Some call customer service a form of marketing. In my mind customer service is probably the single most important thing any company should invest in, after product. It is pretty simple, customers won’t come back if they are unhappy and they certainly won’t say anything nice if they were to share the experience.
The people behind Get Satisfaction have an interesting idea. Having lots of companies carry out their customer service on the same site is interesting and surely valuable. Intense Debate has used it well, as have others.
After stepping out into the real world it is quite easy to distinguish who has customer service down and who doesn’t.
Chick Fil A Truck In McD's Drive Thru
For instance, today I visited the drive-thru at KFC (I crave the potato wedges). After placing my order I was guided into a single lane behind five cars. I couldn’t get out if I wanted to. I waited approximately 20 minutes before I made it to the window. At that point I just wanted to grab my food and go, but no. I waited some more. Then, after I paid and received my food, the server came to the window with my drink. She said, “Our ice machine is broke, is that okay?” (While holding my drink). I didn’t respond with what I should have said. Instead, I rolled up my window and lived to fight another day. Still, the thought lingers–”Why take my drink order knowing that it will be warm soda?” I wanted to ask her if she liked warm Mountain Dew on hot days, but I bit my tongue.
Why promise something you know you can’t deliver? Are you hoping I will just pay and move on? Is your company delivering? Whatever happened to underpromise and outperform?
With all the tools at people’s disposal (camera phones, digital cameras, social media), reputation management is essential. My hope is that someone with an interest in KFC sees this post and sends out a mass email having all managers make sure their ice machines are working. Companies have to capitalize on the speed at which information travels, for good and bad. They will definitely be held accountable for things like customer service.
By the way, I recommend Filtrbox, a fellow TechStar company for anyone’s reputation management. It is like Google Alerts, but way better and well worth a small subscription fee to reward a good service. If KFC used it they might know about their ice machine problem.
