a result of bad customer service. They were not fulfilling orders despite taking money. Or they were shipping only part of an order, then not sending the rest of the order, and then the parts were discontinued. There was a big thing on UK TV on Watchdog I seem to remember.
Ultimately, if a business has bad customer service, it’s likely they have other issues too. Those reasons together will lead to failure.
Dan
Hi Dan,
I myself had an awful customer service experience recently. In the end it worked out OK, but companies really do need to get a grip of what is happening. Long time customers should be a large companies most valuable asset as people don’t actually want to keep changing providers and won’t do unless something is seriously wrong with the service.
I actually wrote my latest blog post about my experience.
http://www.darrensingleton.com/my-customer-service-experience
Hi Darren
I completely understand about poor service as you know. Sadly, these big companies are too blind to learn lessons unless they’re lucky enough to have someone in their senior management who actually cares about customers.
Some statistic I read states that its 10 times more difficult to get a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer!
I left a high street bank very recently. Terrible service, and they lost my life savings for 6 weeks with no explanation. And they still can’t work out why I’m leaving them! Sadly that was one of about 5 issues I had with them. I’ve had enough now. That bank is Alliance and Leicester. Strangely, am also with Abbey and they’re excellent. Both are run by Santander. Go figure!
Dan