What ever happened to customer service?

It seems these days that customer service has gone to the dogs. It used to be we gave our best customers our best service, especially in this service economy! Here are some of my recent experiences.

Case #1
At a national chain restaurant, the guest check holder (the leatherette bill holder the waitperson brings to your table) was redesigned. Instead of the conventional, little clear plastic pocket that was the perfect size to hold a credit card, their new design has a simple slit that is cut directly on the holder lining.

Because there is no pocket seam to hold the card securely in place anymore, once you insert the credit card into the slit, gravity works to slip right down to the bottom of the 10" deep holder, unbeknown to the customer.

When my waitress brought my credit card slip to sign, the card was nowhere to be seen. After a frantic search of the floor around the table, the card was found stuck inside the lining of the folder where it had slipped down to the bottom. It had a friend, too – another card lost by a previous guest over one week prior! The waitperson's response – "Oh that happens all the time." Well, if it happened more than once, why didn't they fix the problem?

Case #2
The new US healthcare laws require that children over 26 have their own health insurance. After transferring our son to his own insurance plan, he enrolled in automatic-pay from the bank account. The first monthly payment was deducted properly, but not the second. After several long phone calls, it turns out the second payment was deducted from someone else's bank in error. How could that be, since it's all done by computer, right?

In fixing the problem, the insurance company not only removed the incorrect payment for the current month, but they also removed the correct payment for the previous month, meaning my son was now in arrears and at risk of losing his new insurance, even though we had followed all correct steps to transfer and set up automatic payment.

Furthermore, their customer service representative just reported his account now shows "paid" for the next five months, even though he has not paid past the current month.

Case #3

"Global roaming" on a mobile phone is essential when traveling overseas. I recently had to activate the plan that gives me a discount on data when traveling abroad, which is important for a smart phone. Well, this took several calls with conflicting information from the various agents at my mobile service provider. One person said it was not necessary, another said it could be done now and I would be all set. A third person actually took me through the steps to change my iPhone settings so it would work. Had this third person not explained the setup to me, the phone would not have worked.

I'm sure you must have some stories yourself. Why not share them with us?

If you run a service or support operation, learn how to understand what your customers really want. It will earn you customer loyalty and save you money from multiple mis-handlings by your staff.

To learn new QFD tools for this, I recommend attending the QFD Green Belt^® course. I will be teaching the Orlando course on Feb. 28 - March 1, 2013. You will learn how to apply QFD correctly and most efficiently from the first time.

The course includes Excel templates which is an economical alternative to buying commercial software that is most likely based on outdated methods. The course has no prerequisites.

Glenn