Our guest post author for this installment of the Customer Service Stories series is Jayme Soulati, President of Soulati Media, Inc. Soulati Media delivers business-to-business social media marketing with public relations. For more Jayme, check out her hard-hitting blog at soulati.com.
Also, please keep an eye out for our great video interview with Jayme in the near future.
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GUEST POST DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions and positions expressed by guest post authors on this site are those of the author alone and do not represent those of IntenseFence Management Solutions or any employee thereof. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this post have not been verified and are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations.
The beauty of social media is the opportunity for large corporations to learn from their front-line and marketing mistakes. This story is true, just happened, and provides me the chance to put it in the blogosphere for others’ awareness.
U-Verse is a product AT&T has been touting for more than a year in my neighborhood. Both my neighbors on either side of me have it, so I wanted it, too, for faster internet connection. I was an existing customer with AT&T wanting to buy other services from AT&T. It doesn’t get any better when an existing customer wants to upsell herself services. Here’s what happened instead:
That’s when I lost my patience and said:
So, let’s review AT&T and its customer-facing experience:
So many aspects of this customer experience failed on so many levels that I’m extremely disgusted. Like a bank, telephone services are challenging to change. Instead of experiencing the hassle to switch, customers complain and stay the course.
What’s changed?
Social media now allows more stories like this to see the light of day. Perhaps AT&T will see this story; perhaps not. But through the Internet and social media, this story’s reach will be exponentially greater than at any time before.
Companies need to market services they can provide. They need to train customer service representatives to respond when consumers ask a smart question. They need to train managers and reps to return phone calls to customers when they’re asking for a phone call. Lastly, companies just need to care.
By Adam Toporek. Adam Toporek is an internationally recognized customer service expert, keynote speaker, and workshop leader. He is the author of Be Your Customer's Hero: Real-World Tips & Techniques for the Service Front Lines (2015), as well as the founder of the popular Customers That Stick® blog and co-host of the Crack the Customer Code podcast.