Are Your Customers Getting a Busy Signal?

It’s 9:00 a.m., and I just finished dropping off my television equipment at the local cable company. What a relief!

You see, a few days ago, I received an urgent notice in the mail to call a specific number. My television cable company wanted me to switch my converter box in time for the national change to digital.

No problem. I call the number: busy signal. Then, I call back a little later: busy signal. I call again: busy signal. I wait until the next day: busy signal. You get the idea.

Well, this went on for three days: so I called the main cable number. After being on hold five minutes, the nice phone operator told me that was the number I needed to call, and she couldn’t help me: Fabulous.

Now seriously, didn’t the cable company know I needed to change their converter box months ago? Why did I get the “nice letter” a few days before the national conversion?

And I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have time to deal with this: especially when there are plenty of other companies vying for my business.

Well, to make a long story short, I cancelled my service immediately: (Well, I mean after waiting on hold another 10 minutes just to get through to a “customer service” representative.)

And can you believe it? When I told the representative I was canceling my service because I spent three days trying to get through to the “special” converter box number to no avail, he gives me a lame excuse.

“Well, we can’t help it if our phones get so busy we can’t answer them, he says.” I said, “That’s no excuse. There are plenty of businesses larger than yours that have no problem answering their phones.” He didn’t know what to say.

Anyway, after many wasted hours of my time and unnecessary stress, I now have television service with a new company. But this whole process made me think:

Why aren’t companies like these focusing on their customer service efforts?

It’s a huge part of good publicity. After all, if you treat your customers well, they will tell others. And this is valuable word-of-mouth you can’t purchase. (My old cable company would have received some great press from me online if they would have acted differently.)

Sure: it may be more expensive to put the time, effort and money into training customer service representatives, but it’s well worth it. Just look at http://www.gotobilling.com/Corporate/index.php/Press-Room.html, http://www.printingforless.com/tsrteams.html, http://www.1800gotjunk.com/ and others. They know how to treat customers and reap the benefits of their efforts.

With this in mind, how do you treat customers?

Are they still #1 even though times are tough? After all, with today’s fierce competition for sales, the one who services customer needs the best wins!

Do you have questions about your PR and SEO copywriting activities to help boost sales, awareness and credibility? If so, please let me know here or at www.rembrandtwrites.com. I’d love to hear from you!

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Santa Ana Business Directory - June 29, 2009 Reply

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Flash - July 7, 2009 Reply

Cool!

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