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October 01, 2007
Remarkable service in the wireless/telecom industry, Part 2
A few months ago, I asked if remarkable customer service in the telecom/wireless industry existed, and to please share your stories. And did you!
Here’s a synopsis of the comments:
- James wanted to know if by remarkable, I meant remarkably bad. Not exactly, but I get his point.
- Cox, Comcast, Cablevision, Cable America, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Voce (in Sweden) were reported to have pretty good service.
- Cynthia almost canceled her Comcast internet service until she talked to customer service rep Jessie, who was a “godsend.” Jessie even gave Cynthia his direct number and extension.
- HT was so impressed by a Comcast technician who came to his house that he called a Comcast supervisor to give kudos.
- John Dale said he can get a T-Mobile rep on the phone in less than 3 minutes.
- Steven said that AT&T Wireless is the nicest-yet-least-helpful company in the world.
- Becky Carroll told the story of a rural cable company whose employees were such good friends of the community that 80% of them pay their bills in person so they can say hello.
- Will explained how one dedicated Verizon Wireless store employee solved his problem and stayed after closing to do it.
Despite the individual efforts against what can only be described as corporate entropy, many comments painted a bleak picture for customer service in the wireless/telecom industry. It's pretty clear that companies are still not investing in their call centers or treating them as a key asset to maintaining customer relationships.
One company that's setting new standards for customer service call centers is Netflix. For instance, Netflix has:
- Eliminated e-mail-based customer service inquiries.
- All questions, complaints and suggestions go to its Hillsboro, Oregon call center, not an offshore vendor.
- Customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- The wait time to talk to a customer service rep posted on the Help page of the website. Current wait time as I write this: less than 1 minute.
- A policy that allows call center reps to talk to customers as long as is needed -- no incentives to get off the phone quickly.
- Two blogs, one written by the team who adds the social elements to the site, and one written by CEO Reed Hastings
It understands the value of a customer support center as a competitive advantage. Now if only more telecom and wireless companies did.
[Thanks to Becky Carroll for reminding me to do a follow-up post.]
Other blogs that reference Remarkable service in the wireless/telecom industry, Part 2:
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I'm not sure I'd call eliminating email based inquiries a step forward. Often there are issues that aren't pressing enough to warrant picking up the phone, but a customer would like to send an email about - it's okay if resolution takes a few days. I'm always annoyed by web-based businesses that don't have good email customer service. (I'm also a Netflix customer and have never run into this issue with them, because I haven't needed to contact service - the best situation of all!)
You are welcome, Jackie!
Customer service needs a serious overhaul in many industries; telecom touches so many people that it is an obvious one. Part of the issue I see is that customer service is viewed as a cost rather than as a way to build customer relationships. This is the reason so many companies try to get their reps off the phone as quickly as possible!
Kudos to Netflix for letting reps resolve customer problems, however long that takes. I am also glad to see them with a call center; it wasn't that long ago you could only contact Netflix via e-channels (web response or email).
Hi Jackie, in my country, New Zealand, we have only three telco carriers and none deliver remarkable service. Not sure how much of this is due to the oligopoly factor but it does mean that their long standing high margin business gives them little tension for change. For them customer service seems really only important to reduce the cost of noise. Those pesky complaints are expensive - its cheaper to frustrate would-be complainants away with convoluted IVR systems. Investment in better customer experience won't come from inherent beliefs in the value of relationships but from a commercial or competitive imperative. And even then it is likely to be a slow change because its not a natural element of their culture.
I have just come from a UK telco, working on customer service improvements. My experience tells me that the core of the problem is a lack of clarity about what's really important to the company: if a superior customer experience is the number one priority then the Netflix approach is spot on - stay with the customer until they're happy. If cost management is the priority then contact handling time will drive advisor behaviour and more 'demanding' customers may suffer.
That said I did have a good experience with BT today (which I have just written a post on) - in this case the advisor took the time to make sure my fairly minor problem was sorted out, leaving me with the feeling that he did actually care.
The e-mail issue is an interesting one and I wouldn't advocate getting rid of it. For some issues it's easier for both customer and advisor to lay out the issue and the response but you require different skills in your staff to make sure the customer experience is good.
This is the reason so many companies try to get their reps off the phone as quickly as possible!
