Bad Customer Service, Change to Win!

Have you ever been so frustrated with bad customer service that you wanted to scream? My family and I moved recently. I also moved my business. So, we had to do all the things required to change vendors for a variety of services. One company after another failed in their customer service. The companies included those related to the internet, mobile phones, utilities, newspaper, computer repair, mortgages and leasing, credit cards, delivery, CRM providers, supermarkets, the post office, and others. I consult with organizations in CX area and know of the challenges. Yet, by dealing with many companies at once as a customer, I was overwhelmingly shocked by how bad customer service it is out there! Too many people do not do their damned jobs.

Bad Customer Service: A Torrential List

Here is an abbreviated list of problems I experienced which I am sure you have encountered at one time or another. I lived them all, multiple times in one week:

• Promised orders not fulfilled, needing to be redone 3 or 4 times
• Put on hold forever, then being cut off.
• Listening to endless and repetitive robotic phone answering options.
• Product not delivered anywhere near the promised date.
• Threatening letters due to the company’s own mistakes.
• Being blamed for the problem.
• No follow-up phone call or email as promised.
• Employee’s lying about product discounts.
• Multiple phony confirmation numbers.
• Slow internal systems for taking orders or tracking problems causing lengthy phone calls.
• Departments that cannot, will not, do not talk to one another–so you must tell your problem repeatedly, frequently five times or more.
• Different employees saying different things about what a product or service can or cannot do.
• Cap this all off with rude employees who don’t listen, communicate well, or know how to empathize
• Oh, and you can’t reach a supervisor or manager or executive for help.

Calling out one of the WORST

Can you identify with these? I normally do not criticize companies in public but in my personal experience one company has bad customer service across the board. It’s the absolute worst I experienced. Its employees demonstrated most of the mistakes above: CenturyLink. They tout themselves as a leading provider of internet service. Their industry is among the lowest rated in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey. They are rated 58 on a scale of 1-100 (higher being better). Consumer Affairs concurs with this and rates them 1.3 on a scale of 1-5. Both numbers are an ‘F’ on a grading scale. Their Glassdoor rating is 2.9 which is low and an indication of employee dissatisfaction.

Other review sources show them as generally poor as well. I wasted 9-10 hours on the phone with these people this week trying to get them to do their basic jobs competently. If they would do that, imagine how much less stressful life could be for themselves and their customers? Finally, after five failed attempts as well as interactions with over a dozen employees, I came across a couple of competent people to help.

Two Service Winners

In my recent interactions with companies, very few employees exhibited accountability or responsibility. However, Andrew K. and the rest of the crew out of the Woodbury, MN office of Two Men and a Truck did a great job, start to finish. They have a 4.9 rating on Google. Superb! And Tony at Geek Squad did fabulous work–excellent communicator! He knows more about customer service than any CEO I ever met!

Is Bad Customer Service Increasing?

It’s as if employees in many of these organizations are in a malaise, only going through the required steps to get their paycheck. Look, the evidence has been mounting for years and I have written about it in many of my posts.

Most companies create toxic or blasé workplaces. Their priority involves profit, not people. It seems that they regard their employees as merely necessary evils. Few companies really invest in people or care about their success. Most managers certainly do not get the support they need to create positive, high-performing teams. Therefore, record numbers of employees are annoyed, disengaged and disgruntled with good reason.

Also, if someone did not grow up with a strong work ethic (many people lack it), a great manager can help instill it. So, companies shoulder the responsibility to create cultures that reinforce it. Besides enhancing the skills of the individual, it creates happier customers, and the company thrives.

As the result of all the above, bad customer grows. Customers feel the impact of that horrible news every day.  Yet, as customers WE HAVE THE POWER. We vote with our choices and money. Eventually these poor companies will join the ranks of the many recent bankruptcies or be bought out by a larger competitor.

Pulling It All Together

Apparently, “a job well done” lacks the impact from days gone by. But it does not have to be. Dr. Luther King Jr. described things so eloquently: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived the great street sweeper who did his job well.”

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