http://www.drivenmg.com

For me customer service of a company will dictate how a company runs and reacts to problems within their infrastructure. If a customer service (CS) has a horrible rating then I can almost bet they have a high turn over rate. If a CS is ranked high then employees will stay.

I was recently involved with CS problem with my mom. While I won’t get into specifics I will say that some companies do try to “swindle” people when it comes to information or technology they know nothing about. It has happened to me with a wireless company but thanks to some forums and prior research I was able to counter-offer their “bargains”.

Moving forward – in this situation a representative accused my mom of doing things she would never do.

Rule # 1 in Customer Service: Never blame the customer. Even when the customer is not right we should NEVER blame them.

Then this person went on to say that they had no idea what she was talking about.

Rule # 2 in Customer Service: Always have all work orders and information in front of you when talking to a customer.

So, after hearing this (next to her while I was driving) I was immediately appalled. A few hours later we arrived at the desk of this company. Apparently the person she spoke with was not around. Nonetheless when I looked at the work orders it showed what the problem was in which I spoke with the person who was taking care of this problem now.

Rule #3 in Customer Service: Don’t put the blame on anyone. Customer’s don’t care whose fault it was as long as the problem is fixed.

I also went into asking them their procedures on a few things and found out that their was no attempt to make contact with my mom on a few things that would’ve solved the problem within a 24-48 hour time frame. Not the 4 days that it turned out to be.

Rule #4 in Customer Service: If you don’t know the answer then be upfront with the customer but let them know that you will look into it. Giving a time frame will be looked at as professional and allow you both a window of opportunity to fix the problem.

A response of “this didn’t work the few times we tried so we just put something new in” will not cut it and wanting a customer to pay for this can be legally portrayed as charging for service not rendered.

In the end the “charge” didn’t turn out to be as much as the guy on the phone told her which can only mean that this company did in fact screw up in their operations.Hopefully in the next few weeks I can get into specifics on this but since it is fresh in my mind I figured I write it out.