It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does. When customer service for a major company fixes something for you promptly, courteously and thoroughly, you are surprised. Admit it.
Year after year of dealing with electronic voice systems, people who can’t answer your questions and just plain lack of enthusiasm in representatives leads you to think that no company really cares about their customers. They’ll throw you into a queue and get to you when they can.
So it’s marvelous when the opposite happens: Someone takes care of you. They find an error in your favor. Your account gets corrected. The company apologizes. Ha, you can’t expect all of that, but some of this actually happened to our family recently.
In December, while doing Christmas shopping, I made a purchase at Barnes & Noble. I think two thin books were purchased. I plopped the receipt down in our pile when I got home and stopped thinking about it.
My wife Debbie does our family books, and checking this out, found that we had been billed for approximately $50 on our $20-something purchase. She asked me what I bought. I couldn’t remember anything beyond the two small books, which were listed on our receipt, along with the total.
She began the laborious electronic and phone-calling process to find someone to eradicate the charges and set our life in order. There is no need to go into those details. But she had to be wondering, “I’ve been balancing books for 20+ years of marriage and finally it means something. There was an error and I’m right. We’re going to get money back because of all that hard bookkeeping work.”
It is vindication. It made her feel great, I’m sure, a reflection on the importance of checking details and ensuring they are accurate and someone out there isn’t cheating you.
I don’t know how long the reconciliation took. She sent me the email when it was resolved. The credit card company wrote about their pleasure in informing us that the transaction was resolved in our favor and we were owed $24.60.
Debbie wrote, “Wow – All that time spent reconciling everything and I saved us $25 – cool! Now to spend another 40 hours to do the same.”
What’s sad about this is we shouldn’t have to think this way. Customer service should work EVERY TIME. There should be no gaps. You call someone, you get a prompt answer and have your questions answered, and the proper solution is provided. End of call. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be about?
If you are like our family, this does not happen to you. Pick a provider of insurance, medical care, or automotive service and when is the last time you got a live voice and were off the phone in fewer than five minutes?
Beyond the time and frustration we all so frequently face, this is also one of the few times I remember something every being resolved in my favor. That’s worth marking down on the calendar as a victory, and a day for annual celebration. “January 10, 2015, go out to dinner with Deb and order $24.60 worth of food to commemorate customer service victory last year.” There, it’s written down on this year’s calendar so I transfer it to 2015 when we get those calendars in December.
Victories are short-lived. We’ll move on, and will find something else to grouse about in the weeks and months ahead.
But for now, we will savor this one, pull out a twenty dollar bill and five dollar bill and stroke them gently, realizing just how precious they are, recognizing someone else parted with them to acknowledge their mistake. After we put the bills back in the wallet, it’s on to the next challenge: Battling the medical insurance company for the $194 bill that came last week after all expenses were supposed to be covered on recent surgery. You can bet that’s going to be fun.
Year after year of dealing with electronic voice systems, people who can’t answer your questions and just plain lack of enthusiasm in representatives leads you to think that no company really cares about their customers. They’ll throw you into a queue and get to you when they can.
So it’s marvelous when the opposite happens: Someone takes care of you. They find an error in your favor. Your account gets corrected. The company apologizes. Ha, you can’t expect all of that, but some of this actually happened to our family recently.
In December, while doing Christmas shopping, I made a purchase at Barnes & Noble. I think two thin books were purchased. I plopped the receipt down in our pile when I got home and stopped thinking about it.
My wife Debbie does our family books, and checking this out, found that we had been billed for approximately $50 on our $20-something purchase. She asked me what I bought. I couldn’t remember anything beyond the two small books, which were listed on our receipt, along with the total.
She began the laborious electronic and phone-calling process to find someone to eradicate the charges and set our life in order. There is no need to go into those details. But she had to be wondering, “I’ve been balancing books for 20+ years of marriage and finally it means something. There was an error and I’m right. We’re going to get money back because of all that hard bookkeeping work.”
It is vindication. It made her feel great, I’m sure, a reflection on the importance of checking details and ensuring they are accurate and someone out there isn’t cheating you.
I don’t know how long the reconciliation took. She sent me the email when it was resolved. The credit card company wrote about their pleasure in informing us that the transaction was resolved in our favor and we were owed $24.60.
Debbie wrote, “Wow – All that time spent reconciling everything and I saved us $25 – cool! Now to spend another 40 hours to do the same.”
What’s sad about this is we shouldn’t have to think this way. Customer service should work EVERY TIME. There should be no gaps. You call someone, you get a prompt answer and have your questions answered, and the proper solution is provided. End of call. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be about?
If you are like our family, this does not happen to you. Pick a provider of insurance, medical care, or automotive service and when is the last time you got a live voice and were off the phone in fewer than five minutes?
Beyond the time and frustration we all so frequently face, this is also one of the few times I remember something every being resolved in my favor. That’s worth marking down on the calendar as a victory, and a day for annual celebration. “January 10, 2015, go out to dinner with Deb and order $24.60 worth of food to commemorate customer service victory last year.” There, it’s written down on this year’s calendar so I transfer it to 2015 when we get those calendars in December.
Victories are short-lived. We’ll move on, and will find something else to grouse about in the weeks and months ahead.
But for now, we will savor this one, pull out a twenty dollar bill and five dollar bill and stroke them gently, realizing just how precious they are, recognizing someone else parted with them to acknowledge their mistake. After we put the bills back in the wallet, it’s on to the next challenge: Battling the medical insurance company for the $194 bill that came last week after all expenses were supposed to be covered on recent surgery. You can bet that’s going to be fun.