We’ve all been through it and suffered the rage-inducing frustrations that result from it: bad customer service. In a day and age that’s been so keen to ensure that the customer is happy, it seems as though there’s been a shift of paradigm, lately. These days, companies’ mottoes have mutated to some debased code of conduct that’s more along the lines of the following: do as little as you can to sate the crybaby customers.
In today’s business world, we consumers have a tough job of it. First, there’re the pains of trying to get what we want from companies and, discovering that be nearly impossible, finding a company that offers something that will suffice. Then, of course, there’s the considerable task of making sure that the companies on which we rely don’t slap us around.
Heaven forfend we have troubles that a company needs to rectify, because the everyday customer simply isn’t prepared for that kind of battle. One must gird their proverbial loin with BS-resistant armor; wield a heavy Shield of Factual Evidence in one hand and the No-Nonsense Machete of Customer Rights and Justice in the other. Show no fear on your face, nor a tremble in your voice, because the CSRs of today are like sharks in the water—if they smell blood, they’ll seize upon it and bowl you over with their “company’s policies.”
Firstly, as has been touched upon in a previous blog entry, there are the mystifying and treacherous jungles of companies’ phone-trees. Not only can’t you get to the correct person to speak to with any real ease, you’re often bounced around from department to department by inept or ill-trained employees, wasting valuable chunks of your time. Of course, once you’ve hacked your way through the purposefully difficult phone-tree o’ doom and reached the correct department, you’re still only a quarter of the way to victory.
As an experienced upholder of Customer Rights and Justice, a disturbing fact I’ve come to realize is that companies have redefined ‘customer service representative’ jobs to be something more like the first troops to the line of skirmish. Their job is to field inane customer questions, give them information on minor things and, depending on the company, take payments or other, lesser tasks with which the other tiers can’t be bothered. They can’t actually help you, in most cases, except to give you the time honored 'runaround.' To sweeten the pot, they're usually rude and condescending. Therefore, you must fend them off with your Shield of Factual Evidence, wave your No-Nonsense Machete of Customer Rights and Justice and demand to speak to their superior.
After waiting interminably on hold with the spirit-crushing, mind-numbing muzak, their superior comes on the line and, once again, you must go through the Dance of Initial Contact, during which you must state your case, show them your evidence and hunker down for a long, drawn out round of fighting for your rights, as a customer. I could go on for days about this subject, as it's one with which I'm exceedingly familiar. Being that I have been and am in customer service, I pride myself in the fact that I provide the best, most helpful assistance I can to anyone who calls—and the fact that I work for a company who doesn't hogtie me as a CSR. It's also the reason that the so-called "customer service representatives" and the strictures that companies of today enforce on them infuriate me to no end.
Unfortunately, there just aren't that many companies left that provide actual, true customer service and have a real desire to please their clientèle. It makes for bad business, but they only care about the quote-unquote "bottom line." As long as they don't take too big a hit in the money they rake in, they won't bat an eye. We, as consumers—the people to whom these 'bad business' companies are supposed to be appealing—should be standing up and demanding to be treated fairly more regularly. If we did, perhaps the ripple-effect would get the message through to the people who have the power to work with things on a level that actually effects change.
In the mean time, the best I can do, as an old-school customer service representative, is provide others with knowledge on how to deal with bad CSRs and ensure that I never perpetrate the transgressions that bad CSRs do on a daily basis. To my great relief, where I work, the CSRs are friendly, listen to your problems and are eager to assist in resolving those problems in every conceivable way possible. If only the other companies of the world would catch up!
Listed in no particular order, the links below provide access to tips for CSRs and examples of bad customer service. Unfortunately, I've yet to find anything that outlines aid for customers dealing with bad customer service. Everything I've been able to dig up has been written to appeal to people who are in management positions over CSRs or to CSRs, themselves. However, take the examples given and know that they're talking points you, as a consumer, may address with a CSR and/or their superior, should they happen to you.
Helpful Links:
Did you ever feel like you were talking to a tree – a phone tree?? Here’s the way it went for me this morning.
I’ve been following a couple of interesting forum threads recently on real conversations with customers. Then I took a call from a nice gentleman who described the EXACT same scenario as one of the posts. 
I wanted to share an email I got from a production manager…
There’s a lot of talk these days on the predicted shortage of skilled production workers. So I found it interested when a young man going to college for print production shared some real fears about working in our industry.