Where Has All The Customer Service Gone? (Dallas, TX)

December 5, 2007 · Filed Under Random Thoughts, Sales Training 

Phillip CrumDid a little homework on e-mail service providers yesterday. Called three of them in a row, nationally recognized businesses and all of them answered the telephone with voice mail. You can tell a lot about the culture of a company by how they treat their customers and prospects, but that’s fodder for another post.

What really drives me nuts is the notion that a potential customer has called, has his checkbook out and has asked to speak to a sales rep. Unfortunately, the norm these days is to take a name and phone number (I hate it when they do that because I know they’re about to tell me that someone will get back with me in 24 - 48 hours, and I’ll be lucky to hear from anyone at all.) You’ve got to be kidding me!

I’m going to invent a new technology called “Forward-to-Phillip”. It’s a viral technology for telecommunications systems, specifically designed for companies that don’t get it. Any time, a late stage prospect calls and begs to give you money and a message needs to be taken, the Forward-to-Phillip button is activated and the message is immediately forwarded to me. I’ll take the money! I have no problem taking the money. I understand that some people have too much of it already; I don’t. Call me, I’ll talk to you right now.

All I really wanted was to get some general pricing information that the customer service rep who answered the telephone could have known. There are some basic questions across each category with basic answers that can be known by the immediately available staff to help people like me answer their questions. When you deal with leads in this way, or in other words, when your lead nurturing system fosters “prospect frustration” your numbers just aren’t going to be what they could be.

One of the e-mail providers that I called explained their system this way, when he said, “well, we don’t like to give that information out up front, we’d rather call you back to explain the value”.

That’s what he said. What I heard was, “we need to manipulate the situation so that you don’t assume that our price is too high. So we’re going to inconvenience you, make you wait, and just generally tick you off so that we can put a happy face on our price, which we’re quite proud of. We figured we’ve got a better chance of closing you if we’re both live.”

I’m only a stage three prospect. I’ve not yet gotten to the point where I’m ready to whip out the credit card (they don’t know that). The likelihood of exchanging financial fluids on the telephone is not great. So basing your lead nurturing process on the fact that you’re farther along in the in the selling process than I am in the buying cycle is not smart.

Voicemail has its place. Why don’t we use it for voicemail! Not for answering the telephone. I have yet to experience a situation in which voicemail utilized in this manner has made the experience better than if a live operator had answered the telephone.

My main point, however, is that companies of any type, not just e-mail service providers, should have basic Q&A questions and answers at the ready in the hands of of the available staff so that basic research questions, like mine can be answered without causing 2-3-day delays in my homework process. Or perhaps those FAQs could be posted on their website. What a concept. Wouldn’t that eliminate the call altogether? There are processes for the Web that could be utilized to capture potential prospect information, potential lead information, without requiring a phone call.

In one instance, when I finally reached a sales rep and spent three minutes talking with him, he informed me that because I had been required to give my information online to download a white paper, I had been assigned to another rep a couple of cubicles down. I was being passed around like a cheap date. Oh, boy. We get to start all over again. All I wanted to know was a simple question. These things don’t have to be so difficult.

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Phillip Crum is the Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasure and is committed to the idea of helping small business owners do a better job of finding their next customer or client. He and his two sons also own a Sir Speedy Printing franchise and employ those additional capabilities in the overall marketing services menu of offerings. Phillip can be reached at 214-213-7445, or pcrum@MarketingMeasure.com

Copyright © 2006-2008 Phillip Crum | Email This Post Email This Post | JobSearchDocs

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