customer support
Princess Sparkle Pony falls through the customer service looking glass
My friend John alerted me to an excellent customer service story he’d seen on Princess Sparkle Pony.
Princess Sparkle Pony (a.k.a., PSP) is a double oddity: no cell phone, no credit card. But PSP, like the rest of us cowpokes, is not totally immune to consuming cravings. PSP’s was for an iPhone. Here’s PSP’s story:
First I [...]
Why is it that excellent customer service so delights us?
Why is it that excellent customer service so delights us? Is it that we’re so used to the opposite? Is it because, by the time we get to a competent, pleasant person on the other end of the line, we’ve been through such menu hell, or a long wait with insipid or jangling music playing [...]
Charity begins at home (another way of thinking about customer support)
Do you have customers that are retailers, or that produce/market consumer goods? That are in the service industry (restaurants, delivery services, etc.)?
Does everyone in your company know the names of all these customers?
They should.
And especially at this time of year, when - even in the Scroogian constrained circumstances most of us are finding ourselves in [...]
One Bad Apple Experience Begets Another
A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my difficulties ordering iTunes online gift cards, which we’re giving out as thank-yous to the folks who participated in a Win-Loss Survey for a client of mine. (We thought that the “Losses” might be more willing to spend time with us if we offered them a little [...]
When you talk to customers, good things happen
I’ve talked about the appalling practice of ignoring customers - for example, T-Mobile, which sets a new low this regard by responding to support requests with “We’ve got too many emails to answer, so we’re throwing yours out. Try again.”
And I’ve talked about the wonderful service provided by one local Houston grocery store’s delivery service. [...]
One Bad Apple experience…
I’ve been doing a win-loss survey for a client of mine, and we’re offering the lost accounts an incentive to participate - a $25 iTunes card. Because it’s more convenient all-round, I agreed to purchase and expense the cards, and then decided it was more convenient all-round if I purchased virtual gift cards online.
So far, [...]
Getting to know you…
Getting to know your customers is a good thing; we all understand this. But if you get to know your customers by gathering data about them, a funny things happen: your customers expect you to know about them. And to behave accordingly.
I have a a Canon printer. (It’s a PIXMA MX700. I like it a [...]
TXU Energy: a dank, unpleasant pit of bad service
We’ve written about how customer service is part of your marketing, and how bad service can undo all the great marketing in the world. Yesterday I came across a prime example of this from TXU Energy, an electricity reseller here in Texas (and a pretty large one).
TXU does lots and lots of advertising. Before I [...]
Hold the ads, please
David Reich at My 2 Cents wrote about ads that play while you’re on hold:
Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal tells the story. Callers to customer service, while waiting for the next available representative, are seen as a huge captive audience. More than 320 million calls a month and growing, says one of the companies [...]
Just another “somebody done somebody wrong” post
Let me put on my cowboy hat and strum a steel guitar; it’s time for a tale of woe. (With a little marketing lesson, too!)
We’ve been together for years - back to the 90s. We’ve been through a lot; emergency (late) gift purchases, shopping for myself, all of it. Our relationship expanded into new and [...]
