Month: August 2014

Bad Customer Service:

• Pretends to be personal.
• Pretends to be human.
• Pretends to care.

Check out United Airlines’ response to a customer complaint:

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Good Customer Service:

• Actually personal.
• Run by humans.
• Actually cares.

One Capital One customer said they couldn’t pay their bill because they spilled orange juice on their keyboard and the “2” key didn’t work. Rather than disregard the excuse (which sounds something like “my dog ate my homework”), the customer service rep did this:

Statement from Capital One:
“We encourage our agents to follow up on customer conversations in unexpected, personalized and creative ways. They look for and act on opportunities to practice random acts of kindness for our customers.”

Bad example from Cheezburger. Good example from Mashable.

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There’s a documentary streaming on Netflix called “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.” It’s about an 85-year-old Japanese man who is considered the best sushi chef in the world. He runs a humble restaurant at a subway station in Tokyo but has such a reputation for perfection that his place is completely booked several months out (despite costing $300 a plate). He spends several hours each day going to the market to pick the best ingredients, preparing and continually perfecting his craft. He literally dreams about sushi and jumps out of bed with ideas.

I think he’s an interesting example of someone who has tremendous passion and always strives to be just a little bit better. It’s these qualities that makes his business successful and can carry you far with many things in life.

As I was watching it, I wrote down a few quotes:

• “Once you decide on your occupation, you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the key to success and is the key to being regarded honorably.”
• “These days people wants lots of free time and lots of money. They aren’t thinking of building their skills…. I don’t care about money. All I want to do is make great sushi.”
• “I continue to climb trying to reach the top, but no one knows where the top is….Always strive to elevate your craft.”

Check out the trailer than go watch it on Netflix:

Comcast has notoriously bad customer service. I’ve experienced it myself when I prepared to moved into a new house. I was told we were “all set” with our internet, since the previous owners had used Comcast. When we moved in and couldn’t get the internet to work, it took two weeks for them to come fix it and several phone calls to get a refund for the two weeks we didn’t have service. I think we actually got off easy compared to some of the stories I’ve heard.

Recently, one customer recorded the phone call from when he calmly tried to cancel his service and encountered resistance on the other end from a Comcast rep who basically wouldn’t let the customer cancel his service without a reason. He said phrases like “I’m just trying to understand why you wouldn’t want the #1 internet service in the country.” After several minutes of conversation, the rep finally gave in and canceled the service. The conversation was posted online on soundcloud, which you can listen to here:

After the story went viral, Comcast publicly issued an apology:

“We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and are contacting him to personally apologize. The way in which our representative communicated with him is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives. We are investigating this situation and will take quick action. While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect.”

The customer who recorded the call, Ryan Block, has stated that he hopes that the recording does not result in a termination but rather a closer look at Comcast’s customer service training and policies to ensure better service.

This is a good example of the public relations challenges that happen in the digital age. Companies cannot afford to have anything less than amazing customer service in this era.

Read more about the story at Mashable.

This has gotten a lot of attention lately for not portraying the Dad figure as an idiot. I think it’s a fun and fast paced ad. I can’t help but be reminded of the Phil Dumphy character from Modern Family (who is often actually portrayed as a doufus but also a super great dad). In fact, they even have a similar home. Perhaps it was inspiration? The product is thrown in last minute and the tie is a little weak (“Being a dad is awesome…. Just like Peanut Butter Cheerios are awesome”) but I think the tradeoff of making this a memorable and spreadable message is probably worth it.