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The word frustration does NOT even begin to describe how a colleague of mine feels about Verizon’s customer service of late. He recently shared his story with me.
Real World Story: “I have been a client of Verizon for 12 years and have had a perfect payment record. For the past month and a half, I’ve been having major issues trying to pay my bill online. I keep get an error message that I am not authorized to make payments on my account. And all of the online communications from Verizon have been a complete disaster. Verizon keeps sending me authorization requests. I am to click on a link within their messages in order to update my authorization permissions to be able to pay online. I have tried for the last month without any response or results from any of my attempts.
“Meanwhile, I have now started to receive calls from the Verizon collections department. And they don’t seem to know what the problem is or how to help me.
“Concurrently, I am again being repeatedly told that a request for authorization has been put in for me. And yet, no change in authorization has happened. I finally received an email message from Verizon letting me know that they apologize for not setting up my past requests correctly and that now I can change my authorization status. All I need to do is click on the link provided.
“THE LINK DOES NOT WORK! Page is Unavailable.
“You cannot begin to understand the level of frustration that I’m having to deal with right now. I simply pray that I am able to get hold of some pencil-pushing executive with half a brain to help me resolve my problem. FRUSTRATING because I know any 2-year-old would solve this problem immediately.”
Strategies that Turn it Around:
- Audit your communications. It seems that many communications from companies are on standard templates and are auto-generated. Therefore, communication pieces should be audited on a regular and continuing basis to ensure that ALL information is current and relevant—including all links.
- Take ownership. Sometimes, it helps to stop relying on automation and simply get things done manually whenever possible. If a client has been frustrated for two months, then it’s time to take ownership of the problem and pick up the phone and call them directly or send a personal email. Someone needs to help this customer; otherwise, you may end up with a negative review or be written up in an article, even a blog post.
Remember: If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Customer service is about people helping people. Let’s be better than a 2-year-old and roll up our sleeves to help out our clients, especially anyone who has been frustrated with us for nearly two months!
What do you do to ensure your organization delivers frustration-free service to its customers?