Good customer service is the difference maker
Good customer service is the difference maker and should be a part of a good business model. When customers are presented with several choices for a product or service, a few of the difference makers are Read morehow the customer is treated, did the customer fell like you were working toward their best interest, was every effort made to keep the customer totally happy even if it required extra effort, all of which are a elements of good customer service.
Which brings me to the example raised by Seth Godin about AT&T. What really caught me attention about this post was an actually experience from inside an ISP. First, I’ll answer the question,
what’s broken about the architecture of your customer service? What could you change that would leverage the effort you’re already putting into it?
We have always gone above and beyond for our customers, as it is first on our list of objectives (yes before profit). However, there is always room for improvement and when we find process gaps we adjust to fill them.
Now as for AT&T , Ive never used that chat tool and I am not an AT&T customer but there appear to be several problems with the support model based on the screen shot. The two that immediately jump out are the lack of privacy for the customer and the constant overlapping of multiple issues on an ever scrolling screen.
I would be interested in knowing why it was designed that way, maybe they had a good reason for it that we dont know about. Even so the end result does not appear to be customer friendly, which mean there is room for improvement.
As to the following:
For less money, in less time, with less software hassle, they could have used any of a number of free or nearly free systems that would be fast, pleasant and efficient. You and I could fix this system in an afternoon.
I understand the feeling here. You say to yourself “this huge billion dollar company cant do any better that this??” Well, the answer is they can but they usually wont. I would bet that there were many skilled people over at AT&T involved with putting that chat tool together. However, I would also bet that there were enough, non technical, number crunching, people and politics, involved to insure the final product would not meet its potential.
If good customer service is important to a company, it should come before any other objective. Everything else should work based on that foundation.
