Customer Service is often considered an oxymoron. Here’s the deal. Things aren’t always going to go exactly as you had in mind. But the difference in making it a minor inconvenience, a major catastrophe, or a great example of how a company (or person) wowed you is what “customer service” really can be. Let’s take a look at a situation and talk about how to get the best outcome possible when things don’t go as planned.
The Situation and Steps I Took
I’ll use the example fresh in my mind of a recent hotel stay. I travel fairly regularly, and there is one hotel that I stay at so often that I know almost all the staff by name and they have assigned me “my room” I’ve been there so much. On my last trip there, I had a problem. I was traveling on a flight that landed a bit after 10pm. By the time I got my luggage, picked up the rental car, bought some drinks/snacks at a grocery store for my stay and got to the hotel, it was about midnight. I went to the check-in desk and met someone I didn’t recognize. She told me my room had been given to someone else because I didn’t check in early enough and because the hotel was oversold. Mind you, I stay at this hotel constantly, had the room reserved with a debit card and had called three times (total) to book/confirm prior to my trip. This should not have happened. There was a convention in town and the best they said they could offer was to place me in a room completely on the other side of the city. Not good enough. So in addition to what Stacy and Leigh Ann have already shared, here’s my take on how you can get the most out of your customer service issues:
- Be honest – If you have reasonable expectations that were not met by a company or one of its representatives, you have every right to share that story with someone you believe can fix it. But don’t make the story out to be some huge life-altering event if it isn’t really such a thing.
- Be realistic – If you had a negative experience with your food at a restaurant, that MIGHT be grounds for you to ask for a different dish or for your meal to be free. It is NOT grounds to sue the restaurant for $1,000,000. Come on, people!
- Be calm – Yelling, cussing, and generally making a fool of yourself won’t get you anywhere. While it may be fun, it isn’t going to do you any good to get riled up and it is not going to help your cause.
- Be nice – This goes along with being calm. Most of the time a customer service representative is not the one directly responsible for any mistake made. He/she is however the person who MIGHT be able to fix it, so you stand a much better chance of that person wanting to help you if you are nice to him/her.
- Set expectations – Although I was relatively nice with the desk agent during my hotel experience, I did set the expectation that my entire stay would be free. Once I realized the desk agent couldn’t fix my problem immediately, I said then and there what I believed to be the appropriate action for them to take to remedy the issue to my satisfaction. Notice I didn’t say, “I hope you’re going to make this right.” I was specific and up front: “This is a big inconvenience and simply unacceptable. Especially as often as I stay with you, I know this is substandard service and you’re better than this. I expect the remainder of my stay with you on this trip will be free.” It sets the bar for them to act and makes clear what you want them to do based on the mishap.
- Escalate only if necessary – Having worked in a call center, I know it is not uncommon to have someone call and ask for a supervisor. Sometimes those are the first words out of their mouth. This is all well and good but at least give the person you are dealing with as a representative of that company to make it right. If you aren’t able to get a reasonable resolution based on company policy or the representative’s lack of empowerment or willingness to help, then ask for a supervisor or manager. If that doesn’t work, maybe you need to go even higher. This might mean regional manager, it might mean owner, it might even mean the Better Business Bureau or Federal Trade Commission. This point is the only one where I have to be a little vague because the hierarchy varies from industry to industry and company to company. The point is this – don’t be afraid to escalate if you can’t get a reasonable resolution…but don’t miss points 1-5 if you have to go that route.
The Outcome
I used these principles in my dealing with this hotel. What happened? First, they found a hotel for me (albeit across town) that night which was much better than their hotel and they paid for my stay there. Second, I ended up with two nights free (saving me almost $300 after taxes/fees) and their absolute cheapest rate on the remaining two nights (saving me another $80). I had to speak to the hotel’s general manager to accomplish this, but it was a reasonable outcome for the problem they caused. Was it everything I wanted? No. Was it more than I HONESTLY expected? Yes. Did I bad-mouth that hotel to the thousands of people who will read this post? No. Instead, I will gladly stay at that hotel again because they’ve proven they want my business.
What tips would you add?
Dani says
My current peeve: my cell phone company, and their overseas Customer Service Department. When I asked the third time for the guy’s name, and his accent was so strong that I finally settled that he must have said “Mike,” I proceeded to tell him what I wanted. I asked him several times to please slow down, that I was having difficulty understanding him (I was being as polite as I could be). He wanted to charge me fees for downgrading one of the lines on our account, AND, he wanted me to “upgrade for a new phone” for that line, extending the contract and all that goes with it! This really is just one extra phone that we had on this line, so it was ridiculous that I would need to upgrade it so I could get a lower plan… I tried three times to explain as patiently as I could, and finally, I decided that I just wasn’t going to be able to get the satisfaction that I wanted over the phone. At this point, I had used up my entire lunch hour, and didn’t have time to ask for a supervisor or to escalate, so I told him that I would try back another time. It breaks my heart, because I’ve been with this company for 11 years, and I USED to call their customer service and before I could even ask, they would say, “We see you’ve been a customer with us for xxx years, and we want to thank you for letting us serve you. I also see that we can save you some money on your current plan by switching to this new plan that offers the same services you are currently getting…” *sigh*
So, yesterday, I went into a brick-and-mortar storefront (remember what those are?), and Pete took care of my needs immediately. He pulled up my history, and based our our family’s usage and the two lines that I wanted to upgrade and one to downgrade, we are now saving over $100/month AND added a smartphone with data plan. Not only that, before we finished up, he asked where I worked to see if my company has a contract (they DO), thereby saving me another 8% on my ENTIRE BILL (not just my line, like other carriers do), which is like free taxes!
This experience has reminded me of a few things: 1) things just ain’t what they used to be, and I hate the word ain’t; 2) if we’re all so bothered about jobs being farmed out overseas, then lets see if we can find a way to support the local economy and go to the trouble of going to a store, the old fashioned way; and 3) going to the store actually saved me massive amounts of time, because Pete had the phones I wanted in stock and I didn’t have to wait for them to be shipped to me. AND I could see what he was seeing, he could put things down on paper in front of me, and had these handy props that compared the plans side-by-side so I could readily compare plans. It’s truly unfortunate that the telephone service just isn’t what it once was, but in this one respect, at least, I can truly support my LOCAL economy, and not just some call center in a distant town, with my business. I know Pete made a bit of a commission off of my transaction, and I actually feel pretty darn good about that, because he can go home and put food on a table in my neighborhood with that!
Stacy says
Great story, Dani! Thanks for sharing. 🙂 I also prefer to go to the store and talk to an ACTUAL person…must be because I’m Old School. 🙂
Gail says
Barry, I’m glad you responded. One of my main interests in hearing this bank story is because of my connection to financial institutions. Although I have spent some 30+ years in many vocations, mostly Accounting, I have also worked for banks – both large and community banks.
I completely understand your frustration and justifiably so. I personally went through the identical experience myself with a refinance. It also took almost five MONTHS to complete just a normal refinance.
A co-worker of mine just purchased a home that was a foreclosure. It took almost the same amount of time.
A unit in my complex (townhome) where the buyer was paying outright, with cash, for a home where the owner was elderly and deceased took almost six months.
Almost EVERY transaction I either hear about from my customer-base; or personally know of via neighbors, friends and co-workers has become a nightmare of an experience. You are NOT alone.
What I have a problem with is the areas (such as this one) that the public is not being made aware of. I’m a big proponent of TRUTH and of educating people so that people have both understanding, and also so that they can be equipped to make informed decisions.
When you combine the above with an IDEAL customer/consumer such as you and Stacy (meaning intelligent, mature, calm, and wanting to understand) I relish those opportunities for teaching moments (which, btw, is NOT allowed).
Since June of 2010 to June of 2013, there have been 1400 new regulations that the present administration have enforced on the lending community that nobody even knows what they are yet (similar to the healthcare policies!).
The regulations, what they mean, and how they affect the ability to lend, and to even SERVICE a consumer has so grossly changed; plus they change DAILY. The red tape of all the varying entities involved and how each one has their own varying regulations is what is taking months to complete.
Back to your lady not returning phone calls which is a COMMON complaint. We have one lady that works for us that is WONDERFUL. Very intelligent, kind, knowledgeable and good at what she does. The complaints were horrific. She is truly unable to return calls and emails. She is either at a closing, at a property, or working directly with a customer every second. This is true for everyone in this industry. We had to resolve it by hiring a person to just field phone calls, and to be able to answer the easier FAQ’s, or answer some basic emails in order for a customer to be acknowledged and to not feel as if they didn’t matter or were lost in a black hole somewhere.
I would have no idea about your lady – whether she knew her job or not, but I CAN tell you that this is very common right now, and that her hands are truly tied as to HOW or even WHETHER to respond to many questions. It’s very sticky right now.
For me, my lady – the one handling my refinance, she flat out lied to me, and more than once. She was not truthful, she was not reliable, and unfortunately, politically, for me because of WHO she was and WHO she was connected to, I had to suck it up. Her boss ended up taking it over and even he was frustrated with her, so I had some sense of cathartic relief in knowing that her employer could also see her shortcomings.
The industry of lending/mortgages, etc is a convoluted industry anyway and it became worse and we aren’t even at the crux of it yet. While this doesn’t excuse your experience, or excuse this bank not being able to have some sort of resolution, I’m hoping that it at least explains part of it.
Gail says
I agree on all counts with what everyone has stated. I start out calm, factual, etc and only really escalate when it is completely unreasonable; where they repeatedly offend, etc.
I’ve recently had one of those ‘had to escalate’ episodes with my cable company. Every month, since January, they have ‘added’ things to my bill. My bill doesn’t change – it’s the same every month, so the bill should not change. Yet it will fluctuate anywhere from 20-$85 more and I have to go back and fight it. PLUS each month they have charged me a late fee and I pay electronically, and a week early! I’m at the point where I just think they have really become a shady company.
I also think that I have to be more aggressive than I would like to be beause I am a single woman (and have been for 23 years) and I get taken advantage of all-the-time. Those are just the facts, whether I like them or not and so unfortunately, it just goes with it. People know that when you have nobody in your corner, they can just do whatever.
I was looking forward to the Bank story, however..is that still coming??
Barry says
Hey Gail, sorry I didn’t share the bank story. I found the hotel story to be a better example. Since you asked, here’s what happened with the bank: our homebuyer went to a large bank to request her mortgage because she got a small discount through her employer. That bank assigned her a mortgage rep who simply needs to be in another role. She didn’t return phone calls. She didn’t give good information and would avoid me (and our buyer!). She didn’t seem to really know what she was doing. I would call her for a simple question or to confirm a date/time for some required closing activity and would never hear back. I’d email, text, call and get nothing. I found that I would have to call from a different phone number to get her to answer (and sometimes that didn’t even work). It was by far the most terrible experience I have ever had with ANYONE representing ANY company. I thought maybe it was me, but found even our buyer thought she was the most terrible representative for a company. Simply put, she proved that I will never do business with this bank and if you’re around me much, you’ll hear me say bad things about our experience with this bank. I went through all the steps outlined in my post with this bank but haven’t yet filed a formal complain because…
The funniest part of the whole thing is that the house we just bought (paid cash for) was a foreclosure owned by this same bank. In all seriousness, when we learned which bank owned it, Stacy and I had to discuss whether or not we would even make an offer. Obviously, we didn’t want to jeopardize our chances at buying it so stay tuned. We’ll be formally complaining at our HORRIBLE experience.
Patricia says
I disagree – you were a known customer, you happened to get the wrong desk clerk who had given away your room. Had I made the reservations and had my room given away, nothing would have been done. On one hand the management didn’t want to lose your repeat business, on the other hand, who would care if I, a mere unknown didn’t get a room when I got in late? I would have been moved to the “other hotel across town” and forgotten about.
And I’ve had something similiar to this happen to me, believe me I got no compensation for my inconvenience and was actually told by a “supervisor” that it was “my fault” for getting to the hotel late. It happened in Jersey City, NY and they weren’t having a convention, they put me in an upgraded room and charged me the full amount of the upgrade, as that was all they had. I would have walked away but it for my brother and his wife and they had just come into NYC to visit so I didn’t want to make a scene and drag them to another hotel at 8 pm.
Barry says
Hey Patricia, I hate this happened to you. In your particular situation, customer service obviously did not exist. While it may have actually been “your fault” based on hotel policy if you hadn’t reserved the room for late check-in using a debit card or something of the sort, that doesn’t excuse their poor service. Having said that, there are some crappy companies out there who really don’t care about customer service. Those are the ones Stacy referenced when she recommended in her post earlier this week to take your dollars and spend them elsewhere. You and I have both seen that if a company consistently fails to take care of its customers, the customers generally stop coming.
Heather McCool says
My husband and I have learned that they actually will help you, we didn’t know this before! Over the last few years we’ve had hospital bills dropped by 75% or more, late charges dropped, odd additional fees of all kinds dropped, and even debts forgiven – just by asking! Just calling up and telling the CSRs the issue in a normal, non-reactionary tone and we’ve seen them do the best they can right from the get go!
It’s really been an amazing journey for us, this asking for help or grace or whatever you’d like to call it. So many reps have a lot of different things they can do for you right at their finger tips, we’d just never thought to ask before. This goes for wondering about charges we didn’t think we’d have to pay to bills we expected but just didn’t have the funds for.
It’s amazing what being nice and just asking will get you. And I love this idea of setting expectations, I’ll remember that one – thanks.
Stacy says
75% Wow! That’s awesome, Heather! 🙂
Christine says
My hubby also travels and their company uses basically one hotel chain, so he is their “Platinum” member or whatever they call it. I made two reservations for Memorial Day and had an issue with one of them because the website kept telling me the room was available until I tried to check out and complete the purchase.
So I called the hotel. It was a Saturday so I did not expect to get a manager. The woman that helped me was very nice and fixed one of the two issues I was having and did tell me when I could call back to have the other issue corrected because it was something a manager had to do.
When I called on Monday I got the “manager is not in” speech. When I called again on Tuesday afternoon I got the “manager is not in” again so I asked when the manager ‘would’ be in. I was told “She works 8 – 3, M – F but I really don’t know if she will be here tomorrow or not because she is not on the schedule”.
That sounded fishy to me because that is not a 40 hour week and most hotel managers I have done business with work well more than 40 hours most weeks, no matter how good their supporting staff is. however, the clerk did offer me the managers voicemail.
Wednesday, no manager, Thursday no manager and another offer of voicemail. I finally said who I was and what my husband’s status is with their company and specifically asked “When does the manager work?”. Again I got the 8-3 speech. I finally said “You know, that makes no sense to me because that does not even make 40 hours a week. I guess I need to call the membership desk and ask them to call the manager and get this straightened out”.
Before I could find the number to do that, the manager called. Turns out, her desk clerk was the issue. She had been out on Wednesday for a funeral, although she worked Thursday and did not return my call until I finally said I was calling the membership desk to let them handle this situation.
Let me tell you it was hard to keep my cool through all this because I felt I was getting the run around and should not have had to call the membership desk to get this taken care of.
What does Barry suggest when you can’t talk to the Manager? Because I really don’t like to make ‘threats’ about going over someone head unless absolutely necessary.
Barry says
Thanks for sharing this story. If you have a situation where “the manager isn’t available” there is always someone who can take action. I would ask questions such as:
“with whom can I speak that CAN do something about this situation?”
“I’m sorry. I thought your employer would empower you to handle issues with customers. What can you do to assist me, or do you only answer the phone calls?” (be careful not to seem too sarcastic on this one)
“I really don’t want to escalate this past the manager, but I’ve tried __ times and can’t seem to reach him/her. I’d like to give him/her one last chance before I continue up the chain. When should I call back so I can reach him/her?”
Keep calm, but be persistent that you are not going away and you WILL get resolution.
Anne @ Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy says
Great tips! It’s hard sometimes to remain calm, especially when the company isn’t dealing with the issue, but it’s essential!
Stacy says
I can remain calm….because I HATE confrontation. lol
Jami Leigh says
So true to not react to harshly to the customer service person. Often, it was not their fault and is out of their hands. So sad to see people getting really angry with people whose fault it isn’t. But that is terrific that with a firm but pleasant demeanor you were able to get compensated for the mistake!
Stacy says
You’re more likely to get treated RIGHT if you behave right. 🙂
Nancy says
I always ask for the name of the person I’m dealing with and speak with them by name. This is especially necessary when dealing with a call center. I’ll say things such as “Well, Susan, I am hoping you can help me get a full refund,” and “Thank you, Susan, you have been very helpful.” If the resolution goes well, I’ll even ask if there is a customer satisfaction card to fill out or survey I can take so that I can praise the service I received from the person.
Stacy says
Yes! Barry loves praising those who do well…because so often, those are the forgotten ones.
Kathy says
When we first got married my husband and I realized that along with the points made above (polite, calm, etc.) it also proved helpful for him to talk to a female customer service person and me to talk to a male. It has nothing to do with being flirty or sexual. We’ve discovered through our 36 years of marriage that men will remember to be chivalrous to (polite, calm) women and women will often be helpful to (calm, polite) men. Years ago we needed the last inspection sticker on the house we were building. My husband kept getting an “I’m-in-charge-watch-my-authority” attitude from the electrical inspector. One day he was gone and the inspector came when I was at the house. He was very helpful, gave us the final sticker and made sure to let me know that he was going to pass us…and that my husband just needed to change one minor thing. 🙂
Stacy says
🙂 Good tip! Thanks for posting that.
Christy says
Barry, when my hobby and I were first married he would call and curse and raise his voice. Fast forward ten years. We both ask if the representative will help us bc we really have a problem or concern. Then we listen, choose to accept or not, then state our expectations. It has worked wonders all these years.
Stacy says
You are right! You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. 🙂
Yolanda says
This is a great article and affirms one of my mantras- “When you are in the hospital, it pays to be nice to the nurses.” Once, years ago, I had a telephone solicitation from a telephone company wanting us to switch to them. The offer being made was excellent. I asked the woman 3 times to clarify and affirm the exact offer. And then I signed up. To my dismay, when the bill came, it said we owed them $85 that according to what I had been told, we should not have been charged. I called customer service. I called multiple times and could get nowhere. My DH said, Well, I guess we ‘ll have to pay it.” I just could not accept that, so I kept calling. I was always nice to the people I talked to, by the way. FINALLY a nice young man told me I could file a report online with the FCC. I did that.it was a VERY short form. Six weeks later, I had a voicemail of apology telling me that I owed them Nothing. Needless to say, I was very pleased. 🙂 sometimes currently, I call customer service and the call center must be overseas. Often, the person is difficult for me to understand because of their accent. I apologetically ask to speak to a native English speaker. You just need to ask for what you need and be extra polite but clear and persistent. As they say, “Don ‘t shoot the messenger.”
Stacy says
Amen to that…most of the time, people complain to the wrong person. Great points, Yolanda!