from the your-comments-are-important-to-us-so-please-stay-on-the-story dept.
This was a rough year for customer experience:
We've been hearing for years how important customer experience is to business, and a whole business technology category has been built around it, with companies like Salesforce and Adobe at the forefront. But due to the economy or lack of employees (perhaps both?), 2022 was a year of poor customer service, which in turn has created poor experiences; there's no separating the two.
No matter how great your product or service, you will ultimately be judged by how well you do when things go wrong, and your customer service team is your direct link to buyers. If you fail them in a time of need, you can lose them for good and quickly develop a bad reputation. News can spread rapidly through social media channels. That's not the kind of talk you want about your brand.
[...] For too long we've been hearing about how data will drive better experiences, but is that data ever available to the people dealing with the customers? They don't need data — they need help and training and guidance, and there clearly wasn't enough of that in 2022. It seemed companies cut back on customer service to the detriment of their customers' experience and ultimately to the reputation of the brand.
This was written just after the horrible Southwest Airlines fiasco. Was that an outlier example, or do you agree with the author that things were particularly worse this year compared to others?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday January 06, @05:02AM (2 children)
you can train populations to be more compliant. including customers and potential customers. compliant people do what they are told and take what they get.
something both corps and gov can get behind and cheer for. something worth investing in, long-term.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @11:55AM
Here's how that plan worked out:
1) TV adverts promise the moon
2) Hire peon wage slaves to deliver
3) Profit
4) ???
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday January 06, @12:43PM
Which is EXACTLY what Microsoft has done: trained people, through its' monopoly, to put up with ALL KINDS OF SHIT that people normally wouldn't put up with and smile while dealing with it.
Glad i'm not a 'normal' person and won't put up with shit.
"But soft, what light through yonder Windows breaks?" Oh... it's a shart... again... better get the Swiffer....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @06:06AM (3 children)
Google "customer support" must be great if you are paying them for something.
If you're just an ordinary human, it is screaming into the Void.
Amazon is like Adobe (or maybe was). Mention either on the social media they are watching
and you are likely to have someone (or something) reply.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Unixnut on Friday January 06, @10:30AM (2 children)
> Google "customer support" must be great if you are paying them for something. If you're just an ordinary human, it is screaming into the Void.
Because you do not pay for the service, you aren't really a "customer", to expect customer support. At best you are a beta-tester, and worst you are their product they sell to their customers.
(Score: 2) by liar on Friday January 06, @06:44PM (1 child)
Remember 'Television Delivers People' : "You are the product of t.v., you are delivered to the advertiser who is the customer. He consumes you".
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07, @02:25AM
Enjoy the programming.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @06:12AM (3 children)
"poor customer service, which in turn has created poor experiences"
then someone tagged Southwest as an example at the end
Read the stuff that came out from the people on the front lines.
The people dealing with customers had nothing to do with what went down
and were stuck in the middle trying to help people.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by aafcac on Friday January 06, @06:36AM
I'm not really surprised, I've got nearly an hour of pointless busy work that corporate mandated as a to priority over the things that actually help customers, but I haven't been given extra hours to do it either, in fact the department's hours have been cut back. Meaning that I've got nearly 25% less time to devote to things that benefit the customers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @08:05AM
"poor customer service, which in turn has created poor experiences"
Poor people just can't catch a break.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Friday January 06, @06:49PM
Agreed, a winter storm and technology failure *is* a bad customer experience but it isn't necessarily bad customer service. Look what Southwest is doing *after* the experience. Communicating profusely, giving refunds, giving expense reimbursements, and more. I'd say they are showing great customer service. Looks like their heart is in the right place at least.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Interesting) by r_a_trip on Friday January 06, @11:10AM (3 children)
It's the standard corporate cycle. Sales are stagnant, so investment in service is made, the sales go up but service costs are eating into the margin, so service is scaled down, the sales go stagnant, time to up the service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @12:01PM (2 children)
Get the customers on the culture hamster wheel - Christmas, New Year, Groundhog day, Valentines, Easter, on and one. Each one an opportunity to guilt/shame people into buying junk calories and shitty gifts. Yay aren't we having fun!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 06, @03:42PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @05:18PM
No, for you I got turd in a paper bag for National Optimists Day [nationaldaycalendar.com]. Maybe it'll be better next year, hey?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @02:48PM (2 children)
Is it a decline of the customer service experience or the rise of the vocal, entitled asshole, or both? Is the latter driving the former?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday January 07, @03:53AM
You mean like this [youtube.com]?
(Score: 2) by Username on Saturday January 07, @11:54AM
I'm not sure if people are moving away from humble stoicism, or that entitled assholes just have the loudest voice. Probably both, children raised on entitled assholes they see on twitter & youtube.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday January 06, @06:18PM
Customer service is usually a checkmark item. When it comes to credit cards, Discover card is an exception; if you call them and talk to them at a basic conversational level, they'll sound happy to engage with you, and willing to take feedback and send it up the chain (for what it's worth).
Compare this to at least one other credit card company that outsources. I've made the point that when I call a financial provider's customer support, if when they pick up the phone I hear "Hello, my name is [very likely not my name], how can I help you?", then the first sentence out of their mouth is a lie. When they're casually ignoring even providing an impression of "integrity", why should I trust the integrity of their internal systems (as an example) [justice.gov] when handling my financial matters?
There currently isn't a way to do this, but if we could evaluate the customer service experience before signing up for a service (maybe via customer-service specific review sites), maybe people could direct themselves towards companies with better customer service over those with more effective marketing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeRandomGeek on Friday January 06, @08:55PM
The article tries to conflate customer experience with customer service. Maybe in some businesses they are the same. Not in the business that I'm in. We make products. There are a lot of things that need to go right to give your customers a great product experience. Not only does it need to be a great product, but it needs to be easy to buy. It needs to get there on time. It needs to be easy to use. I could go on... But customer service is different. If the customer feels the need to reach out to your customer service department, they are already having a shitty experience. I'm not saying that it is OK if bad customer service makes their experience even worse. I'm saying that when good customer service is the key to your customer experience then something has already gone very wrong.
(Score: 2) by Username on Saturday January 07, @12:00PM
I got a list of companies that screwed me:
ASUS - Wouldn't RMA a $400 motherboard.
Ariens
John Deere
Boost Mobile
Fleet Farm