I went through my personal bill basket today to make payments, coordinate accounts and make sure I was up-to-date with all my current financial obligations. I’m sure everyone reading this has some system or protocol for handling your bills and obligations to companies, services and people who you work with. If not you, perhaps it is a partner or spouse who handles the bills, but there probably aren’t many people out there who don’t have some monthly creditors like a bank, credit card company, utility or cable provider, mobile or cable company or any other service provider.
If you don’t have any of that, please invite me to enjoy a few days relaxing on your private island.
Today I had to contact three companies to handle different situations. As I started my day, I went in with the thought that these three companies – all major companies in the United States – had an opportunity to provide excellent service to me, their customer, and create a memorable experience. Sadly, all three failed miserably.
Instead of using this space to celebrate the awesomeness of these companies or some hard-working, over-achieving employee on their payroll, I find myself using this platform to share how the fear of failure was apparently stronger and more threatening than an opportunity to embrace success and earn a loyal customer.
As you read through these, think about how you would want to handle them if you were the president or owner of your own company*. I don’t want to throw any big brands under the proverbial bus and embarrass their leadership teams, employees or shareholders so I’ll just hypothetically use Lacy’s, Mohl’s and Eatna as examples in the following scenarios. Here are the head-banging issues I was dealing with today.
9 Ways Companies & Brands Insure Having Unhappy Customers
- Make your telephone system so difficult to navigate that, when given the suggestion by the automated attendant to handle your issues at www.HorribleServiceCompany.com, people actually hang up and take their issues to the web…thereby freeing up your toll-free line to answer the next angry customer inquiry.
- Once people get to your website, make sure that there is no simple user interface to answer their question, concern or issue. If possible make the username and password extremely challenging to remember. If possible, have a default of 3 “secret questions” people can answer to have the opportunity to reset their passwords.
- Provide a search function on your site that implies you have thought of everything that could be of concern to the customer but make sure that, like a maze children fill out on a menu at the local Denny’s, there are no ways out. (Actual screen capture below from my search today)
- Making it impossible to close your account just means you are getting to keep an unhappy customer forever. If you’re going to lose my business, wouldn’t you rather lose it today than next week?
- If your customer or client finally does reach an employee, shares their concern and is given a deadline for a response… make sure to completely disregard that deadline, forcing the customer to call back and get an update.
- When possible, make sure the customer must listen to a promotional message before even reaching your initial “menu of options.” Who knows, maybe the offer of 10% off all housewares this weekend only might diminish some of their anger and frustration.
- Remind us to “listen closely” so you can lie to us and tell us “your options have recently changed.” Really? I wrote about this exact issue two years ago and sadly, not much has changed.
- Understand that most people are trying to talk to a human being as quickly as possible so when a caller tries to hit “O” for an operator, add a default message that says “I’m sorry. That is an invalid option. To return to the main menu, press 1.”
- Make sure your customer service line is minimally staffed when you first “open” each day so the early callers are notified that you’re experiencing “high call volumes and the hold time is longer than expected.”
Is there a solution?
I think there is. Start looking at your company’s website, social media channels and toll-free number from the viewpoint of a customer instead of from within the corporate office. Stop worrying about spending enough to find your next new customer and instead realize how little it could cost to keep a current customer. Don’t be so afraid of failing that you completely eliminate any opportunity to succeed. Most companies don’t have any “Customer Feedback” opportunities because they don’t want to make it easy to complain but they are also eliminating the opportunity for people to praise them and share some amazing testimonials.
Sit back and observe brands that seem to “get it.” Look at Disney or Marriott or Southwest Airlines. Observe the experience clients get when they visit their local Starbucks or Apple Store. Call the teams at LL Bean or Zappos or Cheryl’s Cookies and revel in the genuine passion and professionalism their sales people have for satisfying their customer’s needs.
Instead of being someone who hides from people, avoids solutions and doesn’t enjoy what you do, start trying to build relationships, solve problems and have fun.
You’ll certainly earn more fans, loyal customers and referral opportunities that way.
*if you’re an independent contractor, you ARE the president and owner of your company.
Photo Credit: Greg Westfall via Flickr