Customer service done right, and done wrong

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My Australian career idol, Attila Ovari, has posted several blogs recently about customer service. You can read one here, and the other here.

 

 

You’ve maybe read my various rants on the subject. The local grocery store is – not to exaggerate – about as service-oriented as a federal prison. My old bank (whose name rhymes with “Bitizens”) was even worse. They were generally indifferent, and occasionally genuinely rude.

 

 

So I quit them, and took my two dollars and seventeen cents, and opened an account at TD Bank, which only recently came to Rhode Island.

 

 

It was like the transition from black-and-white to color in “The Wizard of Oz.” The staff at TD Bank are friendly! They hold the door for me, and greet me! They give me free pens, and even dog biscuits! (Well, not for me. They’re dog-friendly, in any case.) The tellers and managers at the downtown Providence location, where I go maybe twice a week, are friendly and chatty without being oppressive or stupid.

 

 

Also, I should add, their fee structure is much more client-friendly than that at Bitizens. Before our trip to France, Partner did some checking and found that the dollar-to-Euro exchange rate (including fee) was much better at my bank than at his (he still banks at Bitizens!), so he had me change some money for him there. Then my friend Tab found out the same thing, and had me change some dollars to Canadian currency for him.

 

 

Okay. Good customer service, and better rates, and lower fees.

 

 

So Partner comes out of Bitizens chuckling the other day. “The teller kept chatting me up,” he said. “He called me by my first name, which he got from my deposit slip. And then he said: ‘You might be getting a call later. They may want to ask you about my customer service.’”

 

 

We had a good laugh about that. So now Bitizens is worried about its customer service, and is trying to emulate my bank!

 

 

Except that, once again, they’ve got the formula wrong.

 

 

This is Partner speaking:

 

 

“I can hardly wait. I hope they call me. I’ll give the teller high marks for being very friendly and sociable. I will also tell them that, when we were in Connecticut last week, I was using an out-of-system ATM and accidentally hit the “Check My Balance” button. It gave me my balance, all right. It also charged me three dollars for the privilege.”

 

 

How much do you think that electronic transaction actually cost the banks in question? Some fraction of a penny?

 

 

Partner has vowed that, as soon as TD Bank opens up a bank in our neighborhood, he’s transferring his account.

 

 

Hear that, Bitizens?

 

 

(No, you probably don’t.)

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New glasses

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A couple of weeks ago, I took off my glasses at work to make a dramatic gesture, and the temple snapped off in my hand. This is the second time these particular frames have broken in just a few months, so I bounced right off to my funny little optician to get them fixed.


He is a silly little bunny. His prices are good, but he is not much of a businessman. Also, intellectually, he does not seem to be the most fully-inflated beach ball at the pool party. “They’ll be ready by Wednesday” usually means “Check back on Friday.” He gets dithery and confused easily. Every time I go to him, I swear I’ll never go to him again. Then he posts a new price list, and I think: Wow! That’s cheap! And I go back to him.


Anyway: “No problem,” he said. “I’ll order new frames for you.”  (This was on a Saturday.) “Check back on Wednesday.” (Translation: “Stop by next Saturday.”)


During the week, I made do with old pairs of glasses. My prescription changes dramatically from year to year; evidently my eyeballs mutate at random. Some of my old glasses are good for distance vision, some for close-up. I found I was reading the newspaper by taking off my (old) glasses altogether and holding it up to my eyeball, like a jeweler examining a precious stone.


Another week passed. I went to see Funny Optician. He spun in circles, excusing himself for not having fixed my glasses yet. It was the manufacturer’s fault; they hadn’t sent the replacement frames. He didn’t know what the problem was. (Did I mention that he has a high whiny voice with a really seriously advanced Rhode Island accent?) Come back Monday, maybe Tuesday.


I checked in on Monday. I found a sign that said CLOSED MONDAY.


Now I was ready to kill him.


I took the day off on Wednesday and went to see him again, carrying a polo mallet. Again he spun in circles. Then, suddenly, he circled back. “Hey!” he wheezed. “What about plastic?”


“What?” I said.


“Instead of metal frames,” he said. “Maybe they’d wear better for you. I could do those right now. These are tortoise. You don’t want tortoise. Are these brown or black? Can you tell? I got black here somewhere. Wait a minute –“


As he was jabbering, I thought: I need something new. I just turned fifty-five. I’ve been wearing metal frames for decades now. Maybe a little hipster action will be good for me. Also, he’s probably right; plastic will probably wear better than metal.


I left a few minutes later with a nice pair of plastic frames. I’d forgotten how intense! my most recently-updated prescription was; as I stepped out onto the street, I think I could see the past and future simultaneously.


Everyone says I look younger now.


So: my funny little optician has (inadvertently) given me the best fifty-fifth birthday present of all.

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Verizon FIOS

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We got an email about a month ago from our landlords, informing us that there would be a Verizon FIOS meet-and-greet in our apartment courtyard at the end of May.

 

 

Our longtime internet / phone / TV carrier (which began with C and ended with OX) had excellent customer service, but had been getting progressively more expensive over the past few years. So, we thought, why not go have some punch and pie, and hear what the nice FIOS man has to say?

 

 

As it turned out, we were pretty much the only people who turned up at the meet-and-greet. (I had a very small Italian cold-cuts sandwich.) It was hosted by a cute young salesman, who talked us into switching from C + OX to FIOS. (He also offered us a whole boatload of gift cards, which very much sweetened the deal for Partner and me. We love gift cards.)

 

 

The actual conversion happened about a week ago. Poor Partner: he was home alone when the Verizon installer came. It took the installer forty-five minutes to find the place where the cabling enters our apartment. (It was in my clothes closet, incidentally.) Then it took another four hours for the installer to set everything up.

 

 

Then it took us another three hours in the evening after the installer left to get everything up and working.

 

 

The process wasn’t perfect, but then: what is? I got the master account working, and then started creating email accounts. I bogged down for a while, but finally figured it out.

 

 

Conclusions:

 

 

·       The FIOS network is faster (slightly).

·       The TV service (especially in HD) is clearer and has less interference.

·       We get more features (like caller ID and voice mail) for less money (at least for the next two years).

·       I vaguely recollect that, ten years ago when we went from ATT to C+OX, we went through the same kind of hell week.

 

 

More than a week has passed. I’m getting pretty much the same amount of email I was getting before; everyone has found me, even some of the spammers. I’m getting used to typing my much longer (but very descriptive) email address. And did I mention how much faster the Net is?

 

 

Shop around, kids. Shop around.

 

 

There’s gift cards in them thar hills.

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Customer service: the flip side

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I have written before about bad customer service.  In my young-and-foolish days I used to put up with it, thinking that I was a poor humble sap and that the cashiers and tellers were treating me badly because I somehow deserved it.  As I’ve aged, however, I’ve gotten smarter and crankier.  I have actually made a couple of customer-service people burst into flames when I focus my anger onto them.

 

 

A TD Bank recently opened in downtown Providence.  I was curious, and went in for some casual transactions.  They have lollipops! They have dog biscuits! They open the door for you!  They’re almost invariably cheerful!  (I’ve seen one of the tellers looking a little melancholy once or twice, but she didn’t take out her bad feeling on me, and I felt sympathetic for her.)

 

 

So I decided to join the TD revolution.

 

 

I could not have done better.  The folks at my old bank (whose name begins with a CITI and ends with a ZENS) were snarky and unpleasant when I closed out my account. The customer-service representative (a football-hero type, beefy and bluff) tried to talk me out of my decision, until I pointed out to him that he’d kept me waiting for several minutes while he chatted and flirted with a couple of the bank’s other employees.  At this point he became rather chilly with me. 

 

 

I am deliriously happy with TD Bank.  They’re cheaper, for one thing; their fees are much lower than those at my previous bank.  And the staff are cheerful, and they actually make a point of being helpful.  If I see someone in the bank wearing a nametag, I can actually ask him/her a question, and he/she will actually answer it, fully and helpfully, with a smile. 

 

 

I think my head might explode with joy. 

 

 

Now: if they opened up a few more branches in Rhode Island – preferably up here on the East Side of Providence – my life would be complete.

 

 

(Can this be true? Can the world actually be getting better?)

 

 

(I doubt it.)

 

 

(But I’ll take whatever I can get.)

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Rocking the boat

 

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I was never one to rock the boat. 

 

 

 

So you order a bran muffin, and they give you blueberry.  Does it matter?  Don’t you like blueberry muffins?  (Well, not as much as bran muffins.  Besides, as I said recently, we all need the fiber.)  If you complained, how long would it take the waitress to rectify her mistake?  And would she spit on your bran muffin while “correcting her error”?

 

 

But sometimes it’s good, and refreshing, to blow one’s stack.

 

 

I ordered some cheese pizzas for an office party a while back. People were bringing their kids, so we wanted the pizza cut into child-sized pieces.  See?  Simple.  I even dug out a previous order and read it over the phone to the catering lady.  And when we picked it up –

 

 

Well, hm. 

 

 

They had it ready an hour early, so it had an extra-long time to cool down. 

 

 

They cut it in Jurassic Park-sized slices.

 

 

I ordered four pizzas; they gave me five.  In eight boxes.  Figure that out.

 

 

Last year they charged me $12 per pizza; this year, $25 apiece.  No explanation for the price increase.

 

 

I lost it at the catering lady.  I mostly lost it because she had the nerve to tell me I was getting an excellent deal.

 

 

I had to explain to her that, if I order a thing and get something else, it is not a good deal.  It is, in fact, a crappy deal.

 

 

I get all quotational when I get mad.  I found myself saying, apropos the botched order, “It is wrong from beginning to end.”  I will give you, dear reader, a gigantic slice of ice-cold cheese pizza if you know what work of literature that line comes from.  (No Googling, please!)

 

 

So you see?  I do rock the boat from time to time.

 

 

I’m sure it was very ineffective; I’m sure that catering lady will botch someone else’s order tomorrow. (I saw her in the store a while back. It took me a moment to recognize her, but she recognized me all right; she ran away from my vicinity like a cobra from a mongoose.)

 

 

I like being angry from time to time.  It's like that Chimney Sweeping Log that's advertised on TV.  Anger burns all the soot off my soul, and I feel much cleaner and clearer afterward, and far more serene.

 

 

Until someone messes up my pizza order again.

 

 

And then: KABOOM!

 

 

Grumpy old customers

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Bad customer service makes my head cave in.

 

 

I didn't used to be this way. For a long time I was very reluctant to make a scene in a public place.  With age, though, I hide my feelings less. Also, life with Partner (who is far more forthright than I am in expressing himself) has made me a little more, ahem, openly expressive.

 

So, for example, when supermarket cashiers get impatient and reach around to push the card-reader buttons for me (TOTAL $16.13 OK? YES / NO), I have been known to slap their hands away.

 

Also, I recall a smirky little coffee-shop employee who, when I asked for a pound of coffee to be ground for espresso, informed me that I didn't really want that. I don't really remember what happened after that – I think I blacked out – but I think I decapitated him.

 

Lately Partner and I have been mixing it up at our local health club. It's only been open for a couple of years, and it's still moderately shiny, but the staff are cheerful and inept. When equipment breaks down, they hang little OUT OF ORDER signs on it and get back to their important and difficult job of schmoozing and smiling. There's been a problem with the stationary bikes lately, and the evening manager gave Partner a lot of guff last week about how difficult it is to have these things repaired, blah blah blah.

 

We have, in order to show our appreciation for her help, been writing long descriptive essays about the place, and the staff, and sending them via email to the health club's corporate office.

 

Well, the equipment's not fixed yet, but the staff is now terrified of both of us.

 

Now that's progress.

 

 

 

 

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AppleWorld: Service with a snarl

 

 

I resolved several weeks ago that I wouldn't write about Apple anymore.  Then, this morning, there was this wonderful story on Good Morning America, and - well, when the topic comes to your doorstep gift-wrapped with a big pink bow on it, you just assume it's the will of the universe and go with it.

 

So anyway: this senior at Long Island University emails the Apple marketing / PR department for some info on their new releases, specifically the use of the iPad in academic settings.  They ignore her.  She writes again, and they keep ignoring her.  Finally one of her friends recommends that she write directly to Steve Jobs, because his email address is out there, and why not?  So she writes him, not expecting a reply, and . . .

 

Well.  Wow.  Some of the back-and-forth - especially the last few messages - are given here.  In any case, someone at Apple - Jobs himself? or a ringer? - decided to write back to the girl, basically telling her that her questions were irrelevant and she wasn't worth their time.  The climactic four-word email was from Jobs: "Please leave us alone."

 

I allow for a lot of license here.  Apple, and Jobs, haven't commented; they've given the issue their usual lofty silence.  And the student is obviously delighted that this has become a news story.  She's a journalism student, after all; she went after a story, and she got one, though it wasn't quite the story she expected.  But the fact remains that someone at Apple is answering Jobs's mail - and when I think of some of Jobs's other short and sweet put-downs, like "This isn't amateur hour" (also four words long, delivered only a few weeks ago in a public forum), I don't really have to stretch my credulity too far to believe that Stevie was having a bad day and decided to beat someone up to make himself feel better.  Especially given that the emails are, um, written in something like his characteristic idiom.

 

And I can't really see that the student did anything reprehensible.  Most companies have a customer-service manager sitting in a dingy office somewhere, whose  role is to talk to people on the phone, calm them down, cheer them up, and once in a while mail out a nicely-illustrated brochure about How We Love Our Customers.  

 

Evidently, however, this person was out on a Snapple break during the period when the above email exchanges took place.

 

James Surowiecki, in one of his excellent Financial Pages in a recent New Yorker, wrote about the general decline in customer service.  Among his other observations: companies like to talk about customer service, but they really don't like to provide it.  It's costly, and it slows down the sales process, and it's difficult to demonstrate that it really makes a bottom-line difference.  They pour a lot of money into advertising - trying to make sales, trying to reach first-time customers - but once you're in the door, they lose interest in you.  A few companies (Zappos.com is everyone's favorite example) pour a lot of energy into customer service, but they are demonstrably in the minority.  (If you want a prime example of really bad service, you should go to my local grocery store.  It's a miracle that I haven't actually killed any of the cashiers there yet.)

 

On the other hand: about a month ago, I called Cox - our cable provider - to have a new box installed in our bedroom.  The whole thing went off with surprising ease; the guy on the phone was perfectly nice, and the installer was very promptly on time the next day, and the whole installation took about twenty minutes.  (The guy on the phone did me the favor of finding a billing error in my favor that's been happening over the past year and a half; he made the mistake of giggling nervously about it, however, and I reflexively reached through the telephone receiver and began to rip his lungs out, and he was immediately apologetic and very nice about refunding the entire amount.)

 

So: customer service isn't dead.  Not completely.  It's in bad shape, but it's not dead.

 

Just don't write to Steve Jobs.  He's in no mood for it.  

 

P.S.: You can reach him at sjobs@apple.com.