Mobile Marketing & Online Customer Getting Solutions

Customer Service implosion. 39 mins and 55 seconds wasted.

I recently moved because of my granddad’s death. My family’s putting the house on the market. I’ve been paying the bills there because he wanted to keep the house while he was alive.

So I had to move my Time Warner Internet service. I’ve been a loyal customer with them for over 10 years.

3 Incredible Failures
(expected of Mickey Mouse operations but not Time Warner a Fortune 500)

1. They charged me $40 to move my service. I pay these guys every month and they’re going to charge me to keep paying them every month. Are you kidding me?

Epic fail. Horrible customer service.

2. I’m upgrading to their extreme bandwidth plan.

This puts an extra $25 per month in their pocket. It requires a different modem.

They expected me to spend my time and gas money to come pick up the modem. Or I could pay $5 shipping.

I negotiated for them to waive this fee.

But it still took my time and was an insult so another epic fail.

3. They send me the wrong modem.

Their mistake. Me pay the bill? They were going to charge me an additional $5 shipping to send me the correct modem.

On top of that they demanded I spend my valuable time and gas money to drive the incorrect modem they mistakenly sent me to one of their service centers.

Can you believe the nerve?

Or I had the option to just pay the bill out-of-pocket for FedEx to come pick up the modem.

Supreme Gargantuan Epic Monstrosity Fail.

Treating Loyal Customers

As compensation for my loyalty and the fact it was their mistake I suggested to balance the scales they comp me only 1 month of the extreme service.

After putting me on hold for what seemed like an eternity the lady comes back. She snarls “My manager won’t do that.” Pay for our mistake basically.

After asking to speak with the manager she puts me on hold for what seems like another eternity. My frustration crescendos. I hang up pissed off.

Time Warner is a huge company.

Shouldn’t they have better customer service than this?

You can leave your gripes in the comments below.

Your Takeaway

But the point of this post was to keep your customer’s perspective in mind. Having good customer service is expected. Use common sense in your own business.

And for all that is holy take the best care of customers who pay you monthly and have been with you for many years. These are the top 20% of your customers responsible for 80% of your profits.

They’re your gold. When they’re upset your business tanks.

Time Warner failure. Time Warner Customer Service sucks. (in case they have alerts monitoring their brand they’ll see this. Don’t think they’ll remedy it but who knows.)

One of the biggest things is managing your brand.

Arguably bigger is managing your employees effectively.

How do you get more than 1 hour of productive work out of your employees each day?

The national average is 1 hour productivity per 8 hour shift.

A few things which help you better manage your employees and brand are:

1. hire people who fit your culture not just slick talkers or fancy resume pushers

2. consumer research is vital — tailor your products based on what this research reveals

3. accountability — a directly responsible individual for each task

4. execution trumps ideas

5. recognition — never underestimate the power of recognizing your talented people and giving awards for major accomplishments

Here’s more from entrepreneur: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/222853

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From Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make BIG Things Happen by David Novak, chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut:

* Create a recognition culture. Novak was once horrified to find a 30-year company executive who only heard how great people thought his contributions were a few weeks before his retirement. Now, Yum! managers all over the world give out unique recognition awards, from miniature Taj Mahal statues to rubber chickens.

* To lead people and achieve big goals, ask three questions: What’s the single biggest thing you can imagine that will grow your business or change your life? Who do you need to affect, influence or take with you to be successful? What prescriptions, habits or beliefs of this target audience do you need to build, change or reinforce to reach your goal?

”

How would you describe your management style? Are you giving out recognition regularly? Do you get bogged down in paralysis of analysis?

Leave your comments below because I promise to respond to them.