Although many frontliners and telephone customer service agents don’t realize it, they are some of the most powerful agents of PR that a company has and can either reinforce all the work of their marketers or destroy it. Because of what I do, I’m keenly aware of this, and am often either horrified or incredibly pleased with customer service experiences. I’ve had a mix of both reactions recently due to a ‘mattress fiasco’, and wish that the company I was dealing with was able to have consistently good customer service instead of it being either great or terrible.
In a nutshell, the high-end mattress we purchased 9 months ago ended up being defective. We purchased the extended 10-year warranty, so this was no problem. A 2.5” sag in my side of the bed either meant that I had to take extreme dietary measures, or the bed was broken. An enthusiastic, long-term, efficient salesperson had sold the mattress to us. When I inquired about how to handle this, she told me to call their customer service department and asked me to follow up with her. (Good PR )
When I called Customer Service, the girl I spoke to was listless, spoke over me and interrupted me, and eventually transferred me to the Montreal office of Singer sewing machines. (Odd situation & Very bad PR) I called back, and was transferred to the Florida office of a stain guard company. (Frustrating & Very bad PR) I called back for the third time, extraordinarily frustrated and vowing never to purchase large items from this company again. This Customer Service agent was snarky, but took care of my problem, assigned a case number to me, and had an outside agent come to inspect the mattress wear. (Damage containment PR)
All I wanted was a good night’s rest on a comfortable mattress that I had already paid for!
Our mattress was found defective, and the replacement process began! Without getting into huge detail, we met with our helpful salesperson and then went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth with their mis-named customer service department. Apparently, the agent assigned to our case was instructed to always start our conversation by quoting the highest possible replacement cost we could be charged - even when we had negotiated a lower price the day before. In the end we got the upgraded mattress we wanted, we paid less in replacement cost than we expected, and the mattress was delivered without delay.
It is true that most of the time we experience what Scott McKain calls ‘customer processing’ instead of true customer service. Sadly, it appears that as staff members are cut, these frontliners are poorly equipped to deal with discerning and increasingly frustrated consumers. Not a new situation, but something that seems to be exacerbated by our international economic situation.
However, is it enough to just make the whole transaction work out in the end if the consumer is frustrated by the process? Are we simply stuck with mediocre customer service? Can companies afford this bad PR in an economy that necessitates consumers to be more selective with their purchases?
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