The Digital Talanoa published two weeks ago regarding lacklustre customer service appears to have hit some kind of nerve, spawning people to share their own stories of frustration, for which there were plenty.
One reader commented on a visit to a local movie theatre with her children. Prior to the start of the G-rated film, an adult horror movie trailer was shown, essentially leaving her no choice but to scramble to try and cover the eyes and ears of her kids. Not a great experience.
Another reader was purchasing items from a store that offered a “Buy 4 for $5” deal. She only found three items she wanted so asked if she could just pay $5 for the three. The staff at the retailer, however, were adamant that this was against the rules. They obviously had difficulty fathoming that honouring this request would be actually saving them money. Not a great experience.
Back in December, 1999, I ordered a Toshiba DVD player from Amazon.com. I was living in Dallas, Texas at the time and I specifically ordered this product to arrive before the Christmas holidays. Amazon assured me it would be in my hands within a week and based on every prior experience I had with that company, their assurances were good enough for me. Imagine my surprise when seven days later, the DVD player was nowhere to be found. Their website listed my order as having been shipped but alas, it was missing. I called them up on the phone and spoke to one of their customer service people. He listened to my problem and confirmed that although it had been shipped, he didn’t know where it was either.
Stumped, he then made the following offer. “Mr. Segal, that particular DVD player is now sold out but I’ll tell you what I can do. I will immediately send you the next model up. It costs an additional $50 but we won’t charge you for it and I can have it delivered by tomorrow morning.”
Not a bad offer, I thought.
The following morning, the doorbell rang and awaiting me were two DVD players. Apparently, the first one had also been found.
I called Amazon.com again to tell them I now had both products. “No problem, Mr. Segal,” they said. “Please return whichever one you don’t want back to us. We’ll send the delivery company to pick it up at our expense.”
It’s no surprise that I still love shopping from Amazon.com. They didn’t lose any money from supporting me. On the contrary, every purchase I’ve made since then is their continuing payback for taking care of me that day. By the way, I knew all this took place on December 9, 1999 by going to Amazon’s website and seeing my entire order history clearly laid out and available. Great company and a great experience.
Fast forward to Suva, 2008. It’s the end of February and my wife has decided to use the 50 thousand points she has saved up with a local retailer’s loyalty programme to acquire a new DVD player. It seemed to work well for the first two weeks but then started skipping through movies to the point that watching a DVD was no longer possible. Although I didn’t want to be pessimistic, I had a strong feeling that a case study on poor customer service would emerge. In the interests of investigative...ahem...reporting, I documented my experience.
I started with the retailer’s website and sent an email explaining the issue and asking whether they could just give me a new DVD player in exchange for the old one. A week passed without a response, even an automated one. Strike one.
I had to mentally prepare myself a bit for dealing with this. Otherwise, there was the likelihood that I would have ended up in prison or possibly even St. Giles depending upon who I was forced to interact with at the retailer. Planning ahead, I actually put “Exchange DVD player” on my calendar for Saturday, 22 March and marked off four hours for which to get it done. That way, I reasoned with myself that I would be able to say calm for the duration of that time. As an additional safeguard, I brought my nine-year-old son with me on the adventure. My thinking there was I would be less likely to lose control if one of my offspring was watching. At 10:30 a.m., I telephoned the store and spoke to a man who listened to my entire story, asked a few questions and then transferred me to another department, essentially to repeat my story again. That happened three times before I reached a sales rep who I’ll refer to as “Joe”.
Joe listened to my situation which, after telling it multiple times, I was able to recite without much effort and then he advised that I visit the shop in person. At 11 a.m., I was there. I walked up to the first sales person I saw who, as it turned out, was Joe. He greeted me warmly, took a look at the product and asked me to wait a moment while he spoke to his manager. He came back after a few minutes to tell me that his manager said that they would need to send to the service centre the following week for repair. This wasn’t what I was hoping for, especially for a product that was just a few weeks old. In my mind, just exchanging the DVD player for a new one seemed the easiest thing to do for everyone and I said so. Joe pointed to his manager and said “I think you should talk to him about that.”
When I approached the manager, there was no warm greeting and I quickly got the feeling that I effectively represented nothing but a customer service hassle for him. He never bothered even looking at the product I carried in my hand, his goal appeared to just move me along like a cow in a slaughterhouse. I had only used up 45 minutes of my allotted four hours by this point so I was still very calm, even jovial. I basically told him that we both knew what would probably happen if we sent my DVD player into the repair shop; Four weeks from now, I’d be chasing someone up to find out if it has been fixed.
The manager must have agreed that was a possibility so he then stated that there were no more DVD players in the shop. I suggested we call some of the other shops. He hadn’t considered that, apparently, and I must have looked as if I wasn’t going away so he complied. Joe came back after another 15 minutes to tell me they had tracked one down in another shop outside of town. I thought that was good news. “Ok.” I said. “I’ll go pick it up then.”
“No,” the Manager said. “We’re having it delivered. It will be here in about 15 minutes.” It was about 11:30 by that point and I was happy with my overall progress. An hour and a half later when they presented me with my replacement DVD player, my son was the one ready to be admitted at St. Giles. Although we were “successful” in getting the issue fixed, it really was anything but a good experience. It made me realise that although the outcome was the one I desired, the entire process turned me off from wanting to deal with this retailer again. Only Joe, the lowly sales rep, seemed to be of any real value yet he didn’t seem to have any authority to do anything.
An article I read this week in the New York Times and written by the outgoing bureau chief in Paris shed some insight into French customer service experiences. She told the story of a doctor who bought a coat and took it home to discover there was a rip in the fabric. The doctor tried to return it but the shopkeeper pushed him to go to a tailer and pay for the fix. The doctor tried to argue with the shopkeeper that “the customer is king”.
“Sir,” the shopkeeper replied. “We no longer have a king in France.”
I like that story. What’s the excuse of businesses here?
From the FijiTimes 29 March 2008
Jonathan Segal is the Managing Director and CEO of Oceanic Communications (www.oceanic.com.fj), an advertising, marketing and technology agency in Suva. Feel free to send comments and topic suggestions to talanoa@oceanic.com.fj
