How to Turn Customer Service Horror Stories into Happily-Ever-Afters
Lessons learned from 5 real-life encounters.
We surveyed industry professionals and social media followers for Customer Service Week (and Halloween) this year, asking them to share their shockingly bad customer service stories. If you haven’t seen them yet, you can read our top 5 favorites in full here.
After going through all the submissions, we found several common threads. These commonalities offer a glimpse into just how accurate more than a few of the good customer service truths we promote really are.
Poison Apples: Customer (dis)Service
What do bad customer service experiences have in common? No matter the industry, the service platform, the product, the place or the people, the rotten customer service core looks pretty much the same. Watch out for these 4 “poison apples” wherever customers interact directly with your team:
- Being difficult to understand, overly complicated or not getting the message across
- Having a generally rude and unaccommodating demeanor
- Failing to communicate when a problem has occurred, or waiting until it is too late to do so
- Making the interaction about something other than the customer and their needs
Glass Slippers: Customer-centric Service
Good customer service seems so incredibly simple it really is shocking how often we all get it wrong. While the tactics, trends and technologies we use change and evolve over time, the heart of all our efforts is always the same:
- Speak or write clearly, with kindness and in a welcoming manner.
- Listen to hear, not to reply.
- Make their issues your mission.
- Offer the best resolution you can every single time.
Provide proactive service before there’s a problem.
Learn about the latest trend (and enabling technologies) transforming the customer service industry for the better—and how you can do it, too—in this blog.