More than twenty years ago I worked for a Greek ISP as a customer support technician. Those were the early days of the Internet, and the average customer had just upgraded their modems to 14.4 kbps speeds.
As a customer service rep, my job was to listen to the customer, understand their problem, and offer a solution. Everything was done over the phone – most often, the same phone line that their modem had to be connected to the Internet. Trouble-shooting had to be done accurately, efficiently, and promptly.
This type of situation needed a lot of patience on my behalf. I have many stories to share, but for what they are worth cumulatively, one thing is certain: the customer was always right.
As a customer service representative, my job was not to argue with the customer.
That was a no-no, per common sense and per training. We were there to help the customer resolve whatever issue they were facing. Even in 1994, competition in the ISP area in a small market such as Greece was fierce, with no fewer than 3 national ISPs with extended local, regional presence.
It seems that today, customer service reps aren’t trained enough with the same focus and mindset.
After explaining my issue to my cable provider representative, I received repetitive attempts at discounting the validity of my issue. Facing this argumentative attitude, I informed them of it and asked to be connected to a supervisor.
Sure enough, my issue was promptly resolved and I made sure I emphasized the importance and role of customer service, the keyword being “service.”
A customer service rep might take hundreds of calls a day, and they are sitting in a chair for hours, with a headset on and a computer screen in front. However, their skill set is mostly judged by their ability to communicate with the customer, not by how they are able to perform basic computer tasks.
Having great people skills is essential in any industry, and a company’s services are often degraded when their customer service representatives fail to pass the “service” test.
Amen. Same applies to all domain related companies. When my problem gets resolved with a single email and without any arguing then that is great service. When they argue with me and then do what I asked 3 days later then that is time wasted all around.