Shortcut to a Tarnished Reputation

A year ago, I bought a color laser printer. I’d been using a 15-year-old black and white printer and felt it was time to upgrade. I’ve loved the quality and consistency I’ve gotten from my color printer. The printer isn’t the top-of-the-line model, but it is a well-respected brand and was enough of an investment that I took the time to research the product before I spent the money.

Over the holidays, I turned the printer off. I wasn’t going to be working, so decided not to even use electricity to keep the little “ready” light on. When I turned the printer on after a week, I got an error message: “No Toner. Install toner cartridges.” I opened the printer. The toner cartridges were all there. Unless some gremlin sneaked into my office over the holidays, no one had touched the printer for a week, when it had been working fine.

I followed the most common first instruction from IT personnel: I turned the printer off and turned it back on again. Same result. I turned the printer off, unplugged it, took out the toner cartridges and put them back in, and turned the printer on. Same result.

So, I did what any first-world 21st Century computer user would do under these circumstances. I asked the Internet. The results had the dual benefit of letting me know that I wasn’t alone in this issue with this product and pointing me to some possible solutions. I followed all the steps in all the suggested fixes. Same result. I did them a second time. Same result.

Finally, I decided to do what most first-world 21st Century computer users hate to do: I called the company’s support number. I got a message that hold times may be “longer than usual” (I had no idea what “usual” was for this company). Shortly thereafter, a recorded voice told me that my wait time was approximately 12 minutes. This seemed reasonable and I was glad to have a time estimate to manage my expectations.

I waited for 15 minutes and heard a recorded message tell me the company also has messaging support through their website. I decided to test whether messaging or voice would be faster. I got in the queue for messaging support, which told me the wait would be 15 minutes. Surely someone would come on the phone line within that time. I kept both open to see who would win.

Both lost. After 23 minutes, while still listening to the same hold music repeatedly, the messaging support person came online. I explained my problem in the text box. The response was, “I can help with that. One moment please.” After about a minute, I got a message with a link to a support page on their website. This was the exact page with the instructions that I’d already done twice. I responded to the chat support that I’d already taken those steps, which was why I was contacting support. The response was, “You’ll need to call our support line. All we do in chat support is point you to our existing help pages.” Useless.

Are you tracking how long I’ve been waiting on the support phone line now? Remember, the message I got said 12 minutes, and by this time I’d been waiting almost an hour. After an hour and 15 minutes on hold, the music stopped. Hope filled my heart. I heard silence. “Hello?” I said. I heard a click and more silence. I thought that meant someone was connecting. “Is anyone there?” I asked. Nothing. The line disconnected.

What’s the impact of this experience on my perception of my printer’s brand? I’ve loved this product. I’ve been super happy with the printer’s performance. But when the day comes that I need to buy a new printer, this experience will be imprinted (pardon the pun) on my mind.

Much of the problem for me was in managing expectations. I’ve long promoted the importance of communicating clearly with customers to manage expectations. If the messaging support is only going to point me to existing support pages, tell me that before I use it. If my wait time is going to be an hour, don’t tell me it’s going to be 12 minutes. If you give an estimated wait time to a customer, you need to be sure you’re within 20 percent of that wait time or you’ve mismanaged your customer’s expectations. And by all means, when someone has waited for over an hour to talk to a support person, please don’t disconnect them.

I still love my laser printer. I spent another hour that day and came up with a solution on my own that worked around the problem. But the shiny reputation of the laser printer brand is now tarnished a little. Maybe that’s acceptable to the company. Maybe the efficiencies they get by running support this way is worth the dent in their reputation. But how many of those missteps will customers endure before the entire brand is tarnished?

Polishing up customer service is the best way to keep a reputation shiny. Getting careless with how you care for customers is the fastest way to a tarnished reputation.

Mark Carpenter is a consultant, facilitator, coach, and co-author of the best-selling book "Master Storytelling: How to Turn Your Experiences Into Stories that Teach, Lead, and Inspire." www.master-storytelling.com