Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Customer Service

USA is considered one of the best in customer service. But the customer service here has deteriorated compared to 10 years ago. But still it is better than many countries in the world. The high level executives are more interested in top notch customer service than the actual customer service rep. Here is what happened:

On December 6 I went to a famous electronic retail store and made arrangements for a home theater installation in my home. They gave a due date of December 15 between 8 to 12 PM. I asked them to give me an earlier date if there was any cancellation. They said they would if there was a cancellation.

On December 9 evening I got a call from that store and said they have rescheduled the appointment for tomorrow (December 10) between 12 to 4 PM. On December 10, no installer came. And, no telephone calls. Therefore at 7 PM I called the store. The customer service rep did not give any satisfactory answer. He said he does not know why the installer did not show up and he would write an email the next day to the dispatcher and get a new installation date. I asked if the installer missed the due date is it not his responsibility to come the next day. He said he does not know.

After I hung up, I was so mad at the poor customer service. I wanted to do something. I could have approached the local store manager and fixed the problem. But since I was very mad, I wanted to take it to their Headquarters. I browsed through the corporate headquarters web page of that electronic store. There was a list of names of CEO. President, Executive Vice President, CFO, and other Vice Presidents. But there was no email address. Then I looked at the business card the sales rep gave me on December 6 when I first went to make arrangements for the installation. It had his email address. It is like this. firstname.lastname@storename.com. Suddenly I had this idea.

I wrote an email explaining the situation. I selected the Executive Vice President’s name at random. For his email address I put hisfirstname.hislastname@storename.com. I took a chance and sent that email. I thought it would come back as “mail undeliverable”. I waited for 10 minutes. It did not come back as undeliverable. Now I was glad I was able to correctly guess his email address.

I was not 100% sure if I would get any help. There are many reasons. First, if my email goes to his “spam”, he or his secretary would delete it. Second, if he is on vacation or tour, he may not have time to read my email. Then I went to bed.

That store’s headquarters is located in the East Coast whose time is ahead by 3 hours. On December 11 I got a call at 7 AM from that store’s Director of Executive Complaint Resolution. That Executive Vice President must have told the Complaint Resolution Director to take care of this problem. She profusely apologized for the inconvenience. She said she has contacted their installation manager for California and asked him to send an installer to my home immediately. She then gave her personal cell number and asked me to call her if no one contacted me by 4 PM California Time.

From 9 AM I started receiving several phone calls from several people apologizing for the inconvenience and every one promising me that they will send an installer today to my home. Finally the installer showed up at 2 PM and installed my home theater.

Here is the best part I like. That Electronic Store waived all the charges. Installation was done for free at no cost for me.

23 comments:

  1. Great! Enjoy your home-theatre.

    I always thought this was needed only in India - Make a noise to get what you want when things don't go your way.

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  2. good:)..even in India higher authorities are always better than lower ones, once I had some problem with Idea people and approached them the same way you did, I got all my complaints heard and rectified in the same way.

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  3. You did the right thing by escalating and in the end you got what you wanted – and at no cost.
    I absolutely hate it when people in the consumer products industry (or anywhere they have customer service) can’t answer questions, won’t problem solve, and most of all - pass the buck elsewhere.

    The Buck Stops Here!

    Regards,
    Harry S. Truman

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  4. Thanks for your comments lostworld. I could have solved this with the local store manager. On that day, at that time, I was soo mad I wanted to take it up to their top executives.

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  5. Thanks for your comments Renu. Good for you for taking up to the higher authorities. Hope they waived the charges.

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  6. Thanks for your comments President Truman. I know you are famous for 2 quotes. The Buck Stops Here and If You Can't Stand The Heat, You Better Get Out Of The Kitchen.

    But, unfortunately, you are not as shrewd as the Indian politicians. They just twisted your quote. And, here it is:

    The Bucks (plural) stop here (and don't go to anyone else).

    Give 'Em Hell Harry.

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  7. I too thought this happens only in India. Escalating is sometimes the only way to get things done promptly. Of course, it also depends on the gravity of the situation.

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  8. Oh good...Good they got back.
    Here its a pain...

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  9. Thanks for your comments Sanand. I could have settled this with the local store manager. But i was so angry at that time to take it to their EVP.

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  10. Thanks for your comments Insignia. I value your comments. The good part is that they waived the charges and installed for free.

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  11. oh good, lucky u...

    and u know something, i had done a similar thing too...i had sent a mail like this to vodafone CEO, and all my problems were solved within 24 hours...and I thought i was the only smart person around to get the mail id of the CEO that way...sigh! i have a competition..:D

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  12. Thanks for your comments Neha. Good for you for taking that kind of action against Vodafone.

    No, we are not in competition. We are partners in crime...Oops..That is a Freudian Slip.

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  13. one thing thats intolerable is poor customer service. you did the right thing by writing to a VP. thats how they come back to planet earth i guess :)

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  14. Wow a home theater ...great!I think if a customer acts promptly like you did ,most of the time a correction in the service is seen.What we do often is wait and watch...that hardly helps.Your guessing the eid was very interesting and yes congratulations on free installation.

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  15. hi
    thats nice :)
    u id the right thing :)

    enjoyy!

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  16. Thanks for your comments Shruthi. The higher ups care more for custoemr servvice than the customer service reps.

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  17. Thanks for your comments Kavita. As you said many people wait and watch and that does not help. After everything said and done, they waived all installation charges.

    Home theater is a fancy term given here for anything associated with TV, DVD Recorder, or Stereo. Please do not imagine I have a actual theater with 12 people seating capacity. I wish I had.

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  18. Thanks for your comments AS. Sometime, our guess becomes right..Just like the Irish luck.

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  19. that's nice...it was good that you cud quickly think of taking it higher up rather than delaing with the local management...enjoy!!

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  20. Thanks for your comments Titaxy. As they say "squeaking wheel gets the oil".

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  21. home theatre!!! wow sounds cool...
    even I have seen, the higher officials are more concerned than the lower ones... but its a sad story that we have to deal with latter.

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  22. Thanks for your comments Rajlakshmi. Please don't have big imagination about "home theater". Please read my reply to Kavita's comments.

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  23. Interesting...though in my case (IFB washing machine complaint) they bungled up for nearly 5 weeks, after we contacted the H.O., we started getting phone calls, though they did not apologise in words, the tone was different. They terminated the service of one franchisee too. After they fixed the machine, the next day their top level person called me again to ask if the machine was working.

    Here, we can never expect any concession after any type of harassment! Thank you.

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