I received a bill in the mail last week; an early termination fee for something I had not terminated early. I made a phone call tonight to the company and surprisingly, a familiar voice was waiting for me when I was done rocking out to the hold music. But why was the voice familiar?
I explained my situation and was put on hold while my rep looked into the situation.
When he came back on the phone with my answer (error, I don’t need to pay anything, sorry about that) he also told me that he’s helped me every time I’ve called since September 2011. By the tone of his voice I think he was as amused by the coincidence as I was. Clearly this wasn’t company policy (how could it be, i dialed a general number!) I should have asked how many people work there, but seriously, what are the odds?
So this got me thinking – How much more valuable would a company be to me if I was assigned a specific rep that I would deal with throughout my whole experience with that company? (Short answer? A LOT more valuable.)
I felt confident that he could help because he sounded familiar. In other areas of life and business, familiarity usually helps my confidence in a company or service. I know that my financial guy is going to take good care of me because we’ve built a rapport, I know my questions will get answered, and we know how the other one works. My loyalty is also given more freely to businesses where I am not just a number because the people I deal with aren’t just numbers.
Imagine, if you will, what your opinion of, or experience with Verizon (or Comcast, etc) would be if you had a specific person assigned to your “case” – your business, your relationship for the time you were with that company?
You’d have reps who knew your case, understood the nuances of your issue(s), and had a more vested interest in getting things right. Alternatively, I would feel less stressed, annoyed, and less like I was wasting my money when I am passed around to different reps, never to speak to the same one twice, some even giving differing information.
Now, when we talk libraries – this is easy when you are at a local branch, say, and you see the same folks working when you go in. But what kind of member loyalty things do you experience? Does the librarian say, “hey, how’d your project go?” or do they treat you like they’ve never seen you before? (Are they trained to try to remember their customers and make a personal connection? What kinds of other customer loyalty things do they do, if anything?)
With virtual services this is a whole other ball of wax. We have repeat customers, sure – and some come in multiple times in the same hour so the same librarians help them – but there’s really no option for relationship building. Even fake relationship building – our software doesn’t show you the questions previously asked by that customer (if they’re not anonymous) so you can’t pretend like you’ve seen this customer before (“I see that you asked about a paper last week – did you get your grade back yet?”).
It is super important to build relationships with your customers. I, for one, would LOVE IT if I knew that every time I had to call Verizon for billing I could talk to Jen (names made up), or if I needed tech support I’d call Rick. I’d know that I wouldn’t have to explain my situation over and over again (sometimes multiple times to multiple people on the same call) and that they’d pay attention to the notes in my file and remember they had spoken with me before, “Hi Julie! Let’s see if we can fix this for you.”
Another benefit (in the long run) is that if your assigned rep sucked or you had a bad rapport with them, in theory, you’d request a new rep. This would make it VERY EASY for a company to weed out the worst of their folks and make sure that all their reps were providing phenomenal service. Sure, takes some time, requires good hiring and good training, but I think in the long run, we’d all benefit. (And it might go a long way in fixing some seriously damaged corporate customer service images. I’m looking at you, Verizon and Comcast.)
Now, at this rate, I’d be amused but not surprised if when I call this particular company again at renewal time that I get the same rep I’ve been getting since Sept 2011, but if I did, I know I’d get quality service and a good laugh or two.
So… relationship building and “assigned” reps – what’s your take?
You’ve really hit what should be a “customer service basic” here–building and sustaining relationships–and your article reminds me why I stay with certain vendors (e.g., Credo for my long-distance phone service). I know the customer service reps are working from a script, but I still feel wonderfully welcomed and coddled whenever I call and the conversation begins with the rep obviously having access to my service records so he or she can say “We know you’ve been with us for (fill in the blank) years, and we appreciate your loyalty. What can I do for you today?” The fact that we’re working in an onsite-online (blended) world doesn’t in any way remove the competitive edge we have through the simple act of building relationships–personal and company-wide when we’re representing an employer to the world.
Paul – Thanks for your comments! Having a good customer relationship management system (and the trained staff) to be able to carry that personal touch throughout any interactions the customer has with a company (regardless of department or mode) is CRUCIAL! and one i feel most companies either fail epically at or could do just a little better.
This week has been full of pissed-off calls and emails to various companies about various things and you’re spot on with this. One of my still-outstanding issues is with Verizon about the DSL service I had to cancel due to moving (they’re trying to charge me an “early termination fee” and I’m fairly certain I wasn’t even on a contract) and one of the things that has made the situation even more frustrating for me is that I can never call them without being transferred back and forth at least three times –explaining each time what the problem is, of course, because apparently they don’t take notes or something–before I talk to someone who is even remotely able to help me and ARGH. (I’m still waiting to hear back from them about their “research” into the issue… they said I should get an email by today. I fully expect to have to call again next week–no phone hours over the weekend, and no email or chat support at all–and explain my issue at least three more times…)
Having a particular person–or just a direct number without all the computer “press 1 if…” prompts–would make this SO much easier. I’d even understand that one particular person wouldn’t know everything, so they may have to ask another person/department and get back to me, and I’d be totally okay with that because I’d know exactly who to call if it’s been several days without a response!
Just… oy. So many companies are Doing It Wrong as far as customer service goes, and it’s so frustrating because it makes people think all customer service (even libraries!) is like that. But mostly this post struck a nerve because I’ve had a bad week from the customer side of several customer service interactions.
C- I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had to deal with so many frustrations along these lines. I wish you the very best in sorting it out!! Thanks for taking the time to comment!
I’ve also noticed that patrons want to have relationships with us. But I know that I can’t guarantee the availability of any of our 200 odd staff, because each person gives a little bit each week.
Our compromise is to encourage librarians to post profiles of themselves, http://www.answerland.org/librarians. A mini-profile (and if the librarian allows, with a link to the main one), will show up while the patron is chatting with us (screenshots at http://www.answerland.org/blog/2012/10/chat-live-answerlandorg). I can’t wait to take this live.
So this is perhaps some “fake relationship building” on the patron end. They get to know us, but we don’t get to know them any better. [ aside: we do get plenty of comments thanking librarians by name, and naming other librarians as favorites … ]
This isn’t too far off from what happens in person – patrons recognize us much more than we recognize them. It also is part of a larger trend of exposing librarians as people: our library posts a staff profile on the fb now and then, and they always get a ton of likes; libraries using LibGuides, often post profile photos of themselves.
And this all builds into the larger trend of relationships – there is even an effort here to ask patrons to tell us what they think of our readers’ advisory suggestions.
Anyway, our limited usability testing showed that patrons liked this feature. They would also like to choose who to chat with. It’s not a surprise, and it’s not something I think I can implement well right now, but it confirms what you are saying here.