oktober 18, 2006 11:28 - Online service: often hard to find!

Every once in a while we get an e-mail through our contact page, that is misdirected. Usually, we get a reasonably long story about a product that was bought on our site , that something is wrong with it, and if we could do something about it.

I always respond like this: "Sorry to hear about your troubles. Unfortunately, customerservicepoint.com hasn't been involved in this transaction. We advice you to contact your vendor and put your question to their customer service, Kind regards, yadayadayda"

When I have the time, and when I have clues where to look for it, I try to find the spot where they can post their question.

Often, this is hard!

Now I understand why they come to us... support is often very hard to find online. Even renowned businesses bury their support info deep in their sites, if you can find it at all! So they take refuge to their search engine of choice, Google or Yahoo, and so they find our site! Sad... especially for that customer who has taken a lot of time writing that message, and I can't help them.

No doubt the companies are saving a bundle, because their support doesn't need to be as big as when they can be found....
I think their customer base isn't as big as it could be.

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oktober 21, 2006 21:33 - What does this survey say?

Recently the site GetHuman.com did a survey to find out which features are important when calling any company for customer service.

GetHuman is working on a worthy cause. In their own words 'The gethuman project is a consumer movement to improve the quality of phone support in the US.' We're srong supporters of that. So we looked at the survey results wit anticipation. Over 4500 people reponded. (Wow! If only we could get such a response)

But the survey results were a bit disappointing. If the purpose of a survey is to learn something, this survey was lacking...

I didn't get the purpose of some of the questions. Here are a few examples:

• If the system is having trouble understanding me, connect me to a human. - I'm so totally not surprised that a whopping 83% figured this a 'must have' and another 16% 'strongly desired' it. If you think a little further, what are the alternatives? The system continues to give you another chance to make yourself heard... with likely the same result? Or should the system just hang up on you? Or let you jump through another system hoop, such as choosing from a menu? Unlikely choices. This question yields results that were to be expected. It has taught me nothing.
• The next two questions were equally insightful: Do not force me to listen to promotions or advertisements. and Do not force me to listen to long prompts or messages. - Now, please tell me, who in this day and age likes to have his or her time wasted? If you have a question or a complaint, you want to be helped, not strung along. Same high percentages here.
• Always let me have the option to easily get to a human (by dialing zero or saying "operator"). - I wonder what would've happened if this question was answered against the expected bias of the sample (the site doing the survey is called GetHuman after all).

Now, I'm not doing this to boo the volunteers at GetHuman. As said, they're working on a worthy cause... but in my opinion, this survey was a waste of time.

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oktober 23, 2006 18:52 - CSTV -- Customer Service Television

You may or may not have noticed it, but as bandwith is growing, so is the supply and demand for online video. Hey it's not DVD quality as of yet, but that is only a matter of time...

It's amazing what people will tape... especially the video's of customers receiving bad customer service is really going to make headaches for businesses. If you think a bad written testimonial is bad, watch what happens when poeple start taping your failures for all to see. Much more potent.

Anyway, I thought it would be a fun idea to start my own little C.S.T.V. channel. Customer Service TV. Every once in a while I'll share new customer service video's for you to see! (Go to URL)

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oktober 30, 2006 16:02 - Do they want to hear me or what?!

A little while back I unsubscribed from a newsletter very much related to our own. I've always enjoyed reading that newsletter, and it has brought me several insights.

So why did I unsubscribe then?

Even though the newsletter was great, the publisher had created a product he wanted to sell very much, so my e-mail box was loaded with many e-mails from him with just information about his new product. By doing this, I felt he totally disregarded the fact that I had given permission to send me his newsletter, not involve me in his sales scheme. So I decided to vote with my feet, and unsubscribed.

That could've been the end of that, but it wasn't.

On unsubscribing, I was asked to provide a reason for my departure. Because no-one can learn without feedback, I decided to tell him more about it:

"Hi,

I liked your newsletter, but I was turned off by your pushy marketing of your latest product.

I personally think there is a fine line between warm calling and cold calling. When looked at permission based marketing (which a newsletter basically is) you could consider the relationship with your visitors (me!) and the producer of the newsletter (you!) warm, and therefor any contact through that list would be considered warm calling.

However, each time when you contact your list, I think one should consider if this is what the subscriber gave permission for. Because, if that's not the case, it would simply be another form of cold calling, don't you agree?

Anyway, that's how I felt it.

So for me it's time to say goodbye. No hard feelings. I wish you all the best with your ventures."

End of story? Not.

The message bounced. It was sent to an e-mail address that wasn't checked, and the autoresponder said I could open a ticket through their help desk system. I still felt it important to share my thoughts (having written them already) so I opened a ticket and pasted my message in it.

I think they weren't too impressed with me, even though I had taken the time to share some feedback with them, because then i got this answer:

"Unsubscribed"

No "Thank you for your feedback" or just plain "Thank you". Just "Unsubscribed". And the ticket was closed.

But the system offered the option of reopening the ticket, so I decided to make sure it would go to the publisher: "Thanks, but I had already unsubscribed. As you can see my remarks was aimed at the editor of the newsletter, I trust you forward it to him?"

The answer this time was even shorter:
"--- do not reply ---".

What the .... ? Do not reply? Why have a system that offers rebuttle, and then tell your customer to not reply? Then it dawned on me. The "do not reply" text was added by the system to make sure that people did not reply to the ticket by e-mail. The girl from the helpdesk had just closed the ticket without further information. I guess she doesn't even know how the e-mail looks like when she does that. Maybe she doesn't even know there is a mail going out.

There are a few important lessons here:

1. Make sure you know how you communicate with your customers. Automatic reply systems are not excluded.


2. Only open up a communication channel with your (potential) customers, if you're willing to listen to them.

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