The always-interesting--really!--Joel Spolsky lists his "Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service".

When customers have a problem and you fix it, they’re actually going to be even more satisfied than if they never had a problem in the first place.

It has to do with expectations. Most people’s experience with tech support and customer service comes from airlines, telephone companies, cable companies, and ISPs, all of whom provide generally awful customer service. It’s so bad you don’t even bother calling any more, do you? So when someone calls Fog Creek, and immediately gets through to a human, with no voice mail or phone menus, and that person turns out to be nice and friendly and actually solves their problem, they’re apt to think even more highly of us than someone who never had the opportunity to interact with us and just assumes that we’re average.

Comments

[JorgXMcKie]

Any successful small businessman knows this. I don't see why it's so hard for large organizations to learn it. I'm busy teaching org theory this semester, and I think we'll use this as a launching board for some discussion on how and why and what organizations learn.

I do think that top level managers (especially CEOs) should be given a customer complaint/problem once a week and be made to phone their own customer service anonymously and get it resolved. I'll bet customer service would improve posthaste.

[JorgXMcKie]

You know, this got me to thinking, and I remember the last truly Godawful experience I had with customer service. I moved to my current job 6.5 years ago. We rented an apartment while house hunting. I had hardly been here two weeks when I got a sales call from a regional newspaper. I read a couple of papers a day, minimum, and the deal was good, and I got another discount for paying immediately by credit card. I was told the first delivery would take place in 2-3 days.

Two weeks later, I was still trying to find out where the hell my newspaper was. No deliveries. None. Zilch. Nada. All I got from customer service was that "it should be there tomorrow." After at least a dozen times through this customer 'service' hell, I said I wanted my money back. I wanted them to remove the credit charge. They didn't want to do that. They wanted to send me a check. I insisted on the credit removal since that was how I paid. The refused. They sent me a check. I sent it back with 'unaccepted' written across it in red ink and called and asked for the credit removal. They sent a new check. I sent it back.

By this time, a month and some had passed. After the third check was returned, I got the phone number of the publisher. I called him. He said that it turned out I was out of their delivery area. I said I no longer cared, I just wanted the credit removal. He said that was against company policy. I asked him if he treated all potential customers as if they were both stupid and useless, and how long he expected his paper to continue to exist with such an attitude. After a long pause, he said the credit removal would go through that day. Since I still periodically get phone calls asking if I wish to subscribe to this paper, so I figure they learned nothing.

[david foster]

JorgX...I think one common problem is that CS operations are simultaneously *overmanaged* and *undermanaged*. Though this may sound like a contradiction, it is sadly being accomplished every day in companies around the world. See my post here:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_photoncourier_archive.html#110894330912291073#110894330912291073

[kyle8]

Well maybe, but I am sort of different. If a piece of hardware never gives me any problems, I will be much more apt to seek out others by the same company.