A good customer service is the kind of service that triggers automatic emotional connection between the customer and the service provider in an organization.


Michael Idakwo
Customer service expert
Reknowned motivational speaker
Productivity coach

I would agree that good customer service can trigger an automatic *positive* emotional connection, ergo bad service can trigger an automatic negative connection.

I often cannot discern the depth and breadth of jaded-ness that the length of my tenure in CS has provided to me. :-) However, I recently had an experience that stopped me in my tracks, and I thought I would share it with y'all, especially those with help desks who are frantic around the measurement of service.

I contacted the "GoToMeeting" folks (as I recall, under Cisco ownership). I had to get a warm body on the phone. While I was waiting, working away and half-heartedly listening to the stuff that is foisted off on us call-waiters as "music," their automated system said the following to me (paraphrased, cuz this old geezer can't recall verbatim any more):

All of our representatives are currently resolving other issues at this time. We encourage our representatives to take as much time as they need to resolve the issues that are presented to them. We do this because want to make sure that you get all the information and service that you need. Thank you for your patience, and one of our representatives will be with you as soon as possible.

Imagine that! Encouraging employees to take their time and git 'r done right THE FIRST TIME! Imagine also: Telling your customers up front that they may have to wait awhile because to do the job right, they need time! I must say, I rather fell in love.

The GoTo folks get my vote for best customer service of the year.

ksb

Karen, I agree, that is a great recording. It does send the message that quality is being delivered (for the customer), but it would also be empowering or supportive to the reps. (I wonder what their turnover is like...) Obviously not something to take advantage of and obviously not something that would cut it for everybody (rightly or wrongly), but it strikes me as a nice plug for humanity in the middle of what seems like the superhuman. We've got to keep the Person in customer service.

Happy Xmas (a little late from me), New Year and holiday time to everybody. And if you haven't had one, I hope you get one soon!

:)

I agree about these comments and especially what KarenSB mentioned. It is great to here about a company which has started to put quality before quantity. However this principle can not always be applied to all types of businesses. For example retail customer services can be very figure and target driven due to the amount of callers. There are lots of ways you could overcome the issue in retails contact centres and deliver quality to a customer but I must admit the approach taken by GoToMeeting is rather quite good.