Is Good Customer Service Gone Forever?

Calling Good Customer Service People… Are You Out There??

Is Good Customer Service Gone Forever?

Most of us who have bought anything or have received services from a company of any kind usually have some sort of terrible customer service experience at some point. Sometimes I think many of us have even had an experience where you’re left, phone in hand, and mouth open in amazement and surprise.

That’s what customer service has come to these days. So after having had my share of bad experiences it got me wondering, why the decline in happy people?

I mean, while it’s not the most glamorous job in the world, I’m sure that those full-time customer service representatives out there get their fill of complaining customers.

But I say then why be in that business if you’re not prepared to stand through the good and the bad? Customer service is exactly what the words says it means, you are in the business of servicing customers.

And in most cases, whether those customer teams are supporting a product or service, ten to one that product or service is helping to keep that customer service rep’s paycheck coming in every week.

Good customer service reps should be able to handle a customer who is both “happy” and one who is not so much. Afterall, if a customer is calling customer service then they probably have an issue of some kind. And they are trained to handle that, or at least they should be.

So just like we all have, you dial the customer service line and proceed to wade through all the voicemail and phone system prompts and questions. That frustration alone is enough to make me a not so “happy” customer even before I talk to a customer service rep.

Finally, you get a live person on the phone and you hope for the best. It has been my experience that you get 2 types of representatives. You either luck out and get a helpful and professional representative, or you lose and get someone on the other end of the phone who is unwilling and improper.

I chose the words unwilling and improper because there are so many degrees of being unwilling or improper that I felt like these words were broad enough to cover all.

So, the question is, when you call and get the unwilling and improper representative and you feel like your experience calling that company, to whom you probably gave your money to, goes so poorly, what do you do?

Who cares? Who do you tell? Well I’m afraid the answer is no one. That’s right readers, I have searched high and low and there is truly nowhere to report a bad customer service experience.

There are plenty of places to report you not receiving something you paid for, or if the item wasn’t advertised incorrectly etc. Places like the Better Business Bureau are excellent resources when you have a monetary dispute.

But where do you go when the experience you had on the phone with a customer service representative was outright bad? Who do you tell when you were treated improperly, and even though you received their product or service, the experience you had was just terrible?

Sadly, I have scoured the internet and there is no place. No place for companies, who have reps by the 1000’s, to know if they have a bad apple in their bunch. Or with some companies, a whole bushel!

It’s true, calls are monitored for quality assurance, but I have to question whether that’s just for show, given that the quality of customer service has drastically decreased even with all that monitoring going on.

And with internet and electronic transactions increasing by the millions and technology always changing, I can’t imagine that the customer experience will get any better.

Unfortunately, for those who follow my blog and read my books, I am usually a pretty optimistic gal. Sadly, not this time folks.

Unless someone steps forward and independently grade companies and furthermore publishes those grades, on the experiences that customers are having, we won’t be seeing much change.

So, to all my entrepreneurial ladies out there, if you build it, I will be your first paying subscriber!

I’m hoping for a better phone call every time I choose to open my wallet and give up some of my hard-earned cash to a company. Good customer service lets me know that company appreciates my buck!

Please post comments, I would love to hear some feedback on this topic.