Customer Service is dead

[lovestotravel]

I had some accommodation booked through a small local holiday rental agency, always been friendly, prompt reply to emails and everything was fine!

Unfortunately, I needed to cancel the booking (50% deposit already paid) but I cancelled 3 days prior to the free cancellation period, where I would receive my deposit back, minus a $100 processing fee, which is fair enough

So I emailed them, and received a pretty much automated reply back with my booking "cancelled". In my cancellation email I explained why I needed to cancel, which wasn't necessary but I felt a little bad. Also thanked her for her help with booking and I would be sure to rebook in the future through them!

No actual response to my situation, not wishing me luck with what I was dealing with.

5 WORKING days later - No refund to my credit card so sent an email following that up
Another 4 WORKING days later - No response to my email so called up the office today

The lady who took my booking answered and as soon as I said my name, shouted something to someone else in the office and put me on hold for a few minutes.

Came back off hold and pretended to not know who I was, and then proceeded to say that the "bookkeeper" was out of the office and that my refund would be processed "sometime soon"

I pressed and said why it hasn't been processed yet as it's over 2 weeks, and she said the "bookkeeper only works part time"

I laughed as this is the busiest time of the year for them, and the bookkeeper would be working full time and likely overtime to keep up with everything

I asked again for the refund to be processed either today or tomorrow, and she then started to lecture me about why I cancelled a few days prior to the final payment date, along with lecturing me about making the booking in the first place if I knew that there was a chance that I may need to cancel...

At this stage, I told her that I need to explain nothing to her at all for my reasons for cancelling and that I have a legal right to cancel whenever, for whatever reason and as per the booking conditions I am entitled to a refund minus the $100 fee. She then said again the bookkeeper will get to it eventually.. I laughed at her again, and said that the refund needs to be in my account by next week or I will simply initiate a charge back, and will happily provide my financial institution with copies of my emails which have been ignored, excuses that the "bookkeeper is out of the office/works part time" along with the terms and conditions of the booking which clearly state what I am entitled too.

She paused as her tiny brain tried to comprehend this, and said the refund will go "through today or tomorrow" I did remind her that I thought the bookkeeper was out of the office, she then said thanks and hung up.


Such a shame that a company turns ugly after only having such a positive experience when initially dealing with them.

A simple reply to my cancellation request saying "sorry to hear that, best of luck, we will refund your deposit in 5 working days" and it would have been acceptable

The lack of response, lies and "abuse" from the agent today, is astounding.

I put it down to small town syndrome, the Facebook posts of this person are quite laughable, but, as I said, small town syndrome, she doesn't even like tourists coming to "her town" yet she works for a accommodation provider who books tourists into accommodation.


#FAIL

 

[lovestotravel]

This is why we love iiNET as our ISP - when you call up they let you know how long the wait is, you leave your number, and they call you back. The website even lists the current approximate wait time Contact iiNet - Customer Service - iiNet Australia

Such a simple idea, but they are such a pleasure to deal with. And their call centre is in Perth, always most helpful....

Not sure what you can love about this!

Estimated current call wait time : 75m : 17s

 

[Buzzard]

A problem I see is where customers expect a service but expect it for free. All businesses including mine need to recover their costs plus make a reasonable profit. If I don't I won't be around to offer you any type of service, good or bad.

 

[lovestotravel]

A problem I see is where customers expect a service but expect it for free. All businesses including mine need to recover their costs plus make a reasonable profit. If I don't I won't be around to offer you any type of service, good or bad.

I only fly Qantas domestically, and expect to pay more, and expect to have good service. At this stage they still just provide that to me so happy to pay a premium!

Hertz - Domestically, I only used to rent from them, however not having my assigned car waiting for me (BMW X5), giving me cars that I have in my profile that I do not want to drive (Camry and Hyundai's) even when NO CAMRY was written on the holder for my car, guess what, a Camry. I pay a premium to rent from Hertz because they used to look after me, not so much now so I am paying less with Europcar

It's a double edged sword!

 

[JohnK]

A problem I see is where customers expect a service but expect it for free. All businesses including mine need to recover their costs plus make a reasonable profit. If I don't I won't be around to offer you any type of service, good or bad.

Shouldn't that be factored into the original cost of the product/service?

Seems what is needed is for executive and senior management salaries to get back to reality and companies to provide quality products and customer service with the money saved? Too difficult isn't it?

 

[sumthinfornuthin]

Cash out ? I can't remember the last time I have used an ATM

Every purchases goes on credit card!

me too .......................!

 

[sumthinfornuthin]

I recently had 2 tickets booked Melbourne to Darwin via Brisbane and had to cancel. I rang QFF and asked that the seats be cancelled and points be refunded to my account.
One ticket was refunded but not the other.
i rang a week later and spoke to the QFF dept who contacted awards who told QFF it had already been done.
I told the customer service lady in QFF that it had not. She checked my account and agreed the points were not there. She said "leave it to me".................................well later that day the points were back in.
pleasant,friendly, efficient and I could not have asked for better service........thanks QFF

 

[TiredOldFlyer]

But the vast majority of people probably don't want to pay for customer service (in the price if the product). So hiring more people = less profits (or for many airlines these days greater losses) or price increases. It's a wonder companies haven't started charging for priority customer phone service, that skips hold queues...

Telstra do ! $20 per month for premium service !'

 

[Buzzard]

Shouldn't that be factored into the original cost of the product/service?

Well that depends upon the business or service you are providing.
For example I might photocopy 100 pages for you and charge you .20c a copy.
You then expect me to punch holes in your copies and not want to pay for the service.

 

[Atleastonce]

Some companies appear to focus less on customer service.

One of my pet hates is waiting and waiting for my simple call to progress in the queue. Simple solution would be to hire more call centre people?

Or have tight KPI's on answering time frames linked to performance reviews.

 

[harvyk]

Some companies appear to focus less on customer service.

One of my pet hates is waiting and waiting for my simple call to progress in the queue. Simple solution would be to hire more call centre people?

It's not just a case of simply hiring more call center people. The cost of doing so needs to be measured against the expected profit or loss in doing so. Hiring a person is not cheap because it's not just the cost of the person which needs to be factored in. It's the additional costs such as office space and all the things which go along with that (eg rent, electricity, maintenance, insurance) / IT infrastructure and support / admin support (so HR and payroll) / managers or supervisors (someone needs to be in charge, and a person can only successfully directly manage so many people under them)

Typically I consider the break even point for an extra person as 1.6 times their salary. So a person on $50,000 a year would need to have saved the company or even been the reason for an extra $80,000 in business to justify their position, and I'm not a bean counter, those guys can even push it up to 1.8 or even double to allow for some profit.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Or have tight KPI's on answering time frames linked to performance reviews.

or... free up call centre staff by having a website that can actually make bookings people want, and stop cancelling flights, cabins and services to save you having to ring thousands of people with their... cough... 'options'

 

[harvyk]

or... free up call centre staff by having a website that can actually make bookings people want, and stop cancelling flights, cabins and services to save you having to ring thousands of people with their... cough... 'options'

Stop talking common sense...

 

[RAM]

Customer service died over 40 years ago. Trying to find someone to serve you in any shop is a disaster. Technology has certainly advanced but at what a price.

A twist on that line....

Being a shy retiring type (when asleep) I have a habit of using the logged in terminal in stores after the store rep has gone 'to ask' for more than 2-3 minutes out of sight. Always think of expose on US car yards by an undercover journalist (worked at 3 levels of different car yards and wrote 5,000 word expose on them) - 'go and ask boss/someone' = go make a cup of coffee/I need to go to the toilet/you are really a pain/my lunch needs warning in the microwave etc.

So have a look at details of product I'm interested in. Harvey Norman (and similar stores) are great as they show the cost of the product and lots of other useful info - including how old stock is etc. So while I am merrily learning about my bargaining position (wearing clothes that are clearly not store uniform) I invariably get approached by other customers and asked for help.

Depending on the levels of courtesy I firstly declare that I'm a customer too BUT lets have a go (or if general knowledge like do I really need an I7 for emails and holiday spreadsheets - FFers excepted) and call up the info on the screen. If they're not polite I leave it at the 'I'm a customer as well and the queue starts behind me.'

The best result was with a PC purchase where I saw the one I wanted (severely marked down tower) was the last one in NSW, when the rep came back he was surprised to hear that as it was the last one I'd reconsidered purchasing it. Price dropped another $100 for 7mth old latest generation high-spec I5 (final price 40% of equivalent I5 tower with identical specs for all but the chip which was 8% better on some functions).

More importantly though - on declining customer service - one the rare occasions I get someone who is good/great/exceptional/name your first born after - I will ask to speak with the store manager/duty manager etc if I have time or get their email details if not - and make sure that I deliver the good news story. Only fair and hopefully makes some difference for the staffer.

 

[quick_dry]

Or have tight KPI's on answering time frames linked to performance reviews.

doesn't that just lead to doing enough activity to tick the KPI, not necessarily resolve the problem properly - I'd rather the call centre folks worrying about solving my problem, not "if I can't get him off the line I'll fail KPI". It isn't the call centre persons fault if they get a long running query.

Better investment of time/resources in mining through the call centre logs to push common queries up to an online FAQ (or if they're tasks that must be performed, invest in the system so it can handle as much as possible to make the pain go away)

 

[boomy]

Well, customer service may still be alive.
A work colleague of mine was supposed to arrive soon for a quick tour of Australia but he had to delay his arrival to next month. The problem was that all flights and hotels were already pre-booked and pre-payed.
Not such a big problem with flights because they can be all changed (for a fee).
The HUGE problem I had was with 8 different hotels I booked and pre-payed, all under non-refundable and non-changeable rates. All in all I payed close to $4,000 for 2 rooms at each hotel so I was VERY worried.
I prepared myself mentally for a long and hard battle calling each hotel trying to change the dates.
I did one smart thing though and booked only hotels where I hold high status at (Hilton, SPG, Club Carlson) so I hoped it will give me some advantage.
In the end, I couldn't be more pleasantly surprised by the response I got from customer service. It took me almost 2 hours but I managed to change the dates at ALL properties without any penalties and without arguing or fighting.
I want to be very clear, when I made those bookings I was aware of the T&Cs. The hotels could all decline my request and I could not blame anyone but myself (actually I would blame my friend ).
But today common sense won and I got a great reminder that customer service is still alive and there are still people in this business who listen to customers instead of blindly follow the T&Cs like robots.
I will not list all the names here but I did make sure to send 'thank you' emails to each and every one and will also make sure to give these hotels first booking priority in the future.
So, in the long run they all made a good deal, and that's what business is all about

 

[woodborer]

One of my pet hates is waiting and waiting for my simple call to progress in the queue. Simple solution would be to hire more call centre people?

There is at least one company out there, that has a view that if there is no queue, then they have too many people at work. They reduce the number of people at work so that there is a queue.....

 

[Happy Trails]

Customer service Thai style, one example of many.

Dining at a neighbourhood shop I ordered a beer.
I was a bit surprised that it took ten minutes to be served, but thought no more about it until we later got the bill and noticed that it cost precisely 58 baht, rather than the more usual 80 or 90 baht.
It turned out that this shop doesn't normally sell beer at all, but had sent one of the kids to the local 7-11 to pick it up and then on-sold it at cost price.
They thought nothing of this and wouldn't have even mentioned it if I hadn't specifically enquired.
That shop now has a customer for life. (And I now BYO.)

 

[Atleastonce]

doesn't that just lead to doing enough activity to tick the KPI, not necessarily resolve the problem properly - I'd rather the call centre folks worrying about solving my problem, not "if I can't get him off the line I'll fail KPI". It isn't the call centre persons fault if they get a long running query.

Better investment of time/resources in mining through the call centre logs to push common queries up to an online FAQ (or if they're tasks that must be performed, invest in the system so it can handle as much as possible to make the pain go away)

It depends what else you motivate/reward them for. With time to answer, combine other KPI's like NPS on individual calls, call time bracketing (averages), it can be done.

 

[RooFlyer]

<snip>
The HUGE problem I had was with 8 different hotels I booked and pre-payed, all under non-refundable and non-changeable rates. All in all I payed close to $4,000 for 2 rooms at each hotel so I was VERY worried.
I prepared myself mentally for a long and hard battle calling each hotel trying to change the dates.
I did one smart thing though and booked only hotels where I hold high status at (Hilton, SPG, Club Carlson) so I hoped it will give me some advantage.
In the end, I couldn't be more pleasantly surprised by the response I got from customer service. It took me almost 2 hours but I managed to change the dates at ALL properties without any penalties and without arguing or fighting.
<snip>

Similar experience with the Apex hotel group in Edinburgh last year. Had a 4 night stay pre paid at their premier property. On the day of check-in an incident meant I had to make an emergency dash to Aberdeen for nights 3 and 4, then return to Edinburgh where I would resume the stay. Asked if I could alter dates when I checked in. They were fully booked for my later proposed dates, but they phoned around, and got me into one of their other properties in Edinburgh for the 2 nights without any issue at all.

But get this - the other place was cheaper per night than my original booking, and I was expecting to forfeit the difference. However I was given a credit in the other place's restaurant for the difference! :mrgreen: