Jodie Monger

I recently ordered two wall hangings for my child’s room and they showed up damaged.  I was undecided about the picture situation, but since I bought them so cheaply on clearance ($5!) I decided against the hassle to return them.  The store’s customer service rep told me I would have to the store in person, bring a driver’s license and I couldn’t get my money back, only store credit.  So I tossed my damaged pictures in the trash because ultimately I felt my time was more valuable in the end.  This experience will not affect future purchases from this store.  They had a return policy which they were enforcing which I was aware of (albeit in the fine print on their web site).  I chose to forgo the policy.  It had little to do with how I was treated on the phone by their customer service agent, she was perfectly nice.  My decision had more to do with how I valued the purchase and what I was willing to go through to make it right.  Does your company weigh the risk versus reward for...

We wax on and on about targeted marketing and proper messaging, which is why it’s so infuriating when the marketing and message are just right (and the offer is great!) but the email or mailer is littered with misspellings and bad grammar.  I received an email newsletter recently and there was a typo in the first sentence.  I didn’t even bother reading the rest of it because frankly I didn’t care after the typo. We tell our customers that they will never connect with their own customers or ever acquire new ones if you can’t even get the language right.  Every touch point is the chance for good customer service.  Never underestimate the power of spelling someone’s name correctly on a follow-up letter and communicating effectively (and spelling words correctly) in email offers. 

“You butchered my name on my warranty form, you called my ex-husband for the survey (you really need to update your records) and when I called to correct the information...

Aren’t we all focused on enhancing our web sites to handle common customer service issues and questions to help reduce call center costs (headcount, resources, etc.)?  What I find to be a bit of sad irony is that while time and energy is being spent to beef up web site content, few people within the company have the slightest clue as to what is on their web site.  I know I’ve been guilty of this myself. 

I recently called a company about a service issue and the agent promptly let me know that my issue could be solved by going to the web site.  I say, “thank you for letting me know that.  I did try to serve myself and couldn’t figure it out.  What exactly do I need to click on to get the information?”….radio silence.  The agent had no idea.  So, we both think this should be possible but neither of us knows how to do it.  The shame is that I am not the only one having this problem.

“When my appliance...

We’re told all the time to ‘think outside the box’.  In school it meant looking at a passage in a book to see the symbolism; that the words were more than mere words.  In the call center it means something as simple as creatively solving a customer’s problems.  I recently tried to book a summer vacation house and after tireless research and dead-ends I called the Board of Tourism.  There I spoke with a lovely woman that gave me countless phone numbers to try, web sites to further my research and even offered to call some of her contacts in the area to see if they could assist me.  I was blown away at her resourcefulness and willingness to help.  She called me back the very next day with vacation packages and pricing as well as the personal phone numbers of her contacts.  Too often agents lose that can-do, problem solving spirit.  Here are some recent customer comments from External Quality Monitoring programs:

“I called about a...