Category
Customer Service
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Customer Service
On Customer Service Part 7: Appearances are important
Make it look like you’re busy
I’ve worked in retail before, so I know that sometimes even though it looks like you aren’t doing anything to help customers, you may in fact be.
But speaking as a customer, I have to tell you that you should be aware of what your activity (or lack of activity) does to the customer’s level of frustration. If I’m standing in line for twenty minutes, that feels like an hour. And within[...]
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Customer Service
On Customer Service Part 6: Either You’re in Line, or You’re Not
Don’t get in line until you’re ready
Retail store lines are getting longer all the time. Economic crisis or not, people are still out shopping, as far as I can tell. Which is why it’s important for us all to remember the rules of checkout lines.
Rule number one: You’re either in the line, or you’re not.[...]
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Customer Service
On Customer Service Part 5: Never Make Me Wait to Pay You
03.23.09 | Permalink | 4 CommentsAt least wait until you have my money before you start disrespecting me
Back when the Home Depots, Wal-Marts, Targets, and other giant retailers were methodically destroying local businesses nationwide with the lure of lower prices and one-stop shopping, the MO was simple: come into a new town, build a giant store, hire a ton of local people part-time, and promise to improve the local economy. Then, after a few months, when all the small businesses in the area have closed up shop due to plummeting sales, lay off all but a skeleton crew and raise the prices[...]
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Customer Service
On Customer Service Part 4: I want to end it now
Don’t try to talk me out of it
I understand that companies really, really don’t want me to stop using their services. Attracting new customers is so much harder and expensive than holding on to current ones. But sometimes[...]
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Customer Service
On Customer Service Part 3: Physical Presence Trumps Technology
People in the store get helped before people on the phone.
This one seems obvious, but in today’s world of telephony everywhere, many employees seem to have forgotten that servicing a customer on the telephone while customers in the store are waiting is a big no-no.
I understand that stores tend to be understaffed. And I know people call stores constantly with some of the most inane questions imaginable.[...]
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Customer Service
On Customer Service Part 2: The Greeter
Don’t hire people to say hello. Hire people to help me.
There’s a rising trend in retail stores over the past few years to hire “greeters”—people whose sole job it is to say hello to customers as they enter the store. They may be able to answer a quick question, or point you in the right direction of a product or other employee who can help, but in most cases they are strictly instructed not to leave their posts by the door[...]
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Customer Service
On Customer Service Part 1: Admitting you Screwed up Would be a Good Start
Just admit the company screwed up, and we’ll move on from there
The biggest frustration for me whenever I dial into a customer support line or talk to a customer service rep in person is when the company refuses to make a simple admission of guilt and avoids any sense of remorse.
People make mistakes. Assembly lines produce duds every once in a while. That’s unavoidable. What is monumentally important is not that a company[...]
