Varying levels of customer service means varying levels of customer loyalty

Posted by Jackie Ewing on August 5, 2009

I had the pleasure of another power failure today – one of the hazards of living in Orlando! Anyway this time all my office equipment powered down and did NOT power back up like it usually does. After much rebooting, I did finally get it all back…except my Broadband router. I tried it in several different power outlets, but to no avail! Being the equipment non-techie that I am, I first called my IT provider to report my router being powerless. He asked the right questions of me so we knew the router was from the cable or phone company. Excellent customer service as always, that’s why I pay him more than the average – he is better (for me) than the average.

On to the next call – the cable company that provides my internet service. Several layers of automated voicemail lay the grounds for a build up of frustration. Hey, I can’t help it if their automated system can’t understand my Irish accent! Anywhoo, finally got to speak to some nice lady (not located in the US, but I cannot guess correctly where she was!) who was absolutely no help to me at all, except to get a case number from and then transfer me to tech support – which is where I thought I had already been.

Very nice chap had to break the bad news to me that No, the router was not part of their equipment so he could not assist me. But on a good note, the cable modem showed a nice healthy signal!

On to the phone company. Yes, I have VOIP service and no signal. This time I got a very helpful chap who asked a few questions and then agreed that the router was indeed dead because it did not power up. (It almost makes me afraid to wonder about the level of moron that these poor customer service folks have to deal with!) So, he took about 4 minutes to process a replacement router, free of charge, with free express shipping and to confirm that it would ship out to me bright and early tomorrow morning. Now THAT was customer service that I can live with. Yes, there are all kinds of VOIP phone services being offered today, but no matter what issue I call my phone company with, they solve it and don’t charge me anything for solving it. That is why I will not change my service to the other, cheaper, solutions. Again, I am willing to pay more to get better service.

Have you checked lately how your customer service people are servicing YOUR customers? Might be time to “secret shop” them and find out for sure!

Till next time,

Jackie