Customer Service or Parrot Service?
Copyright 2008 by Jane Chin, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved.
After hearing Leo Laporte talk about DSL Extreme for god-knows-how-many-years, I decided to check out pricing plans.
I saw that my Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner basic plan for $34.95 a month (month to month, rolled over from Adelphia, which went bust a couple of years ago) gave me about the same connection speeds as a $24.95 a month from DSL Extreme.
The main catches with DSL Extreme were:
(1) $24.95 a month pricing is with a 1 year contract (I’m on a month to month with TWC)
(2) $14.95 one time charge for a DSL modem if you don’t have your own
Given that I’m mostly satisfied with TWC’s cable internet service, I decided to call their customer rep to see if they offer long time customers some kind of a deal. With the economy the way it is, I’d do what I can to keep customers I already have, wouldn’t you?
So I figured, a big company like Time Warner should have some type of a deal, or if they don’t, at least I’ll hear some creative reasons about why a higher price is justified.
After typing in my phone number, I got a customer service rep, who identified herself as “Elizabeth”, who asked me for my phone number anyway. Fine, you can’t be too careful verifying information these days. I gave my name, address, last 4 digits of social security number.
I confirmed that I’m indeed on a month to month contract, so I can quit being their customer anytime. I told Elizabeth that I’m looking to sign on with a different internet provider, considering I’m getting the same service speed at $10 less than I am currently paying with Time Warner Cable Road Runner Basic plan.
Elizabeth’s response?
She told me:
- what plan I am currently on (something I know already),
- what higher pricing plans are available (something I’m not interested in), and
- a lower pricing plan with a slower connection speed (something I don’t want)
I thought I had mis-heard, or mis-understood, or simply missed a whole bunch of words that surely would have answered my very simple question.
So I repeated myself, and asked Elizabeth:
“I can get the same level of service from DSL Extreme that I am getting from Time Warner Cable, but pay $10 less than what I’m paying your company. What do you offer for long time customers that keep me wanting to stick with your company?”
When Elizabeth repeated what she originally told me, I couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. It was the least I could do before launching into mean-Jane-mode and telling her what I REALLY think.
For those of you who interact with customers – whether you’re the owner or you’re an owner who have service reps who talk with your customers – please learn from Elizabeth! This is WHAT NOT TO DO when speaking with a customer.
I could have gotten the same information from an automated helpline that I got from Elizabeth, with much less frustration. At least with a machine, I know its limitations. With a human being, I expect someone who isn’t delivering a script verbatim as a non-response to a simple question.
I’m not saying my question was easy to answer, but it is a very simple question:
“Why should I stay with you? Why should I keep paying you to get the same thing I can get elsewhere for less? Tell me your @#$% value proposition!” (p.s. the expletive is silent)
Customers are looking for customer service with a human being, not a parrot service delivered by a human being.
If you’re a small business owner, you can take my experience and learn that great customer service will include giving your customers:
- What they don’t know
- What they are interested in
- What they want
Image: Bird in a Box picture by Sarah Williams
No. 1 — December 1st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Unfortunately, this happens far too many times Jane. CSRs (or to the fault of companies without proper training) forget the human aspects of interacting with customers. It’s still community management but at the offline/traditional level. It’s something that’s been a lost art for CSRs and any offline interaction as a whole.
I experienced the same with a Sears loading dock employee the other day. I got a TV and he wasn’t being helpful as far as getting it into my car and when I asked if there was a rope to tie down my trunk so it wouldn’t fly everywhere, he replies with “You can buy a cord inside.” Thanks, buddy. Let me spend more money to hold down a trunk when I’m sure you have something in the back to quickly tie it with.
Get a get grip and learn how to treat people the right way and the way that’ll get them coming back for more.
No. 2 — December 1st, 2008 at 7:13 pm
@ Sonny Gill:
You’re onto something! This really is about “community building”, because we are looking to create a community of customers (or very good prospects).
What’s unfortunate is that too many employees have a mind set of “I’m not in sales, so I’m not accountable for the customer.” That’s what your Sears shopping experience with the loading dock employee demonstrated. EVERYONE at an organization is accountable for a customer’s experience.
No. 3 — December 17th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Here’s an update:
JeffTWC gave me an Executive Care line to call a couple of weeks ago, immediately after he read my tweet expressing my dissatisfaction as described in this post.
Today I got a bill from TimeWarner Cable with a $2+ bump/month on my internet bill. It sounds like a small amount of money, but there was no itemized bill, so I have no idea where this extra $2+ charge came from. Certainly not from outstanding connection time (in fact there were some outage hours we experienced a couple of times this month where I had to call tech support for modem reset).
I called the executive care line and admit, I was a bit confused with what I needed to do. I ended up describing the situation to the person I spoke with. Of course, halfway in our conversation the baby woke up from his nap and started screaming for me. Not my ideal interaction, as the screaming was disruptive to a business conversation, even if I am the customer!
The person I spoke with took down my name and address. I also gave her the link to this blog since the post at this time is on the front page.
I’ll report back what happens.
No. 4 — December 26th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I received a call from Floyd at TimeWarner Cable, who gave me a promotional price for 12 months, which matched what I’d get from another ISP. Based on our conversation, I agreed to stay with TimeWarner Cable.
Consider me a satisfied customer of:
-TimeWarner Cable
-Twitter (this would not have happened if I didn’t tweet about it and @jeffTWC didn’t respond)
-@jeffTWC
No. 5 — December 27th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I think you hit the nail on the head. A smaller business can offer excellent customer service, making people feel heard and respected. That is one of the major advantages of being a micro-business, and we should use it to the best of our ability. It is probably the single most important thing that will make our business grow.
No. 6 — December 29th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I agree with you: we choose to be microbusiness entrepreneurs for specific reasons, including the ability to design our business approach around our personal lives and values – not the other way around. However, there are real drawbacks to microbusinesses from a bargaining standpoint. Call it “micro-inequities” if you will. I’ve just written about this today: http://budurl.com/microinequities
No. 7 — November 14th, 2009 at 12:18 am
This really happens a lot, though I understand why do they have to do that, I just try to cut short the conversation without being rude…anyway, very engaging post…thanks.