Tips on Customer Service

Is anyone wondering why I haven’t posted for the past few days? It’s a matter of customer service. It's at times like these that I miss America, where telecommunication companies' customer service representatives actual try to serve their customers.

Like the United States back in the 1980s, telecommunications here in South Africa is monopolized by one entity. Telkom. I didn’t realize at the time just how wise those judges and politicians were who broke up AT&T’s monopoly. But I digress.

Telkom controls all telecommunications, including broadband Internet connections, here in South Africa. There are exceptions, such as wireless iBurst technology, but by and large, everyone in South Africa with Internet connections, both the antiquated dial up and broadband, must go through Telkom. In layman’s terms, Telkom owns the pipe through which information flows. While we have a different provider for the flow of information through the Internet, our provider is dependent upon Telkom for this.

On Friday our Internet connection went down, and after going to our provider and speaking to representatives at Telkom, it was determined that the problem was due to Telkom's lines. Now we had to wait for a technician to come out. As this happened late in the afternoon on Friday, we had to wait the entire weekend for a technician. On Monday, no technician came, and calling Telkom’s customer service became increasingly painful, as they repeatedly told me that they had already handed it off to their technical department, who would deal with it in due course. They also flippantly explained that there “were a lot of faults in our area” and that their technicians were "very busy" and would attend to us when they were able. Several representatives also said that they had no way of notifying us as to when the technician would come.

On several occasions there was much laughter in the background, and the customer service representatives were for the most part extremely unhelpful about when someone might be able to come out to us. Finally, on Tuesday morning, a technician came.

It turned out it was not Telkom after all, but our router, and the technician kindly resolved our problem, though he was not obligated to. Still, the length of wait for a service call and the representatives' unhelpful attitudes left me with a bad taste in my mouth. If I had a choice, I would find another provider for every service Telkom currently provide me.

So... some tips on customer service, an area in which I spent many years working. Remember that if someone calls your business with a problem, empathize with them and try to resolve it. Whether it is a problem with your product or service doesn't matter. The customer will remember how you deal with their issue and become a potential source for referring new clientele. Being unhelpful might lose you a customer and, in these times, no one can afford to lose a customer.

(Originally published at The Creating Wealth Blog on 1/21/09)