Having just been involved in a lengthy, frustrating and (as yet) unresolved customer service request, today’s blog is all about customer support. I’m talking about practical support for technical issues here.
When you’re working away and encounter something that creates a humpback bridge in the smooth path of your progress, you just want it fixed immediately. If it can’t be navigated easily, you want to feel as though the supplier (and there is nearly always a supplier involved) cares and is on the case. I have just been on the website of the same supplier for 2 different clients where the same problem was encountered. This is annoying in the extreme. It is highly likely that the supplier is experiencing issues in which case they need to display a real-time notice to stop customers doing the “3 Ws”: wondering, worrying and wasting time. What’s really annoying is that the place to lodge any query, complaint or request for help was unfathomable from the main website. I had to LEAVE the site, google their customer support and access it by the back door – unforgiveable.
Here are 3 essentials to technically based customer support:
1 A person
2 Speed
3 Competence
That’s it.
We hungry consumers are happy to buy in to well-marketed technical advances but suppliers have to be accountable – and there IN PERSON to support and resolve things quickly. We do it so why can’t the really big companies?