Comments
batye
3/10/2016 1:27:06 PM
User Rank Platinum
changes in the Air
Subscriber Aware Network is interesting as it would improve quality of service.... how I see it...
freehe
3/10/2016 7:25:28 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
This is a terrific article and provides great insight into customer service. I have experienced the same issues with my hosting provider and internet provider. I call and report a problem and if they can't replicate it or don't think it is important enough to fix it doesn't get fixed. In another instance if no one else has reported the problem it becomes a low priority in the queue. In another instance they may be aware of the problem but are unable to provide the customer with information and what happened, why and when the problem will be resolved. This is where streaming analytics can help companies move to being customer centric.
All companies need a detailed view of customers not just VIP customers who experience performance problems. I was the chair of a Quality Review Committee and each week we reviewed the top problems of the week. We created teams to solve each problem providing a workaround first then developing a permanent solution to ensure the problem did not occur again in the future.
Companies were once customer centric but have moved away from that and are not business centric. Companies need to revert back to being customer centric and align that with their business priorities.
batye
3/10/2016 7:27:33 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@freehe I could not agree more, interesting to know :)
Re: changes in the Air
@freehe--I agree. It seems that once upon a time (in the good ol' days) everything was custmer-centric...and then came the boon and companies decided they didn't need EVERY customer to be happy; as long as 'most' were, they were okay. It's really time they realized that every customer matters. If VIP customers take their business elsewhere, it often causes a domino effect...It's time to move back to customer-centric practices.
Ariella
3/14/2016 1:25:25 PM
User Rank Author
Re: changes in the Air
An interesting thing I notice now that there are so many online reviews: some companies make a point of responding to each negative review. Generally they all sound the same, soemthing along the lines of "we're sorry you had a negative experience. Please contact our customer care center." While they are trying to show that they care, this kind of canned response is inadequate, particularly for people who did first try to call and got nowhere. Worse yet are the companies that make it almost impossible to get a response to your questions, forcing everyone into choosing pre-scripted questions with pre-scripted answers both for their email forms and their phones, which prevent callers from direct access to real people.
Re: changes in the Air
This is a very interesting point. For many service providers, customer service assurance is reactive. Given that the quality of service is directly impacting customer churn and also promotes negative comments, being able to resolve issues is a core activity of any service provider. While resolving issues is good, being able to resolve then before the customer complains should be the ultimate objective of these service providers.
Ariella
3/15/2016 10:34:06 AM
User Rank Author
Re: changes in the Air
@Affandy I couldn't agree more. After writing my own comment here I ran into the exact type of thing I described with respect to my dealing with a problem with Staples. I called customer service and was told it was my own error. I asked for a supervisor. I was on hold a long time and did not get a supervisor but the same rep who finally admitted that it was their error. But she didn't even apologize for the inconvenience or her condescension.
faryl
3/18/2016 12:16:48 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@ariella So frustrating when it's impossible to connect with a company to get assistance! I especially hate when the website tells you to call for further assistance, and then the phone number just connects you to a recording that tells to go to the website.
Responding to negative comments can really work in a company's favor when done right. I often check user forums before purchasing software or electronics to see how responsive the company is. If they acknowledge the issue and seem to show a genuine interest in working with the customer to resolve it, that makes me feel more comfortable becoming a customer.
But so often it seems like companies are more either boilerplate and trying to placate rather than resolve, or they are defensive and try to discredit or diminish the customer's complaints. (The latter is more common on Yelp with smaller businesses, I think)
Ariella
3/18/2016 9:33:44 AM
User Rank Author
Re: changes in the Air
@faryl exactly! The Staples social media person didn't really do anything other than cut and paste some standard script about their rewards program that didn't at all address the problem that their system had failed to ever issue the rewards. The phone rep eventually understood that and issued replacements, but it took quite a while to just make her understand that I was not an idiot who just doesn't get it.
faryl
3/19/2016 1:17:38 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@Ariella At least the phone rep was able to grasp what you were getting at!
I hate when service reps don't give me credit for having a brain...if I'm calling, it's a last resort because I've tried all the other options. (The cable companies and internet service providers are the worst with this - of course I tried powering everything down and resetting everything!)
Ariella
3/19/2016 9:01:47 PM
User Rank Author
Re: changes in the Air
@faryl I hear you! I had major frustration with one of my web hosting companies once. It got so bad that I switched to another even though I still had months left on my contract.
batye
4/1/2016 8:05:16 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@Ariella this days is so many of them on the market... but only few provide good quality service... sad reality....
elizabethv
3/31/2016 6:02:35 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
All complaints need to be handled appropriately by companies, lest they risk a backlash. Even if they believe the backlash might just be negligible, being wrong could still have potentially devastating, unintended consequences. I recently posted a problem/complaint with my security company on their Facebook page. Rather than trying to help me, they just deleted the post entirely and ignored me. This resulted in my complaining further, and in the end they gave me a free service call (normally $80) and a new alarm sensor. Companies know that a dissatisfied cusomer will tell 10 people about their experience. With those kinds of odds, there is no good time to take a lackadaisical approach to customer service.
faryl
3/31/2016 8:47:28 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
I think it's absurd for a company to delete comments!
Unless it's something inappropriate/offensive, complaints should be treated as an opportunity to show other potential customers how a company handles mistakes.
batye
4/1/2016 8:09:17 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@faryl it does happens very often... I seen it few times on facebook, when customers comments about bad service market as offensive by PR rep on facebook and facebook delete it... sad but reality...
Ariella
4/1/2016 8:34:16 AM
User Rank Author
Re: changes in the Air
@Batye I've seen it too. If they don't delete the comments, they place them in a way that they don't appear in a public view.
batye
4/1/2016 1:52:35 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@Ariella or covering them with positive reviews/post... PR tricks... or realm of social media... covering up with positive paid post.... :(
Ariella
4/1/2016 4:06:56 PM
User Rank Author
Re: changes in the Air
@Batye that, too. Legally, though, anyone who is posting a review for a product received for free has to include that fact in the review. That way people can be a bit wary of the flood of positive reviews that appear. I recall on one product, somoene posted a very negative review and said s/he had been taken in by the positive ones and only now realizes that they were all good because the reviewers were given the product for free.
batye
4/2/2016 4:34:02 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@Ariella I would say it a mind trick of human nature if someone get free product for review they feel obligated to leave positive review as product is free and they mind saying free product = positive review... - it how I see it this days reviews on Amazon.com and Facebook :(...
Ariella
4/3/2016 5:27:16 PM
User Rank Author
Re: changes in the Air
@Batye sure, first of all, you're more likely to like something if you didn't have to pay for it. Generally, people give me more positive reviews to things that cost them less than they think it was worth and more negative reviews to things that work but that they consider not worth the cost. Secondly, they want to keep getting free stuff and know that the suppliers are giving the stuff out because they want to generate positive reviews -- not negative ones. So it is in their best intersts to be as positive as possible.
batye
4/4/2016 12:07:19 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@Ariella I would say you are right as it human nature and Co. do know about it and used it ...
Re: changes in the Air
Thank you and you are absolutely right. Having the right customer nsight has always been a challenge for telecommunication companies due to limited capabilities to understand and optimize subscriber experience. The traditional approach of looking at the performance of the network as a whole does not allow mobile operators to discriminate which network degradations are affecting which customers. As a result, different customers are left with poor service, even though from the network point of view, everything looks fine.
Having a view of the network from the subscriber point of view has not only become a critical aspect of reducing churn but also reducing CAPEX and OPEX. By knowing how to prioritize optimization efforts, service providers can minimize troubleshooting activities and costs.
DHagar
3/15/2016 1:00:08 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@Affandy, great perspective on how to win in today's markets. The old model of develop a capability and "push" services and sell capability to the customer has been replaced by providing services of value to the customer one customer at a time.
As you point out, each customer experience is 100% of their view of that service, not .05%. The successful companies, like Apple, actually select the goods/services they are going to provide and zero in on building the best experience possible. A good model to follow. Customers will distinguish who can deliver versus those who talk about it.
dlr5288
3/31/2016 3:00:31 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
Very good points!
I have had problems with my cell phone and tv providers about different problems I was having. I have Verizon and Comcast and with Comcast they were so much more helpful and reliable. With Verizon it took me forever to get a hold of someone because I kept being sent to another worker. It also took me forever to get something taken off of my bill. It was a headache for sure.
freehe
3/31/2016 8:15:16 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
This article made excellent points. So many companies avoid fixing all customers problems and focus on major problems and problems VIP customers experience. Every customer is important and every problem should be fixed. If not, companies make it that much eaiser for customers to switch to another company.
"The problem for operators is that while they may have visibility across the whole network, they could lack a detailed view of individual subscribers who may be experiencing network and service performance problems. This is common in today's networks, as increasing network complexity has masked individual subscriber problems from the view of mobile operators."
batye
4/1/2016 8:07:17 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: changes in the Air
@dlr5288 some Co. using this techniques of bouncing customer betwen CSR with idea at the end customer give up... I seen it in Canada too many times...
afwriter
3/11/2016 10:26:14 PM
User Rank Platinum
Big Data
To me this shows that big data is not always the best approach. I do love the idea that they will be taking a more customer first approach here.
batye
3/12/2016 5:15:06 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Big Data
@afwriter yes, you are right, I do hope other Co. will use the same idea/way -taking a more customer first approach... as it important...
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