Future Tense: Customer Service
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A couple of years ago, Robert J. Sawyer, Erin Brockovich, and I were all invited to fly to Istanbul and address a conference of several thousand business leaders on the topic of “thinking outside the box.” We weren’t the only ones invited, there were a number of other “out-of-the-box” speakers from all over Europe as well. While there, Sawyer and I were also invited to speak to a group of several hundred bankers. There was a lot of brain-power gathered in those conference halls and auditoriums.
Whenever I’m invited to give a speech, I always ask three questions. “Who am I speaking to and why did they invite me? What can I say to them that will be useful? What can I say that will make a difference?” (In this particular case, I was pretty sure that they did not want to hear about tribbles.)
After a few weeks of cogitation on the matter, I had an insight that struck me as profound. The reason why businesses fail is because the operators of those businesses fail to understand what business they’re really in. Because ultimately every business is a service business.
Examples: You’re not in the business of selling computers—you’re providing the service of access to information management, entertainment, and communication via a computer. You’re not in the business of selling cars—you’re providing the service of convenient transportation in a car. You’re not in the business of selling insurance—you’re providing the service of a financial safety net.
The point is that when you stop thinking in terms of sales and start thinking in terms of service, your relationship with your customers changes profoundly. And that’s what I asked in my speech. “What service are you providing? If you can’t identify who you’re serving, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
I then went on to make a second point. “If a human being were to behave like the average corporation, institution, or agency, we would call that person a psychopath. The behavior of corporations is not only inhumane, it encourages inhumane behavior in its employees. And this happens whenever a company or an institution or an agency forgets that it was created to meet a need—and on the most profound level, that need is always a service. If you forget you are providing a service, you are sending your customers across the street to the guy who remembers that he is.”
To be blunt, here in America, most businesses have forgotten how to provide service. They have replaced respect with selfishness, partnership with greed. And the result is a general sense of cynicism and hostility from the customer base.
Anyone who’s flown on a domestic airline in the past decade knows exactly what I’m talking about. From the moment you arrive at one airport until the moment you depart from another, you are at the mercy of an entire industry that has forgotten it is in the business of providing the service of convenient transportation. You get a seat that’s too small for the average person to sit in comfort, that’s it. If you want anything else, a snack, a pillow, a drink, you have to pay for it. You pay a fee for your luggage, you pay a fee to board early, you pay a fee for extra leg room, and some airlines are considering charging you to use the toilet on the plane. If it’s close enough to drive (like on the same continent), I won’t fly—because I have not been on a domestic flight in ten years where I felt respected as a customer.
In the computer industry, it’s a little better—but not always. Sometimes the short-term gain is the long-term loss. I won’t buy anything from Sharp. Sharp owes me an apology and $250—an insufficient refund for a defective laptop, and a broken promise from the executive assistant who conveniently “forgot” to expedite the issue. I doubt I’ll ever see either the apology or the refund, but the cost to Sharp is now well over $15K in Sharp products I have passed over in my own purchasing and probably two or three times as much in recommendations I have made to friends and family to stay away from Sharp because I don’t like their customer service.
Gateway and Acer and Dell dropped the ball on their Vista to Windows 7 upgrades, with many customers not receiving their upgrade discs until months after Windows 7 shipped to the stores. Hello? You guys knew every time you made a sale that you were going to have to send out an upgrade disc. You knew how many from the number of registration cards sent in. So why weren’t you prepared? Do you really expect me to trust you on a future upgrade program?
Here’s another example. I have a long-term loyalty to anything from IBM. It goes all the way back to when I was still writing on a Selectric I typewriter, I could depend on IBM to respond quickly and efficiently to a phone call, usually on the same day. (They once gave me a couple of years of free service because my typewriter was getting so much pounding every day that it was a great way for the maintenance division to test wear and tear for that entire model line.)
Because IBM sees every customer as a relationship, they create long-term loyalty. I’ve looked at other brands of laptops in the past fifteen years, but I’ve purchased four generations of Thinkpads (a 701C with the slide-out keyboard, a 600x, an X40, and an X61) because I knew I could depend not only on the product, but the company behind it.
Unfortunately—now that the Thinkpad line is owned by Lenovo, customer service has deteriorated markedly. A fan failed on my X61. The repair was defective, but the company refused to repair it because I called just two weeks past the expiration of the three-month repair warranty. They wanted $179 to repair it. I asked to speak to a supervisor, expecting a reasonable man. Not so. The individual I spoke to was smugly arrogant in his refusal. (And if Lenovo emails me, I’ll tell you his name.) Fortunately, I have enough techie friends on Facebook. One of them was able to get the parts I needed and another knew how to do the repair, so the X61 is in great shape again. No thanks to Lenovo.
And Lenovo may have lost a customer. If this is the way they treat customers, I don’t know if my next laptop will be a Thinkpad. (The Toshiba Portege looks awfully good, and Sony and Fujitsu have some attractive units too.) The Thinkpads are great machines, they’re rugged, and they have great keyboards. But I won’t be treated disrespectfully by someone who’s on the front-line of customer relations. And I don’t think anybody else should put up with that crap either. (Lenovo, are you listening?)
Here’s what customer service should look like:
Amazon sells a wonderful ebook reader called the Kindle. They also sell leather covers for it, one with a light, one without. The clips on the unlighted cover that hold the Kindle in the cover are painted metal. When the paint wears off the clips, the bare metal makes a connection with the contact points that the lighted cover uses. Unfortunately, this creates a short circuit causing the Kindle to freeze or reboot.
As soon as this problem became known, Amazon began offering full refunds for the leather cover. I’d experienced intermittent problems with my Kindle, so I called Amazon’s kindle hotline. Not only did they credit me with a full refund immediately, they also gave me a $25 credit so I could upgrade to the cover with the built in light. The new cover arrived the next day.
Because I can depend on Amazon to ship quickly, provide unquestioned refunds in case of defective merchandise, and most of all, have good people easily available to handle problems, Amazon is now my first stop for all internet purchases.
Okay, yes, I’m a cranky old man. That’s not a question. I expect good service, not just because it’s good business practice, but because it demonstrates respect for me as a human being. If you disrespect me, then I’ll stop being your customer. Now multiply that by all the other people who feel the same way and you have an image problem, and even worse—a problem with your bottom line.
This lesson is so simple that I’m continually astonished how many companies have failed to learn it. If you’re in business, you cannot afford to piss off your customers. Being short-sighted about today’s dollars might save you a couple of bucks today, but it will cost you thousands of dollars in lost business tomorrow.
Are you paying attention, Sharp? Gateway? Lenovo? United Airlines?
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Comments
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bling581
February 10, 2011 at 11:21am
Great article. The problem with these big companies is that they can give you the cold shoulder when it comes to service and there's nothing you can do about it except to stop buying their stuff. A few burned customers here and there don't do anything in the grand scheme of things so no loss for them. They don't have to go above and beyond to satisfy you except when they make a major mistake and thousands of customers are involved. That's when you usually see the class action lawsuits begin.
Blues22475
February 10, 2011 at 1:50pm
That's exactly the way I see it. Any of the aforementioned company reps reading this article? If not, you should because he lays the foundation of what customer service should be. I very rarely see this kind of example in any of the customer service I've seen.
Nyarlathotep
February 10, 2011 at 8:03am
California DMV. I used the phoenetic alphabet to give the rep a VIN number and we ended up arguing about what letter Kilo represented. She argued with me it was Q. It only got worse from there.
pastorbob
February 10, 2011 at 7:18am
Amen! Amen! Amen!
I suspect every person who reads this article could come up with a long list of cutsomer service nightmares. But my best experiences have been with - wait for it - Microsoft. I have only had to call them a half dozen times in the thirty years I have been using their operating systems and software but each time I was treated with professional courtesy and respect. Finally, they have always solved the problem about which I call.
DJSPIN80
February 10, 2011 at 11:24am
Microsoft's pretty good on customer service. I've called their support line for a many problems and they've been good at calling me. There are couple of things that irate me when I call them:
1. It costs money (we have an EA agreement, and even that's expensive)
2. Sometimes, it takes them forever to figure out the problem. They often just read from a script.
Worst customer service? AT&T. Nuff said.
Nyarlathotep
February 09, 2011 at 10:09pm
I tried EA support once. I have never had a more frustrating and demeaning customer service experience. I look to forums for support now. Is that letting them off the hook?
TheZomb
February 09, 2011 at 10:24pm
I bought a custom armor pack for mass effect 2 and the registration key for it never worked. After talking to customer service everyday for about a week I gave up. It was a few dollars and not worth the hours I spent dealing with them as a company or hunting down solutions on forums. I am extremely reticent to buy an EA game. I haven't bought one since and I'm really not sure about buying any future games.
Engelsstaub
February 09, 2011 at 9:32pm
Wow. This was a GREAT article, Mr. Gerrold.
I feel much the same way...ESPECIALLY about the "support" we get from PC manufacturers after the sale.
I recently bought a $2300 laptop from one of the "Big Three" and called them for tech support. They didn't even allow me to describe my situation until they had finished pitching me the extended warranty. When I finally got them to shut up about that (as it was still well within its warranty) they wouldn't even talk to me about the problem. They wanted my credit card so they could charge me for the tech support. I just gave up and fixed it myself.
Companies like HP and Dell are CONSISTENTLY and annually rated at the bottom for customer service in every publication. They don't apparently seem to serious about improving so we should all just stop buying their stuff.
...I heard Asus is pretty decent.
Ghok
February 09, 2011 at 7:23pm
The lack of customer service in any industry is not a surprise. The fields that provide customer service are often the ones that are most easily outsourced, that don't require high education, and are undesirable. It's kind of like trying to expect exceptional service from a fast food resturant that's being run by apathetic teenagers.
Vigilant Satyr
February 09, 2011 at 6:30pm
I very much agree with you David. A local Ford dealer failed on me twice in as many months in customer service, and now that one never gets any of my business, while the one that treated me well has sold me my last three cars. HP handled a warranty claim for me quickly for a laptop that failed (ZD-7000 with the nVidia graphics that ran too hot) and when it came time to buy a replacement, I bought a Compaq. America West Airlines crammed me into a tiny seat with too little leg room (I'm 6'3") and I returned to flying SouthWest, which while being a discount carrier (that fits my budget) has managed to space the seats almost perfectly for me.
Provide me good service and you get my money. Forget the service, forget my money.
knighttoday
February 09, 2011 at 5:50pm
Excellent article David! I am 58 and have held customer service jobs all my life. I have spent the past 8+ years working at a computer helpdesk and it has been a nightmare. I have tried very hard to bend over backwards for my customers and a good portion of them recognize what I offer and they respect that but there is a good 25% that could give a shit and rant no matter how hard I try. Helpdesk is a burn-out job and it is not just the corporations which are behind this. As one of your commenters pointed out, we here in America exist in a 'wal-mart' consciousness and that is just not sustainable. The saying that "you get what you pay for" is still around as it carries a basic logic behind it.
We all need to step back and take a strong look at our own behavior as corporations and the purchasing public are really one in the same, but we create this artificial seperation which ends up hurting us all.
bittertruth
February 09, 2011 at 5:17pm
I've never flown outside my state. I travelled across the countries though. I didn't know domestic airlines are such a horrible experience, almost treating customers like animals the way you wrote. Is that really true?
Regarding Lenovo and all other bad experiences, you should have given second or third try. I don't believe in comments based on someone's first attempt and failure. It's random and sometimes you get to know nice people too. Try it twice Sir, believe me it works.
Now a days, these corporations have come up with LIVE CHAT system. This should be awarded for magnificient piece of idea they dished out in the world of customer service. It works flawlessly and you are not fixated to your phone on hold forever. Believe me, LIVE CHAT not only solves the problems, it also allows you to do you other things at the same time, eat, read, mail, listen .. and zooooom back to the CHAT window back to continue.
And, your doubt is sealed with this article. I doubt if they ever send you any refund or replacement ever after this article of direct denial and attack to specific companies.
Amazon experience to me is good but sometimes, it's sellers turn out to be a culprit.
Also, all these laptop vendors or companies, most of them try to sell you stuff instead of troubleshooting. Some problems in fan?? ship it, and get the new model, even if they fix it, all the outlandish cost has to be born by the buyer, if you are lucky and within warranty period, you'll have to literally beg to get the whereabouts of your laptop, And, mark my word, 2 weeks to 2 months is the waiting period, that's how they do their warranty thing. I still hate HP because this damn guy from India tried to sell me stuff instead of solving problems. May be they have incentives when they make sales instead of support. damn loosers..
CloudRider
February 09, 2011 at 4:53pm
Oddly enough, cranky old men make some of the worst customer service reps ;)
No offence meant, of course.
michaelh
February 09, 2011 at 4:43pm
Thank you for writing this and for breaking it down so succinctly. It's not just because companies are operating on thinner margins, with fewer personnel and more outsourcing - it's because they've forgotten what their role in the economy is.
Out of the dozens of companies I deal with on a regular basis there are, perhaps, two that manage acceptable customer interaction. Most of the ones I started doing business with (like my bank) were purchased by larger corporations with no comprehension of a consumer-business relationship.
The argument that you get what you pay for is irrelevant. If you make cheap crap to undercut the other guy and that crap is unreliable or doesn't perform the required task then people will stop buying it. As far as interactions with customers go, it doesn't cost a thing to be more polite, less condescending, more helpful and have just a little bit of respect for the person helping to keep your business afloat and your paychecks coming in. My insurance is at the cheapest rate I could find and the company maintains the best service I've experienced from an insurance provider.
Comcast is a prime example of corporate greed versus the forgotten customer. They're making enough that they were able to purchase NBC. Of the 30 or so interactions I've had with one of their employees, perhaps 2 were adequate and only 1 exemplary.
Netflix, on the other hand, charges a fair price, in my opinion, for their service. I've only had to call them up once, but the service was so excellent that, for once, I don't dread having to call a company again if things go wrong. They were unable to get my service restored (interestingly, it was Comcast's fault) for a couple of days and yet I'm still satisfied with them.
CWolfCW
February 09, 2011 at 3:56pm
One of the best articles I've read about business practices in a long time.
While it applies to many industries, it's exceptionally poignant given the state of Canadian telecommunications today. It describes an industry that once provided a service and has deterioriated into nickle and diming every customer ($8/mo for caller-ID anyone?), coercing consumers to sign 3-year contracts (which go far beyond the cost of subsidized equipment) while not providing any discounts to clients which do not opt for subsidization, and an infrastructure which has barely improved over the last decade.
While this article gets to the meat of the issues which would cause the scenario above, how would you deal with a market where consumers require a product/service? Cell phones, internet access, transportation... where many of the companies running the show are in 'cahoots' and/or using the same dishonest or disrespectful business practices, what can be done?
Danthrax66
February 09, 2011 at 3:52pm
Am I the only person that has never had an issue with customer service people. Dell, HP, Verizon, Sprint, Comcast, Newegg, Amazon, Markertek, etc. I have never had an issue, maybe it's because I use live chat instead of phone calls. I really think live chat works 10000 times better no issues with accents, no having to repeat shit, just text and it works. Maybe you guys should try it more often. Also pro-tip whenever they ask you if you already tried unplugging it etc. say you work as the head IT guy and you've seen this before and have already ran the tests.
someuid
February 09, 2011 at 5:20pm
Absolutely. E-mail and chat are 1000% better than voice. The accent is removed, the annoyed inflections in your voice are removed (and theirs) and you can more easily present the important information (make, model, serial number, date of purchase, problem) without all those extra spoken words getting in the way.
I always use email or chat when available. Calling and speaking is just so fraught with issues.
jason2393
February 10, 2011 at 2:26am
I have had bad experiences with all forms of communication with customer support. I paid a significant amount for a high-end Sony Vaio, and in return get a laptop with ridiculous build quality, phone calls involving phonetically saying product codes ("Alpha... Charlie... Sierra") so they could understand me, chats in which they tell me to do things that I specifically stated I had already tried. Price is not always linked to service, and no form of communication is foolproof. From now on, I will be relying on support from real humans at local stores. They might not be cheap, but at least they can hear me!
steve771
February 09, 2011 at 3:48pm
Excellent article and so true. It's the reason I will never buy a GM product, Hyundai treats me MUCH better. So to the guy who wrote, 'you get what you pay for', know that I paid LESS for a Hyundai car than a comparable GM. And Hyundai also provides U.S. based jobs.
Less expensive does NOT have to equate to lousy customer service.
dread_ire
February 09, 2011 at 3:44pm
I agree with you regarding you r experience with Amazon. I have had to return a couple of things with Amazon and each time the response was quick and polite. When I had a question about my Kindle they promptly got back to me and answered my question. Amazon has become my first stop when shopping online.
JohnP
February 09, 2011 at 3:44pm
You get what you pay for. Let me repeat, you get what you pay for. Or as Robert Heinlein used to put it, "TANSTAAFL".
We Americans LOVE cheap goods, the lower the price the better. Yet we bitch and moan over "bad customer service" that we are NOT WILLING TO PAY FOR! When you buy a low priced object, you forever give up the right to "expect" good customer service. On that razor thin margin? Not likely!
IBM never bought into that "cheap is good" policy. When forced by competitors that eroded their customer base on laptops solely doe to price, they decided not to pay that game. So you loved IBM but hate Lenovo. Fine, how much did you pay "premimum" for the IBM ThinkPads over the Lenovo's ones?
Why, oh why does Apple ALWAYS win the "best customer support" category year after year? Becuase they charge more money for their products than the parts are worth!
I worked for HP support and watch as their customer support on low end printers, PCs, and laptops became a joke in the company. NO ONE complains about HP support for the high end servers and systems as they have already paid good money to SUPPORT the customer service team. These guys are great, dependable, usually there for years, loyal, and smart. The PC support team is low paid, treated poorly by both the company and the customer, and has a high turnover rate. Its the money YOU pay that decides the difference.
I bet you book your flights to be as cheap as possible, right? NO 1st class for you, costs too much. Yet, you complain that they don't treat you nice. You are not paying for "nice", you are paying for a cheap seat- and you got what you paid for. Airlines used to make good profits and could afford to pamper you. Now, close to going out of business, they cannot support whiners like yourself. Don't like how they are treating you? PAY THE BUCKS OR DRIVE!
That is the problem with old guys like us. We remember the good old days when profits were fat and companies could afford to add luxuries that we started taking for granted. Like a long career with a company has gone bye-bye, so has customer service on commodity priced goods. Get used to it, that is what you decided when you purchased the damn thing for a pittance in the first place!
Zazubovich
February 10, 2011 at 3:20pm
Airlines demanded deregulation, then whined all the way down as fare wars and competition broke out. But you don't see the management complaining, quitting, or running away crying from work-they have taken the money that used to go to service and maintenance and fleet upgrades. They have calculated that you will take a beating in the air (and maybe crash) for the illusion of low price.
HP, IBM and other major corporations spend substantial R&D money to figure out price points, failure rates, and after sale service costs for the products they sell. Again, the stockholders are more or less happy, upper management is rolling in money, and customers are either dumb enough or desperate enough to keep buying crap and pour money into companies that don't care for them. At the larger scale, Americans are being pinched by the forces of corporate outsourcing (Friedmanized) such that our labor cost has to compete with slave labor in communist countries who work at the point of a gun. This country is allegedly a democracy so that is what we have voted for and must be what we want. Too bad it looks like a dystopian sci-fi novel.
dread_ire
February 09, 2011 at 3:54pm
I don't know that I buy that excuse for the airlines. Here in Canada we have a wonderful budget airline called Westjet, and their service is time and again top shelf. They also affer very competiitive pricing and yet are still able to give you snacks on board, leather seats, a tv in every seat and very friendly staff. Our National airline on the other hand is a different story.
In some cases its not the price that causes this problem, its that companies have become accountants. Oh no we didn't make our projected 4 Billion dollars, we only made 2 Billion. Time to cut staff and services. Nevermind that the company didn't lose any money, they just made less than they had expected. The banks do this all the time and then we wonder why the staff aren't friendly, they're constantly on the chopping block.
JohnP
February 09, 2011 at 6:58pm
Solid point. Yeah, I have seen that too much myself. When did we get to the point of where a company's stock price was more important than supporting the business they are in? As long as the board uses stock incentives as a pay substitute, this will always be an issue.
As for companies that do it right, they usually go unsung. I can name a dozen or so that have absolutely delighted me. They are still there but fight a rising tide of vicious price undercutting that is truly global in its extent. Hard to hold onto first principles when under attack.
someuid
February 09, 2011 at 5:27pm
"its that companies have become accountants" "Time to cut staff and services"
You got that right. They become more enamored with the value of their stock options and quarterly profit statements than what their business is actually doing.
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