Communications Breakdown
Ever get calls from customer service reps where their employer has clearly failed to advise them of where you stand with them and their service? I do. Plenty of them and I can now see why the level of service that I get is virtually non-existent. Ever have a company get in touch with you via a program or something that they are running and have communicated it in a non-sequential way - just making it more confusing? I do. When will it end!
Had a call last week from a from a Telecom Company that I cancelled on about a month ago, wanting to find out how I am enjoying their High Speed DSL service. The person on the phone was surprised to learn that I was not enjoying the service and was no longer a customer because they couldn't service me properly by providing a proper high speed connection because my house was to far from "the central hub" (even though I live in the centre of the city), which led to me leaving them. What an embarrassment - asking me how I like the service that he can't provide to me? What is wrong with these people?
A couple of days later, I get a call form my TV Cable Provider (who is now providing me with High Speed Internet service) to ask if I would like their telephone service? I answer - "yes, I would like it, but when I spoke to a representative from your company a few weeks ago, they said that the best long distance package that you could offer is about 20% more expensive than what I am paying now". "Oh", the guy on the phone replies. After asking him if he had any news for me regarding a better offer, I was then led to understand that they didn't have a better offer for me, they just wanted to waste my time once again with their standard boring offer. Why would you contact a customer when you really don't have anything all that compelling to say to them?
The latest attempt from a company wanting to waste my time and have me question the relationship that I have with them is from a loyalty points provider that I have been with for several years. This piece of communication came via email where I received an email yesterday talking about how they recently sent me an email containing information like my reward points balance and what I could redeem the rewards for (what kind of prizes, etc...). Interesting, yet I never got that first email. In fact, I only got that first email about 20 minutes ago which is 20 days after it was sent to me. The crazy thing is that it's dated June 3rd. Can you believe this? Companies spend thousands of dollars a year on email communications software and this is what I get? An email on June 23rd that is dated June 3rd and arrived in my inbox after the email dated June 22nd which was promoting their special offers as a follow up to the email containing my account balance which I never received. Been getting loads of email everyday and all of it in a timely fashion, yet for some reason, this one was not. It's nice to use online communications instead of killing all of those trees and going the snail-mail route, yet how great do you look in the eys of your customers when they don't get the emails in sequence or on time? Can't be a good thing.
That being said..... Here are some quick tips for companies who want to talk to their customers:
Had a call last week from a from a Telecom Company that I cancelled on about a month ago, wanting to find out how I am enjoying their High Speed DSL service. The person on the phone was surprised to learn that I was not enjoying the service and was no longer a customer because they couldn't service me properly by providing a proper high speed connection because my house was to far from "the central hub" (even though I live in the centre of the city), which led to me leaving them. What an embarrassment - asking me how I like the service that he can't provide to me? What is wrong with these people?
A couple of days later, I get a call form my TV Cable Provider (who is now providing me with High Speed Internet service) to ask if I would like their telephone service? I answer - "yes, I would like it, but when I spoke to a representative from your company a few weeks ago, they said that the best long distance package that you could offer is about 20% more expensive than what I am paying now". "Oh", the guy on the phone replies. After asking him if he had any news for me regarding a better offer, I was then led to understand that they didn't have a better offer for me, they just wanted to waste my time once again with their standard boring offer. Why would you contact a customer when you really don't have anything all that compelling to say to them?
The latest attempt from a company wanting to waste my time and have me question the relationship that I have with them is from a loyalty points provider that I have been with for several years. This piece of communication came via email where I received an email yesterday talking about how they recently sent me an email containing information like my reward points balance and what I could redeem the rewards for (what kind of prizes, etc...). Interesting, yet I never got that first email. In fact, I only got that first email about 20 minutes ago which is 20 days after it was sent to me. The crazy thing is that it's dated June 3rd. Can you believe this? Companies spend thousands of dollars a year on email communications software and this is what I get? An email on June 23rd that is dated June 3rd and arrived in my inbox after the email dated June 22nd which was promoting their special offers as a follow up to the email containing my account balance which I never received. Been getting loads of email everyday and all of it in a timely fashion, yet for some reason, this one was not. It's nice to use online communications instead of killing all of those trees and going the snail-mail route, yet how great do you look in the eys of your customers when they don't get the emails in sequence or on time? Can't be a good thing.
That being said..... Here are some quick tips for companies who want to talk to their customers:
- Have something to talk about - Do not call or email unless you have something compelling and relevant to say to your customer.
- Know your customers - Be sure to have their history on hand, and ensure that whatever data you have is up to date.
- Know your propositions and their limitations - Don't be calling about products or services that customers cannot get because of who they are, where they live or what they really want.
- Get to the point - If you are upselling a customer, just get to the point, nobody likes to have their time wasted given that we live in a time-poor society.
- Ensure that communications follow a proper sequence - Don't make contact about something relating to a call that you were going to make to them the following week. Ensure that all communications are timely.
1 Comments:
Very constructive and helpful article. I would love to see more of these tips on your blog.
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