Isn’t it the most annoying thing. You go to a shop to buy something and when you get there, the assistant is on the phone. With someone who was too lazy to leave the house. You’re left kicking your heels. From the shop’s perspective, it’s a perverse incentive for uneconomic behaviour.
It’s the same with customer support. I just emailed an iPhone question to O2. On the website it says they’ll get back to me within 24 hours. But a confirmation email says it’ll be within 72 hours.
If I telephone them, I’ll speak to someone immediately and, I hope, resolve my question before I hang up.
It has to be easier for O2 to deal with email queries than phone queries, so why don’t they make it easier and quicker to answer questions by phone? For example, they could make everyone leave a message on the phone and call them back later but answer emails within 10 minutes.
I would prefer a good email service to an excellent telephone service because it’s more efficient for me too. And why not SMS, Twitter, IM and all the other channels we have now?
Here’s an opportunity for companies to really offer a more efficient service and differentiate themselves from their competition. Small businesses, in particular, can do this and offer really strong guarantees of immediate personal attention by email as an alternative to phone calls.
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Are we twins? I wrote about a similar problem with cs on the 28th (http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com/2010/01/why-corporations-need-real-writers-2/ if you’re curious.)
The reason I emailed is because I didn’t and don’t want to work my way through the phone tree.
Seems like there should be a better way. IM is a great idea.
@Anne. Funny coincidence. Great minds obviously think alike!
You just reminded me of the only compliment I can pay Comcast.
I had a question about their new monthly bandwidth caps for U.S. users (when does the total reset each month) about four months after they instituted the change. I called customer service. Even when I gave my CSR the url to the information about the cap on their own corporate website, she didn’t believe me. In frustration – and because I have so many tech geeks in my twitter feed – I tweeted this and had a response from @comcastcares in less than 30 minutes.
@mouse It’s ironic, isn’t it, that you can get better service by bleeting on Twitter than you can by calling a customer service telephone line? I’ve had similar experiences with my blog where complaining about something usually gets a problem solved whereas a couple of hours on the phone doesn’t. OB10 and McAfee – I’m looking at you!