The complaining customer wants to be heard
This post is a response to Seth Godin’s “The complaining customer doesn't want a refund.” Readers of this blog know that I enjoy reading, which gives me great pleasure, and you also know that I read a variety of genres. And there are times when I want to read a good love story without having to think too much about plot. Recently, I was reading one such book, when I was about 100 pages into the book, there was not only a new character, but a new sentence where another should have continued. I was asking myself, “Who the heck is Claire?” That shows I wasn’t asleep.
When I looked at the top of the new page I noticed another author’s name and the name of another book. After flipping through some 20 pages, I noticed the name of a third book by the second author, and after another 15 pages, or so I got back to the original book with a chunk of the story missing. In all the years of reading I have never seen something like this before. Having worked in research and analysis for several years, I know that you never have all the information, so I did the only thing I could in such a situation – fill in the gap and complete the story. All this transpired over a weekend when the publisher’s office was closed. On the Monday, I called the customer service office and alerted them to the problem.
I asked the customer representative to let the company know about the problem. She told me that it is must be an isolated problem since no one notified her, and she would send me another copy of the book. I explained that she shouldn’t send me another copy of the book unless someone checked it before sending. She kept on insisting that it was only my copy that had a problem. This boggled my mind because the company is a large organization and is not a print-on-demand one. In my mind, if I have a faulty book, there are others out there who have faulty books as well. The complaining customer wants to be heard. Feeling like I wasn’t heard I hung up the phone.
I knew someone who worked at the company so I called and left a voice message and also emailed her. In my messages, I asked my friend at the company to check copies there to see if those copies were okay. She checked a few copies and those were fine, but she didn’t drop the matter. She gave me the benefit of the doubt that there was a problem with a batch of the books. Talk about two very different responses, my complaint was taken seriously and referred to the production department. The person who I knew at the company, apologized on behalf of the company. She didn’t treat me special because she knows me. I have known her for several years, and that’s the way she treats everyone. I was so impressed with how she handled the problem I called her boss to commend her behavior.
A few days later, someone very senior from the company called me because there was indeed a bad batch of books, and I was the first person to call to let them know about the problem. One good thing the customer service representative did was to record in writing everything I said during the call, on my account. I wasn’t looking for another copy of the book because I already filled in the missing part of the story in my head. What I wanted was to be heard and taken seriously. In my mind, what the customer service representative should have told me, is that she would check out the problem and get back to me, instead of making me feel stupid. Why would I be the only one in the world who has a messed up book?
It’s great to give customer service representatives scripts for quality assurance purposes, and to deliver consistent customer service, but when a customer has a problem that’s not outlined in their script, they should be able to think for themselves and respond in a non-robot form. Thank you Seth Godin for tackling this problem in your blog post. Have you ever had an experience when you were trapped in a customer service script hell and your complaints were not taken seriously? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Liked this post? Share it and subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Author Bio: Avil Beckford, an expert interviewer, entrepreneur and published author is passionate about books and professional development, and that's why she founded The Invisible Mentor and the Virtual Literary World Tour to give you your ideal mentors virtually in the palm of your hands by offering book reviews and book summaries, biographies of wise people and interviews of successful people.
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