Social Tweetle: All Hold Hands and Sing Kumbaya Customer Service

Group Hug

Poor Customer Service - or what the customer perceives as unsatisfactory, often creates an irate customer. With access to online ranting across Twitter, Social Smack, Facebook, Reddit, Groubal, etc etc - a disgruntled customer's dissatisfaction can easily go viral. Some even write songs about on YouTube. I am not that talented. I can only grit my teeth and tremble.

United Breaks Guitars song

HOW COULD I SING MY SONG TO GET ATTENTION?

I put some thought into how I had handled my recent situation, with my cell phone provider and change in policy now disallowing a hardware upgrade. Could it be that I, Goddess of Customer Service and Engagement, in theland of happiness - was a BAD CUSTOMER?
How could this be?

I received a Tweet from @RHBDaveHowlett - Real Human Being:

#expedia take note RT @darleenw: “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.! Bill Gates

RHB - Real Human Being at RHBNation, philosophy is a language of likeability that allows us to break through self-imposed barriers and achieve personal and business success. Dave teaches how to get into "third-gear" rather than "first-gear or second-gear" with our attitudes and actions.

Be the Amazing Gal or Good Guy.

I recently attended a lecture by Dave - Breaking Down Silos - and the main take away was "I didn't do it for the wave". Do the right thing, in "third-gear" - not to get the wave but to be a better person.

hmmm ...

I had to admit that I contributed to the recent Customer Service call going bad, and ending in frustration. I had been the IRATE CUSTOMER!

I had NOT been the Goddess-Customer and did not act in "third-gear". Whoa Nelly.

NEXT STEPS

I had a discussion with the Twitter Agent, and my recent blog post stating my displeasure of not being heard by Customer Service was amended to include accurately that in the end I had been heard. I did note that I was pleased with fact my displeasure of the policy change had been passed on to management. I felt validated and that the Twitter Agent was using situation to learn.

The one thing missing was the follow-up call from a manager.

Note: I had been promised by the Telephone Agent that I would receive call-back within 2 - 4 hours.

It was now well past.

IS THIS THE END?

I thought on fact that maybe I was expecting a wave? NO! I was the waver. I had not yet been let in to be able to provide a wave. I still deserved a discussion with the manager. BUT, I decided I would wait until end of week
- 2 more days.

MANAGER CALLED!

Yes, she called. It was almost 48 hours after promised call-back - BUT she did call!

Now this was my chance to get things right. I adopted my Goddess-Customer role and expressed my displeasure for the policy change, AND addressed the fact that not only was I the customer blindsided, but so was all of the Customer Service team. I then asked if there was anything she could possibly do to bypass this change, since it was changed on the eve of our contract being eligible for a hardware upgrade. She allowed! We got the upgrade along with order placed for new Blackberry to be shipped ASAP. I thanked her for her time and solution.

We held hands and sang Kumbaya. Group Hug!

CLOSURE

To complete my acting in 'third-gear' and Goddess-Customer, I reconnected with the Twitter Agent. I informed him that I had received call-back from Manager and all was resolved satisfactorily.

I thanked him.

Kumbaya. Hug. Hug.

MORALE OF THE STORY:

It is NOT ONLY the responsibility of Customer Service people to do the right thing.
It is the responsibility of all to do the right thing - be a better person.

Be the Goddess, Amazing Gal or Good Guy!

Be a Good Customer.

Create Collaboratively - Amazing Customer Experience.