Amazing Customer Service
Experience #1:
After spending some time in the yard, my brother-in-law, father-in-law and I decided to head to Subway to get some lunch. My father-in-law was nice enough to foot the bill but unfortunately he’d forgotten his rewards card at home. The cashier told him not to worry and that he could get a new card, go online and merge it with the old one once we got back to the house.
After 45 frustrating minutes of trying to get the two cards merged online, we gave up—I’m a tech savvy guy and I literally couldn’t figure it out.
Contrast that to another experience.
Experience #2:
In an effort to find a movie online, I decided to check out Amazon Video. As I clicked around, I’m not sure what I did, but I accidentally signed up for Amazon Prime. Accidentally. It was that easy. So then, since it was an accident, I decided to cancel my Prime membership. I called Amazon’s customer service line and this was how it went.
Amazon: “If you’re calling about Prime memberships, press 1.”
Me: *1*
Amazon: “Please enter the last 4 digits of the credit card attached to your account.”
Me: *####*
Amazon: “If you’d like to cancel your membership, press 1.”
Me: *1*
Amazon: “Your account has been cancelled and a confirmation email will be sent to your email account on file. If you don’t need further assistance, feel free to hang up.”
Me: *End*
Phone: *Email alert*—“Amazon Prime Member Ship Cancellation”
Done.
This is not an effort to bag on one company and promote another but is a case to get us thinking about our own customer service. How easy is it? Is the process so simple that you could accidentally figure it out? Or is your tech savvy friend going to struggle? What steps can we eliminate? How can we automate this to make it fast?
This next week take note of every customer service experience you have and weigh it against your company. Then, come back and see what changes you can make. Think in terms of the question: “How can we make this effortless?”
Hopefully these experiences can help you reconsider your processes and get you on your way to amazing customer service. Good luck!