Last month, I wrote about acting on feedback from customers’ calls.
In the past few weeks, I have dealt with some call centres that don’t seem to get it.
First experience was with Staples. I had received an electronic coupon that provided a hefty discount on printer paper and I decided to order a case. But, the website simply would not accept the coupon:
The coupon number entered is invalid or the coupon has expired. The coupon can not be used.
I called the telephone ordering department and reached an agent who told me that the coupons had not been loaded into the online ordering system and she had been getting calls for the past two weeks from customers complaining. Whew. At least I’m not alone.
But, before she processed the order for me, I asked why any customer-centric company would take more than a couple hours to fix this, once the call centre found out about the problem? I picked up paper at a local discount store instead.
A second experience was with a bank that sent out an email to encourage customers to use direct deposit for tax refunds. I thought that the email looked a lot like a phishing emails we get. I called into customer service and it became clear that there was no place on the agent’s screen to enter such customer feedback, let alone a process to act on it.
How do you make sure you are actively listening to your customers? We have a session at The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit that is looking at making better use of information about your customers. We call the session Mining for Data Gold. On June 15, we’ll be hearing from leaders in managing customer information. Have you registered yet?