I talk a good bit about customer’s intent in my new book, “Succeeding with Difficult Customers”. It is surprising to me that so many companies, large and small, seem to ignore this important caveat to customer relations.
Here are two KEY ‘intents’ of customers:
Get something done
Get something done NOW!
So why do we have to wade through inane telephone mazes?
Here are a few pet peeves that reflect the above ‘intents’:
Companies that ask for and have you key in a good bit of information, then when you finally get to a customer service representative (after many minutes of frustration) the real person ask you for ALL the same information again. So what happened to all the information you just provided? Is it off wandering around cyberspace forever? Or some strange telephone heaven?
Another is when the phone system goes through the usual rigamarole of asking this and that, which you either answer (I personally don’t like talking to a computer) or key in, and none of it really matters because you know you’re going to end up with the customer service representative anyway. THEN you start all over. PLUS if you push ‘0’ for operator it no longer takes you there — you get a message that says something to the effect that they won’t give you to a real person until they know what you want. Arrrggggh. I KNOW what I want, a real person!
These same problems occur when you are in a store, only this is with real people. Getting shuffled from one person to another who can’t help does not put a good feeling in a customer’s stomach. This happened to me recently at a major hardware retailer — I finally just walked out of the store after four people, no answer, and twenty minutes of my time.
A good part of my nook is about Business’ responsibilities. I challenge all CEO’s and VPs to get out here and TRY their systems and interact as a customer with their personnel. Ouch!
Best,
Joe Koob