Word travels fast nowadays, thanks to the Internet - and, in particular, social media, so companies really ought to be careful when it comes to their customer services. For while the perfect, non-clunky website is a must – along with a means to drive traffic to it in the first place, (either through great PR and/or advertising in the appropriate media, plus well-earned word of mouth recommendations) - customer services can be ‘make or break’ and it’s clear that not enough companies are aware of that these days. I really don’t know what’s happened but I’m left shaking my head in despair so, so often…

It's almost as if somebody’s come up with a training package that everyone’s been forced to adopt – and to their own detriment, without realising it. Once we’ve gone through the AI chatbot or ‘phone assistant, which is rarely set up to offer the exact option we need, we breathe a sigh of relief knowing we’re being put through to a customer services representative. But that relief is so rarely warranted, don’t you think? If we’re phoning about a problem, instead of hurrying up and dealing efficiently with the problem itself, we’re asked how we’re doing today. The overly polite rep seems to want to make friends, rather than get to grips with what we’re after, or what’s troubling us, and come up with a solution. The call takes twice as long as it should because of the niceties and - if they feel it will help - sucking-up stock phrases being read from a prompt.

This doesn’t make us feel at all valued. It makes us feel that the company doesn’t understand us and doesn’t care and it makes us wish we never did business with them in the first place. If we’ve phoned about a problem, empty promises are made because that’s what the company expects us to want to hear. But promises made and not kept just make things far worse than they were originally. "Oh we are so sad to learn that you are having issues and my colleague was unable to solve them as promised. It must be incredibly upsetting for you and we can understand how frustrating it must be for you” (it goes on...). Then we have to go through everything regarding the issue from start to finish, since either inadequate notes have been made previously or the current rep hasn’t bothered to read them or can’t understand them. 

It's not just Virgin Media of course (yes I’m still without email access six-weeks tomorrow – so please continue to use [email protected] if you wish to get in touch) but everyone I deal with who’s outsourced their customer services to save money. Business is about relationships, and if you leave yourself unable to build a relationship that makes your customers want to do business with you, you’re on a hiding to nothing. 

More on this next week…