Thinking About Customer Service

I had an interesting customer service experience this week.  I have my mother's power of attorney, and I am managing her finances for her.  Since she lives in Michigan and I live in Minnesota, managing her finances occasionally becomes problematic.

Last August I closed her checking account and opened a new one for her, since she had been the victim of identity theft and unauthorized charges were being made to her account.  This required me to change several automatic payment withdrawals from her old account to her new one.  This all seemed to be working well, so I closed the original account.

Then I received a bill from one company, which I took to mean that the automatic payment form had not been accepted.  When I called the company, after some time in voice-mail jail, I finally got to a service representative, who told me I would have to resubmit all of the documentation.  Since this involved getting my mother's signature on several documents, I was feeling mighty frustrated. 

Last night I got a call from the company asking me to take a phone survey about their services.  I was happy to answer the survey, giving responses like "very unhappy" or "completely unsatisfied."  Boy, did that feel good.

Today, I got a voice mail from a customer service representative from the same company, asking me to call her back so she could help me resolve the problem.  Well, I thought, why not?  When I called the number she left, I got back into voice-mail jail, where I hung out for about 20 minutes, and then I gave up.  Grumpy again!  I thought, well, I'll just send in all the documents again.

Then, this afternoon, I got another call from the same customer service representative.  Within five minutes, she found that they did indeed have the correct document on file, that the automatic withdrawals had been working, and that my mom had two month's credit on her account, since I had paid it twice.  This customer service agent, Amy, was diligent in calling me twice, efficient in correcting the problem, and helpful in offering to send me some other information I will need.  All is well.  I told Amy that I would be happy to answer the company survey again, and that this time I would be much more complimentary about their service.  I still don't like their voice-mail jail, though.

I think direct customer service is very hard, and I do try not to take my frustrations out on the person on the phone.  I also have lots of empathy for customers, since sometimes I am one.  I want our ITSS customers at UMD to be happy and get good service, but it is an imperfect process, often because human communication is an imperfect process.

I liked the processes of the company I dealt with this week.  I like that they had a follow-up survey, that they reviewed the results of the survey, that they called me back twice, and that they fixed the problem.  Maybe we in ITSS can take some lessons from them.