Marketing Minute: Is Your Answering Service Ruining Your Brand?

CEO's, Company Presidents, Company Collection Agencies, Managers of Billing Departments:

Do me and yourselves a favor-  take 2-3 hours out of your day, call your customer service line and take an intimate tour of your automated system.  Because clearly, with the amount of shenanigans going on by a vast majority of these systems, you can't be aware of the problems your customers encounter...

Between the computers that answer and send you through a water board interrogation of your account that never seems to make it to the customer service rep; to listening to the 3 hours worth of shnazzy jazzy music promising a non-english speaking "someone" will get to you "shortly" (eventually would be more accurate); visions of sugarplums dance in my head thinking about the MILLIONS of dollars you must be losing to save MAYBE a couple hundred thousand in salaries... based on hiring maybe 10 more people???

I bet the last part of that ramble on statement got your attention...

Yes, you and your company are losing MILLIONS of dollars due to your lack of customer service...

How?

1. Because Susie told John who told Amanda who told her second cousin twice removed not to go with your company because of a review they read on the internet based on what happened during a recent call to your company (which will live on FOREVER!  Some of you should skip golfing and take the afternoon reading your consumer reviews)
2. Because no one... and I do mean NO ONE prefers to call into a computer automated system to have a complex question answered.  
3. Because your customer service reps are part of a vicious cycle set forth by your automated computer system.  What's the cycle you ask? Well it goes like this: you spend money hiring and training a great CS rep; customer calls automated system and gets stuck in water board interrogation then left on hold for all eternity; customer gets pissed; CS rep answers phone and gets flamed by customer; CS rep quits due to an "abusive job"...

Now, I know some recent MIT grad, who you paid a boatload in consulting fees for an analysis regarding  moving customer service support to Mars, made PERFECT sense at the time.  However, the aftermath is an internet full of customers who HATE your company because they can't get a simple yes/no/kiss my ass answer from you as to the status of their account. Instead, your customers are talking to each other via the internet... and avoiding you like the black plague!!! Not to mention, your bad reviews are hitting your branded keywords and coming up with every Google search on your company...  

In working and training branded customer service reps for luxury products,  I'll share with you what luxury products know: that you can put a logo on a plain piece of brown plastic, make it into a bag, and charge $5000 for it because of the EXPERIENCE.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The bag will probably fall apart in a couple of years; but who cares?!?! Said company already paid for the bag 5000 times over.  So they'll give you a new one!  But the customer brags on and on about their $5000 bag because when they called, the company promptly sent them a new one.  Even answered the phone on the first ring!!!!

But your company... on no.  We don't get that.  What we get is the automated system.  The virtual middle finger of customer service.  

Look, I'm sure most of us would pay another $2 in our invoice to be able to talk to a live person, thus paying the minimum wage salary to have someone coherent and fluent enough in English to answer a simple yes or no question on an account status.  If you would, we would love you forever... giving you that seemingly illusive thing you crave: brand loyalty (imagine that). 

Until then, see if your grandma needs a job answering phones.  Someone. Anyone.