Will You Take My Money?

I told you last week that this week's post was going to relay a good customer service story, to offset the tale about Shmukdonald's. But something happened this afternoon that really hits a nerve with me.

The contact management system that I use underwent a major overhaul recently, and I despise the new system. (My aversion to change may be coming into play there. I don't know.) I checked out several systems, and found the one I thought would work best for me. I just had one small question. That's where things went awry.

I had emailed my question on three successive days to the salesperson who had replied to my initial inquiry, with nary a word back. Clearly, time for a phone call. I should have taken it as a warning that I had to search the company's site for 10 minutes before I found a phone number (a toll number) in very small print on an obscure 'other details' page.

Call one was answered by an auto-responder. I'm no Luddite, but I am a big enough believer in customer service that auto-responders always set my teeth on edge. I hit 'eight, for sales' as directed. Eleven rings later a happy-salesy voice thanked me for my call, assured me that everyone in sales was busy as a one- legged man in a butt- kicking contest, but if I would leave a message my call would be answered in the order it was received. I left a message that hit about a four on the one-to-ten grumpiness scale and also referred to the three unanswered voice mails.

Forty minutes later, call two. Hitting 'eight' again got the same voice mail message. I left no message of my own, called right back with call number three. This time I followed the responder’s admonition to hit 'four' for service. Ten rings got me 'Here in service we're even busier than those fools over in sales.' I was once again assured of the importance of my call, and promised a returned call in the order my call was received. 

I didn't leave a message and immediately placed call four. At the sound of the auto-responder I hit 'zero', and waited happily for the sound of a human voice.

"You have reached the general mailbox. We apologize, but this mailbox is full. Please push....."

You gotta be kidding me. Calls four through eight were just me hitting random numbers- there had to be a human being somewhere. At this point I wouldn't do business with this company if they were selling quarters for a dime, but I was determined to hear a human voice before I went on to the next company. 

Hitting the pound sign on call nine was promising- it sent me to the company directory. Unfortunately, no entry that I tried led to a valid extension. Not Smith, Jones, Miller, Baker, Tom, Steve, Angelique (my email tormentor from last week), Emily, Katie, Thomas, Thompson, Stewart or Wilson. 

I gave up.

That ttok place over five hours ago. My voicemail, like last week's emails, remains unanswered. All I wanted was an answer to an easy question, and to give them my money. 

I promise you- no company has ever gone broke from the cost of having a live, friendly person answer the phone in less than four rings. 

There are customers out there trying to give you their money. Do you want it?

Two Tales of Customer Service, Part 1

So, I'm on the road a few days ago, with no time to stop for lunch. I pull into a large national burger chain- to protect their anonymity I'll call them Shmuckdonald's- and order a couple of burgers and a tea, for a total of $4.09.

About a week ago a very small hole formed in the magnetic strip on the back of my debit card, making it impossible for some credit card terminals to process my card. We are switching banks next week, so we decided not to order a new card, and the merchants whose terminals can't read the card just punch it in manually.

Not Shmuckdonald's.

I watched through the window as several different employees took turns furiously swiping my card. After everyone in the group had taken a whack at it a large man in a button down shirt appeared. He swiped the card a few times, and handed it back to the girl working the window.

"I'm sorry, but your card won't work," She explained.

"It works fine, you just have to enter it manually," I replied.

She closed the window, said something to Button down shirt, who simply shook his head. Back to me.

"Our system isn't set up to do that. Sorry. Do you have another way to pay?"

"No, I don't. I'm coming back through in two hours. I can get some cash from my wife and Pay you then."

She shuts the door, talks to button down (who at this point really should have gotten involved in the conversation. Who asks to run a tab at a burger chain? The fact that I was doing just that should have alerted button down that he was dealing with an oddball, and maybe it was time for him to get involved.

Nope. Button down shook his head a second time, and window girl comes back to say,

"Sorry. Since your card won't work you'll have to pay some other way."

"How can you guys not......never mind," not being the kind of guy that wails on the hired help, I drive off, with a bad taste in my mouth.

CUT TO- Me, at the next burger chain down the road, happily munching on a double cheeseburger.

First off, if its true that Shmuckdonald's POS system doesn't allow manual entry of debit cards, that is an epic fail on their part. How many times have you been in line at  store and watched the clerk punch in the card details of a customer in front of you. And Shmuckdonald's has no method for people in that situation to be able to use their card?

But the real failure in my mind was committed by button down. Shmuckdonald's spends tens of millions of dollars every year to get me into their business. His owner spent around a million on the franchise. And he can't get creative enough to find a way to provide me a four dollar meal.

Say I don't come back to pay for it. He has a drawer or a pocket short four dollars. Instead, because I'm a customer that holds a grudge, I will avoid that particular Shmuckdonald's like the plague. And I have already told this story four times today- once to a leads group with 18 people in it. That telling evolved into a 15 minute topper exercise, with everyone relating their worst experience with Shmuckdonald's customer service.

Hire creative, empathetic people, and give them the authority to solve your customer's problems. Unless your ad budget is as large as Shmuckdonald's.

That's the bad. Part Two, the good, will come later in the week.