Tag: customer satisfaction

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My question: what’s your experience been with customer service agents?

I’m turning the tables today, with a question to visitors to the blog, following an article from Bill McGee of Consumer Reports. He has an article in USA Today this week on “When customer service is lost in translation,” with a focus on customer service provided by some of the largest travel companies in the States.

“Recently USAToday.com asked readers to share their experiences with these foreign call centers. After sorting through your responses, it’s clear that many of you are not satisfied with such service.

“But it’s a no-brainer decision [closing domestic call centers and outsourcing the effort to places like India] in more ways than one: The immediate gains in labor costs need to be weighed against the long-term losses in customer satisfaction and loyalty.

“Quite frankly, when USATODAY.com solicited reader feedback on this topic a few weeks ago, I was concerned that some of the responses might be xenophobic (or even racist). Instead, I found nearly all the correspondence was even-handed and respectful. What became clear is that off-shoring customer service is different from off-shoring other functions and not all jobs can be lumped into the same “foreign outsourcing” category. Whether we like it or not, there are companies in other countries that theoretically could make better and/or cheaper transmissions, cellphones, or running shoes.”

I recommend McGee’s “things to keep in mind” when you call for assistance:

  • Always keep a detailed log of your reservations calls, including names, dates, and times.
  • If you’re not clear what is being said, either ask the agent to repeat it or ask to speak to another agent. Never agree to something you THINK you understand.
  • Don’t be afraid to request a supervisor. In some cases, this will mean being transferred from a foreign call center to a domestic call center.
  • Ask the agent to follow up with an email confirmation.

Today’s question for you: have you had a good or bad experience with Microsoft or other major industry customer service agents? I’ve posted some of my own experiences and thoughts (click here) but I’d like to hear from you.

No, I don’t have a lot of free time coming up to fill. ðŸ˜‰

As time and space permits, I’ll post your comments (keep it clean) on the blog with your experiences and follow up with our folks in customer service as well as the product groups in future posts.

 

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Accenture on a (sometimes misleading) positive perception of customer service

I spoke with a customer today relatedt to a technology deployment related to infrastructure and planning. At one point I was somewhat frustrated as I saw that we had room to improve on the customer’s experience with our products, and how we have opportunities to streamline our communications.


Fast forward to this evening after putting kids to bed and receiving a link from a friend to http://www.destinationcrm.com/. This week CRM magazine has an article on their site that examines how some high tech execs “tend to have a more positive perception of the customer service experience they deliver than what their customers actually experience.”


Referencing a new report out from Accenture, “Superior Customer Service Capabilities: Key Factors in the Journey to High Performance,” Coreen Bailor writes…   



“Consumers’ rising customer service expectations, coupled with factors like product commoditization, make leveraging customer service as a competitive differentiator even more crucial for companies across all industries, including technology firms. Even so, high-tech companies and consumers are far from being on the same page when it comes to their perceptions of customer service satisfaction…”


Really? Sure, she must be joking. 😉


But seriously, I’ve been impressed by how self-critical our customer support teams are; through their connections with our product teams they help us ensure that we understand where we are successful in supporting our customers and where we have room to improve.  


Brian Sprague of Accenture (and the report’s co-author) said that a cultural shift must occur in companies with product-centric mindsets…



“It’s something you can’t just do at the VP of service level. It has to be throughout the entire company, meaning that appropriate incentives need to be put in place, [you must have the] appropriate capabilities to decide what is the customer experience that you want to create, and then work throughout the entire organization to deliver that customer experience.” [my bold]


Absolutely right. Making sure that the entire is working to imrpove upon the customer experience is key, and an area where we all have room to improve (me, too).


Tags: Microsoft, loyalty, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service.

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ASCI customer satisfaction survey results online, for phones, computers and much more

On MSN Money Central news today, Qwest and Verizon rated highly when it comes to fixed-line telephone companies in the most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) customer satisfaction survey.



“The ASCI measures customer satisfaction on a 100-point scale in four telecommunications subsectors: fixed-line service, wireless service, cable and satellite television and cell phones. Qwest (NYSE: Q) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) both scored 72 in the survey. Cox Radio Inc. (NYSE: CXR) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: ATT) both scored 70. Comcast Corp. (NYSE: CCW) scored 67. Embarq Corp. (NYSE: EQ) scored 66.”


Google ranks at the top of internet search engines, Yahoo! (followed very closely by AOL and MSN) for Internet Portals,  and in Personal Computers Apple bested Dell by five points (closely followed by HP).


Tags: Microsoft, loyalty, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service.

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It’s all about the customer: we have plenty of room to improve

This week I am blogging from the lovely pacific northwest, from our meeting off-campus with our teams from around the world focused on customer and partner satisfaction. I partner with Toby Richards from our Sales & Marketing Services Group on how we listen and respond to out customers and focus on improving our satisfaction across the board. Internally, we call this the Customer and Partner Experience (CPE) effort, and I focus on supporting the efforts in our three product divisions, across all of our product lines.


On the topic, Eric Lai from Computerworld has an article this week that takes a look at our effort to dedicated to improving customer satisfaction.



“According to its surveys, that strategy has borne fruit, says the company.


“We have plenty of room to improve, but overall satisfaction is at their highest levels ever,” said Toby Richards, general manager for worldwide customer experience at Microsoft in an interview Monday.


“For instance, Richards says that Microsoft’s decision to repeatedly delay the release of Windows Vista in order to tighten up its security and features was heavily influenced by survey results that showed customers asking for greater “product stability and reliability,” Richards said.”


As noted, we created the CPE effort to be a nimble, cross-group team, lead by exec partners Kathleen Hogan (worldwide customer support and services), and my boss, Jon DeVaan, who leads the Core Operating System Division in Windows. We work to continuously improve and drive improving the experience for our customers and partners every day, and on the things we do that impact our customes and partners.


But it’s a continuous journey, as I’ve heard our senior execs say.


We are dedicated to improving our “listen and respond” systems, our product quality and overall security & privacy (which are closely intertwined), as well as how we handle and reacts to issues such as the changes to daylight saving time.


Tags: Microsoft, loyalty, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service.


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Customer Satisfaction Breakdown: JetBlue’s David Neeleman is out

I read today on inc.com that jetblue’s founder is stepping down as CEO.



“David Neeleman, founder of embattled low-cost airline JetBlue, is being replaced as CEO, company directors announced Thursday.”


Sad, as Neeleman has been a poster child for great customer servcie and attention: he flew his own airline regularly to get a sense of the service. That was until the massive issues in February, when jetblue took the brunt of a major snowstorm: thousands of jetblue customers suffered while stranded during a major snowstorm that hit the northeastern states. jetblue took out ads in order to apologize to their customers, put out a heart-felt video on YouTube (plus this collection of clips on YouTube) and even penned a customer bill of rights to address the issue. (jetblue’s Bill Of Rights in pdf)


Wired saw this coming when they dropped jetblue off the Wired 40 earlier this year. But I still enjoy the approach with comfortable seats, sat TV and great service… when the weather cooperates.