Support Departments and Happy customers.

I Have a view on a support department in companies and thought it was worth sharing this with you.  

If the Customer is not happy then it is an issue. 

Recently, I had a new internet line put into my house.  Won’t say which company.  And the performance is terrible.  In fact, My Iphone on 3g has better performance than the internet connection in the house.   

This company calls me 2 weeks after installation, as part of the usual customer service routine, and asks me the standard questions.  One of these is about performance, and I say it is terrible, and that really if it does not improve then why would I bother having it.

So, he directs me to their speed test web site, which I browse and go to.  I run through their test. And low and behold the result comes back as being really good.  Not just average, but an above average connection.

I disagree with the test, and tell the representative this.  If the test shows how fast my internet connection is then why does it run so slow. 

We then went into a circular argument for the next 5 minutes.

I say it is terrible

He says that it is a good connection.

In the end, I realised the absurdity of the conversation and told him to move on to his next victim of disappointment, like a hyena goes from one dead carcass to another just seeing if there is anything left to gnaw on.

My issue is that the problem still exists.  But the internet supplier says there is no problem from their end. Customer unhappy;  Supplier happy as they have proven that I was wrong. 

This should not occur.  I believe that a customer service issue exists based upon one reason and one reason alone.  The customer is not happy.

For whatever reason, it does not matter whether it is our fault or theirs.  The customer is unhappy, and thinks it is due to us.  So, dive in, work out what is wrong and hopefully provide a solution. 

And the reasons do not have to be exactly product related.  It could be about a bill, the lunch served, they have just broken up with their boyfriend, whatever.  It does not matter.  See if it can be fixed up.  And if it can’t then at least we did our best.

We try our best to make you happy.  Does not always work, but we try our best.