If you pick up any business magazine these days, one word can be found on cover pages, within special sections and in most articles. That word is Innovation. You know what I mean if you pick up Fortune or Business Week. I’m sure Business 2.0 also talks about that as well, though I had to cancel my subscription this past month (it’s a great magazine, though I just don’t have time these days to read many mags).
Anyway, I am not saying that innovation is not important. Au contraire, I like to think that I have made a career out of being creative and coming up with - and following through those ideas - a ”Crazy Idea of the Day” every day. Basically, a new way to innovate, change things, shake things up. I apologize about the shameless promo, but it’s true.
But these days, while innovation is the buzzword du jour, many companies seem to forget about all of the other things that are equally important. Today, we’ll talk a bit about Service.
When I began writing ages ago, I promised myself never to use my platform to bitch and complain about the poor service I got from a company. I won’t start today. But what I will do is use an example I went through yesterday to show how much some companies lack common sense when it comes to the service they provide, or lack thereof.
The company in question shall remain nameless (yeah, right) cause I do not like to bash companies unfairly, though this one deserves to be bashed for the lunacy they put me through yesterday.
Here’s the story: My super-duper all-in-one printer, copier and fax (yeah, you can narrow down your picks already, I know) has had a problem since I bought it. Essentially, all outgoing faxes get to the recipient with a massive black box on it, shriking the content of the fax by 50% and making it impossible for the recipient to read it. If you are sending out a big black rectangle via fax, this would not be a problem. But since I rarely send those puppy out and actually have the audacity to expect my recipient to be able to read the fax, this means that my fax is essentially useless. It has been since Day 1, but every time I have called since I bought, the company “was experienced high call volumes,” so I never got around to it.
We run what you would call a small and medium sized company at WatchMojo.com, you know, exactly the kind of firm that technology companies should target, because once they win us over, they have a lifelong customer as we grow. And when a tech or new media firm grows, it goes from 1 machine to thousands in the span of a few years. That’s the kind of growth that companies need, especially publicly traded ones (I know, you can narrow down the company even more).
It should be stated that for 18 months, I worked in a call center for the largest financial company in the country, I was a pretty darn good employee, so I know a thing or two about a) call centers, b) call center employees and c) the frustration from customers who call into them. I know, more shameless promo, I am sorry. But keep reading, it’s worth it.
Yesterday, I had to call said company to find out why my fax was acting like that. It’s a laserjet product, not a color printer, yet for some reason, every time I would call in and prompt the automated system for “laserjet printers,” I would get routed to the colored printer department. What this means is that after waiting 5, 10 or 15 minutes and becoming impatient and irate, customers are told:
“Sorry, even though I work for the same company and can help you on colored printers, I don’t know ‘you know what’ about regular black and white laser printers.”
“Do you know you are experiencing this problem with your automated system,” I asked.
“Of course,” I was told. “We’re working on it.” Great, can’t wait for y’all to start working on my printers, methought.
Forget the fact that I am talking to someone in Calcutta. I do not mind that. I really don’t. That makes sense to me because the employee in Calcutta probably appreciates their job more anyway, I know that is so not politically correct to say, but it’s my opinion.
As I was waiting to get transferred to the right department, I thought: first off, as a general rule, dividing up your call center reps by product is not really smart. It means reps who handle product 1 might be taking more calls than reps who handle product 2 even if there are more calls coming in for product 2. I know, I know, call centers analyze call volume by product line. That’s BS. I worked in call centers long enough to know that call centers work in the “do enough to avoid the dam from crashing” mindset.
All to say, dividing your reps by products is not smart because it means that your training costs will be higher over time. Last but least, since most of the problems involve troubleshooting, this means that one rep who gains experience cannot deploy it over all product lines etc. Of course, I am not here to tell you how to run your business, but the fact that a consumer is telling you he won’t buy your products in the future should make you listen.
All to say, after spending all morning on this matter and not fixing the problem, the company was kind enough to offer sending me a replacement overnight, fixing my machine and then sending me my machine back when it’s fixed (assuming it’s fixed). This would be good, only problem is that the price they quoted me turned out to be wrong… that took some more time to clarify, further frustrating me.
Of course, maybe if the rep would handle all products, he would go through more of the pricing involved and not misquote prices, but hey, now I am being fastitious.
If you have been reading thus far, great. Here’s the best part: the company sent me - via email - a form to fill out. They asked me to print and fax back the form.
Mind you, 99% of the companies in the world have more than one printer and more than one fax machine. But as a startup with one printer in the office, I asked, “can I simply email them back the info?”
No, I was told, cause this company, whose name is synonymous with printers (I know, you should start to know who this company is by now) and who was the 9th company to register a url (ever! click here to see the entire list and find out who the company is) does not accept emails from consumers.
Does not accept emails?
Are you kidding me?
Then and there, I was going to toss out my printer outside of my window.
When I worked in the call center, from 1999-2001, my employer too did not accept emails. That was ludicrous then, but it was 1999, after all. For a technology company’s call center not to accept emails in 2006 is as backwards as backwards can get.
Then and there, I decided that indeed, we needed more printers and fax machines at our offices, but guess what, at it stands right now, guess whose product it won’t be.
Subscribe:
July 3rd, 2006 at 1:16 pm
[…] But I wanted to update you on my little saga with HP. For some background, click here. […]
July 8th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
[…] What’s the context? Read on. Like I’ve written in the past, I’m getting a bit tired of all of the hype surrounding “innovation.” Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always emphasized creativity and innovation to the point that I left my old gig cause my then boss didn’t understand that you can’t put innovative and creative people in a box and tell them to operate within one. But, to see Business Week and Fortune go on and on about innovation is trite. The reason is simple: Innovation helps you get new clients, it also helps you solve problems at a lower cost. But, when it comes to retaining problems, you need service mainly, not innovation. Innovation helps, but service counts most. To an existing client, innovation is simply progression. Innovation is also relative. To someone who has the iPod Shuffle, the iPod Nano is not innovative as much as it is a simple extention, or progression. To someone who does not have either, the iPod is revolutionary. All factors being equal, the iPod Shuffle owner will buy the iPod Nano. If that iPod breaks though, and the service the client gets is inadequate, he will drop the Apple product for a competitor’s product. In this basic example, it is service that counts more than innovation. When it comes to retaining clients and solving their problems, you need to be creative and thus innovate. More importantly, you need to fix the problem fast. I worked at a bank for 18 months and decided to leave because I wanted to emphasize what I called “first call problem resolution.” In other words, a client calls the customer service department, and the customer service rep (CSR) must fix the problem then and there, no matter how long it takes. Instead of encouraging reps to take, say 25 calls per hour, encourage them to take 10 calls per hour but at least ensure that that caller does not call again over the same problem. I was trying to get colleagues to do that, obviously the bank disagreed. My “score” was 149 on 100, I argued that emphasizinig first call problem resolution not only generated goodwill but still allowed me to be more productive (averaging 1.49 times the average employee’s productivity). I thought that spoke for itself, they didn’t. I left. End of that story. While I was no longer a CSR after that, I remained a client calling into service centers. To this day, it baffles me that companies go out of their way to alienate clients and, well, act retarded. In the past month, I’ve decided to never again buy products from Daimler Chrysler, Hewlett Packard and McAfee because all three have, in my personal opinion, proved to be retarded companies (like most large companies in fact). Life is short, there’s too much competition for me to put up with their nonsense. But what is important to note is that I will persist to follow up until I get what I believe is right and fair… and once I do, I will not buy from them anymore. Under this scenario, they lose three times over. That’s retarded. They lose once because instead of having one employee fix the problem on the spot, they have me the client go through 3-10 employees over 1-4 times. That’s a waste of resources. They lose twice because they eventually will see that in these instances, the client is right and what I am asking for is reasonable and common sense. Whether it’s a replacement cost, a makegood etc., it costs them additional resources. They lose three times because once this is done, I (you, he, any client…) will be reluctant to do business with them in the future. How could that not be retarded? How could large companies avoid being retarded? Well, it’s simple. In life, shit happens. Mistakes get made, people forget things. But when a client calls you, understand: a) he does not want to call you and b) he isn’t trying to get something for nothing, c) he is simply trying to fix something that he believes you did wrong. And in all likelihood, you did do something wrong. So, if you did something wrong, accept that you will lose in the above-mentioned scenario 2, but why lose in the scenario 1 and 3 as well? That will cost you much more. Give the client what they want (so long as they are not being retarded), it will cost you less in labor if you avoid step 1 and you will retain a client in step 3, which is key to growing your business in the long term. And for the love of all things holy, don’t ask the client if “there is anything else you can help them with” - especially when you didn’t help with the thing they called you about, now that’s retarded. July 08th 2006 Posted to Uncategorized […]
October 25th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
[…] Of course, meshing business with writing makes sense, and sometimes, some readers welcome getting an insight into the every day obstacles of building a business: from mundane tasks like replacing a crappy printer, to taking on and soundily defeating an unfair lawsuit from none other than News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media’s IGN subsidiary. […]
October 27th, 2006 at 11:48 am
[…] Management lesson 101: HP sort of redeemeded itself to at least be in the running for our business in the future, but they could have locked it for good had they acted long term. Assuming you need more details, read more here and here. […]