VoIP Rant Thread

[nitrodigital]

Great post Funkytown...
That is exactly my feelings. ..and is exactly why i have little patience for dealing with bottom of the totem pole employees who dont want to help. I have used the exact same method of skipping 5,6,7 levels of lower employees and going right to the top and have gotten amazing results. This reiterates your statement why a company needs employees that care as much about the future of the company as those at the top. Here's an example for you...
I was getting porn advertisements in my mail box addressed as canada post admail which really pissed me off. Where they got my address from i dont know but my 7 year old happened to open one of these from some dvd company and i just about went through the roof. After dealing with the regional managers here in Manitoba and threatened them with court action for sexual harrassment , she just told me i just need to add my name to a do not send list. I asked her how she would like if i sent them all to her house? She responded nastily but when i mentioned the name of the CEO of ad marketing in Ottawa she promptly shut up. I continued to get another 2 of these offending letters and then i contacted this CEO woman who i found online with a picture of her 2 daughters. I didnt get an email but a direct call from this woman who was very nice and apologetic in every way. We had a great conversation for over an hour and she promised me that Canada Post was not allowing this kind of thing in their mail and she would stop it....well it stopped then and there.
She even asked me to send her the stuff which i did (smart move on her part because i sent away the evidence).
I have done this sort of thing (contacting CEOs) about 5 times already and it works every time. These people dont want to be hassled by average joes so they will make the call and get me to go away.
They also need to be held accountable for what the people under them are doing. I work for the same kind of place where communication is broken at all levels, and if they cant manage the checks and balances then the customer will ...

[viper359]

Well, little off topic, but, lets add an opinion from someone on the other side of the phone. Customers rarely accurately tell the truth when rehashing their horror stories with a front line employee. It is usually exaggerated. I listen to many a customer make allegations how my staff never helped them, were rude, or insert any one of 100's of complaints. When I listen to the recorded call log, I usually hear none of what the complaint is. When I do, I take action, sometimes. Other times, both the customer and the employee got a hot head. Usually, when you tell someone in that circumstance, listen, I played back the call, both of you were out of line, most reasonable customers agree, then I get back to solving the problem.

What customers forget or don't grasp is, asking for a manager in a large volume company is fruitless. I don't have time to take every single call because you're not immediately happy. If I did, my day would consist of doing nothing to solve the problems, just listening to them. Frontline employee's in most good companies have to follow a specific script for dealing with real problems. To ensure the right people and departments are notified and action taken. This is were real problems begin for the customer. As most of this is internal communication from a call taker to the respective department, the customer never knows that the call taker has sent a request to the department required, that department received it, assigned it to an employee, who looks into it, who will then take action, close the call and move to the next one. This process can be a few minutes to a few days. This leave a customer with little to no information during this process. This frustration I get and understand. All companies do. Figuring out a way to keep the customer informed is the million dollar business goldmine! There is just no cost effective way found for this, that actually works.

The other thing a customer doesn't grasp, frontline employee's usually have no clue why action was taking on an account. For example, if the billing department locks an account, a call taker usually has no idea why. If any notes are left, it is only to transfer customer to billing. Only that department would know why specific action was taken. If its a technical problem with a product, again, a front line employee wouldn't have the knowledge or ability to know what is wrong. Frontline call takers are literally glorified message takers.

I think our society has become so used to instant results, that when something doesn't work, or a problem crops up, we have lost the patience to just stand by and wait.

Then I get the people who by-pass all this, run right to senior management, thinking this will get results faster. It doesn't. It usually takes even longer. Now, rather than speaking directly to a department head, yelling "Why is my customer still screwed, fix this damn thing", I am writing a a detailed email, or having a long conversation with a senior manager who hasn't a clue about what is going on, and is just trying to make you go away from his desk. If I am lucky, he or she bounces the entire file to my desk, I deal with it, he or she calls customer back, pats them on the head, makes them feel all special, and I move on to the next one, other times, the senior man wants to get involved, and that's when all hell breaks loose.

People generally want to speak to a manager so they feel their voice is heard. Honestly, its heard when you call into the company. Frontline reps hear it, they feel it, and they take the whipping when you are pissed off when you call. Lets be honest, how many of us call company ABC just to say, "Hey, thanks for everything working today".

Don't get me even started on those who call in looking for free crap, because they are traumatized, a long time customer of 4 months, a big account customer etc.

Sorry for the long winded post, but everyone bashes on customer service reps today, and I am sorry, but I have some of the finest men and woman working for me a person could ever ask for. They take a lot of crap and do their best, even though there is little they can do to solve the actual problem.

Lets be honest, how many of us are not frustrated, annoyed, angered, upset, and pissed off when we call a company. Even I am guilty of it. When something is not working, we lose our ability to sit back and be objective.

[FunkyTown]

Good customer service is "The customer is always right" whether they are or not! Defending staff and taking the side of staff in front of the customer is where the problem lies. To stay in business you're better off saying, "You're right Mrs. Jones. We are doing our best to resolve this for you and we are sorry that this happened."

I don't know if it's pride or what it is, but Canadian companies often get their backs up and customers will leave if they feel they are not getting support even though the customer may be perceived as unreasonable. I worked in sales for years and swallowed my pride many times when customers were literally screaming at me. Personally I felt they were unreasonable, but the worst thing to happen is to lose them and have them tell all of their friends and neighbors a horror story. It's just the way it is and always has been. It's not something new. Although with the Internet there's a much wider audience. That's new. I worked for an American company in the 80s and we were trained to completely suck up to the customer. This company is still in business and is doing well with an A+ rating at BBB and still provides excellent customer care.

[viper359]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Times have changed. While people rate customer service as important, they rate the price even more. This isn't the 80's anymore. You need only look at Walmart to see how customer service is near non-existent. The customer is always right was started by consumers and has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

Many companies now don't care if you take your business elsewhere on low profit margin industries. Sure, they publicly say they care, but, you only need look at the internal operations. They cannot afford to keep you if you cost them money. People generally go to the place with the best price, not customer service. Walmart proves that.

Times have changed since the 80's. With the global outsourcing, the drive to lower product costs, lower operating costs, and increase profit revenue, nuisance customers are frequently being sent packing. Churn within the industries now is mapped, for example, Customer A leaves me, goes to my competition, comes back to me after X amount of time. When they come back, I make more off them, then if they stayed the whole time, as my entry prices have now increased since they left.

Now, if your talking high end, high cost stuff, that's a different story. I have worked in that field as well, and I don't think I can once recall an unreasonable customer. Their expectations were high, and had certain demands, but, that was part of what we sold.

Many great minds have been debating this for a long time. Some point to how small businesses run customer service, (its usually better) but, then others point out that more small business fail then succeed. Costs are everything. If you don't make money off a customer, you don't want them, or their friends if they are same. The future I think, will be companies that cater to specific groups of people, with specific needs or wants.

[Tato]

@viper359 What you just described in the last two posts is just exactly what profit thirst corporations do. Cash thirsty companies attract/lure customers with low prices. Customers have the right to have expectation of customer service, otherwise just state upfront "We Just Want Your Money & we don't care of anything else - at all." I guess anyone would know that is not good for business, now to say you care but you don't that's deception.

One point you are totally right, these days are not the 80's anymore alright, never been easier to take one's business elsewhere and thanks to the 'social' platforms (a.k.a forums on steroids...) right or wrong good/bad customers messages are suddenly widespread...

[99semaj]

Heh heh...obviously the first post in this thread got deleted, so I can't really weigh in here, but I bet it was a doozy.

NitroDigital, if it's any consolation, I too was screened pretty thoroughly. it turns out they did it because I was travelling overseas when I created my online account, and the IP flagged in the system.

I'm just a regular white boy from Canada. Well, in fairness, I'm dual national with the UK as well. I didn't get too upset about it; I actually respected the due diligence. And for what its worth, I also have an export license from the US Government to access sensitive military aircraft specs...Blackhawk, F22, F18, F35, C17, Virginia class subs, the proposed shuttle replacement, you name it. Its no big deal. The 10th grade dropout in the warehouse has it too.

[bentoronto]

I find voip.ms pretty nice. Which is much more than I can say for the off-the-wall original poster.

Where does Mango get his patience?

Ben

[HDTV101]

VOIP.ms is a very good Mexican company!