Here are a couple more examples from my Bad Customer Service files. Please read and learn from their mistakes …
The Disconnected Call Center
Two years ago I needed to make some emergency repairs to my car. This was before I started on Dave Ramsey’s “Baby Steps” so I hadn’t yet gotten smart enough to have an emergency fund in place to take care of such things. I took out a loan from my 401(k) account to cover the cost.
Now that I’m a little smarter financially, I decided to pay off that loan early so the money will be in the fund (hopefully) earning more than the 5% interest I pay myself on the borrowed money. I called the group who manages the funds, got the payoff amount and made arrangements to pay off the balance. I went to my bank and got a cashier’s check and sent it off.
Uh-Oh
Two days later I was balancing my checking account and noted that the bank teller had transposed two numbers on the cashier’s check. The check was off by a little over $40. I could have gotten mad at the teller, but I realized I should have checked the amount of the check before I sent it.
The next day, I called the 401(k) people again to explain my problem. The lady I spoke with was very nice and assured me my mistake would be no problem. She told me to send in another check for the rest of the balance of the loan and all would be well. Based on that advice I went to my bank, got another cashier’s check and mailed it off (double-checking the amount, of course). That was that, or so I thought.
The following week I received back the first check I sent. A form letter was attached with a check in the box next to the entry “Check was not made out in the exact amount of loan balance.” Needless to say, I was a little upset. Why didn’t the nice lady I spoke with during my second call mention this to me. Two days later, I received the second check I sent.
This is another example of customer service failing either because they are told to say whatever it takes to make the customer get off the phone or they don’t know what’s really going on. Either way this is wrong. If your organization runs this way, stop it! Your customers deserve better than this.
The Mismanaged Web Form
Yesterday, I was looking into purchasing a service. I went to the web site of the company I thought would be able to assist me best. I checked out the site and didn’t find information for exactly what I wanted, so I filled out the contact form. I asked my question in the comments and specifically checked “Email Me” and did not check the “Telephone Me” box.
“Ring, telephone, ring! Telephone, ring!”
Yes, you guessed it – someone called. Within fifteen minutes of submitting that form I got a phone call from a sales person. After talking about the service I wanted (yes, they had something which would be exactly what I wanted) I asked the person, “On the message you received from my form submission, do you get the information about how I wished to be contacted?” “Yes, it says here you wanted to be contact by email.” “Then, why did you call me?” “That’s policy. We always call to make sure we answer the customer’s questions thoroughly.”
I went on to explain to the very nice lady that I wasn’t mad at her, but it seemed rather a waste to ask a customer how they prefer to be contacted and not contact them that way. If it’s policy to always call, why appear to give someone the option to be contacted by email? I suggested she refer that policy to her management to either change the form or follow the customers’ requests. I wasn’t ugly with her – after all she wasn’t really at fault.
Telephone, ring! Telephone Ring! Telephone Ring!
The story didn’t end there, though. About ten minutes after I hung up with the first lady, someone from the local office of this company called. She asked me the same questions and and gave me the same information as the first lady. Curious, I asked: “On the message you received from my form submission, did you get the information about how I wished to be contacted?” “No,” she replied, “We don’t get that information.”
The lesson here is: If you give customers an option about how they want to be contacted, and they give you a preference – give them what they ask for. If you’re going to call anyway, don’t ask for a preference.
How about you? Do you have any suggestions to help resolve these two customer service problems? Please feel free to add them in the comments.
PS: If you by chance get the song reference I make in some of the titles, I’d love to hear from you. Drop a note in the comments or use the contact us form (link at the top of the page).
Top Photo: 
photo credit: Bob B. Brown
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