FROM WOW TO #@&*%$xXx!!!
How important is customer care?
"Seventy percent of lost customers hit the road not because of price o r quality issues but because they didn't like the human side of doing business with the prior provider of the product or service."
This paragraph appeared in "The Pursuit of WOW!" by management guru Tom Peters, quoting a research conducted among 14 major manufacturing and service companies in the U.S. It is complemented by a separate study in the Philippines.
The study found that among customers who call or visit to inquire or complain about a product or service, the degree of customer satisfaction goes straight up when their inquiry was handled right by the company. In other words, customers rate the company with a higher score after they complained because they were pleased with the way their inquiry was given attention. Many affirmed that not only would they continue to patronize the company's products, but they would also recommend these to family and friends. Customer satisfaction becomes customer delight.
Following this line of reasoning, companies should view customer inquiries as a golden opportunity. Then they should encourage their customers to call, right? And they should train their personnel, especially those in the frontline how to handle customer inquiries, right?
This is where many commercial establishments here blow that opportunity. Instead of concentrating on consumer-satisfaction, many tend to drive away customers. They make it inconvenient for you to do business with them and frustrating to get results from them.
Companies that offer services, ironically, often bungle up customer handling.
"Service provider" has become an oxymoron.
Like I had to wait for two years to get a phone connection. But if I miss the monthly deadline for payments the company would promptly send a notice of disconnection. Likewise with my health plan, I get "you may have forgotten" notices when I miss a month in payments but when I was hospitalized it took them several months to send a letter stating they won't pay my hospitalization allowance.
The Internet service provider bugs me with e-mail messages to pay when in fact we have been calling their office to pick up the check. It pisses me off that they are efficient in sending electronic notices but I don't get any response whenever I send e-mail to clarify something.
I also have been having recurring problems about getting disconnected every 10 seconds and every two minutes, and being online but not able to send or receive messages or open a website while the meter is running. For over a year I have been reporting these same problems and keep getting different answers: because my phone is a five-digit line, because I dialed this number instead of that number, not enough computer memory, something's wrong with the modem, the other service provider is down, etc. What tests my patience is this technobabble runaround. If only they would just reassure me that they can fix this problem and do it, or level with me if they can't.
Imagine the frustration of Lysle who kept getting messages in her pager weeks after she paid the paging company. Over the phone she informed them of the date and number of the check payment. Days later she was paged three times to pay. Then it dawned on her that they were sending a common message to all units in complete disregard to subscribers who have already paid.
Jerry, another busy executive, complained of his experience with telemarketers pitching membership cards for hotel and resorts. He realized that his name and number was on everybody's list after he got five calls from different people working for the same hotel. "This is carpetbombing," he complained to the fifth girl, "You can't win customers with persistent calls to wear out our resistance."
I had a different experience with a telemarketer who wouldn't let me interrupt until she finished her spiel. When I got to ask my questions she kept repeating her scripted lines although the responses were so off-tangent, I wondered if she was even listening. I got this same feeling when I phoned somebody in a cellphone company who, contrary to the company's name, is stupid. "You mean, you will continue to bill us even though we couldn't make any calls because our unit is now incompatible with your systems upgrade?" I asked. "Yes, ma'am," was her saccharine reply. D'uh …
Most people in the frontline of customer service may have been hired and trained to look good and sound good, but they are not responsive, attentive or considerate to customers. Communication between a company and the consumer is still one-way and unilateral. So don't lay on fickle-mindedness the lack of consumer loyalty. Read the first paragraph again.
February 28, 1999