Had a customer experience story with a major electronics manufacturer. First, I noted that the 800 number was just for the class of equipment I owned. Second, I got a real (English-speaking) person with only two phone menus and 30 seconds. Third, they seemed genuinely interested in helping. I did get a handoff from a screener to a tech rep, but again, was on hold for less than 30 seconds, and even though I had to supply the service number I had just been given, no further information was needed.The solution, predictably, was to download some update which would “clear things up” (even though the “what’s new in this release” snippet mentioned nothing of the sort). Both people promised an email to me (one for a follow-up survey and one for the link to the update, which I was already halfway to with Google). Both emails were in my inbox in less than 90 seconds.Then the kicker: The very nice lady ended the call with, “and if that doesn’t happen to solve your problem, don’t hesitate to call us back.” Both humans were unusually pleasant.I realize that they all still read from the script, that there is a limited chance my problem will go away, and everyone is a lot happier with a holiday looming, but still… They had a pre-filter to route me to the folks that could help me, they were nice, questions were answered directly, they listened when they were supposed to listen and talked when they were supposed to talk, and they didn’t make me feel like I had been an imposition. We could hope that all manufacturers would be as nice to deal with.
Customer service is easy. Make it pleasant for the customer. I.e. “serve them!
