The Death of Customer Service...

[ImTellinTim]

Quote: Originally Posted by slickdtc

Best experience of customer service I had was Enterprise. I screwed up everything from the reservation to the payment and they went above and beyond to help me out and hook me up. I wrote in about how positive that was. Seen the same guys since and they're mad cool.

Funny enough, me too.

I was driving to Milwuakee a few years back when my engine blew about 25 miles into the trip. I got towed back to the shop, and I'm thinking about what the hell I'm going to do because I had this whole trip planned for awhile. Was meeting some old friends and had tickets to a Brewers game. On the tow ride back, I realized I had won a package at an auction that included, among other things, a weekend car rental from Enterprise with enough mileage to cover a trip to Minneapolis and back.

So I get a cab to Enterprise and tell them my situation and ask if I could transfer the car rental from the weekend it was supposed to be for to right now. "Sure, no problem, we'll just bring you to your place and you can grab the coupon from the auction." I get back to my place, and I can't find this thing anywhere. By this time, I'm all bent out of shape at myself. I go back out and say "just bring me back, I guess I can't find it." I get back and the manager still gives me the free rental even though I was fully prepared to pay them, and says to not even worry about bringing in the coupon whenever I find it.

They got a message from me about their unreal customer service as well.

[kt-od]

I'm just wondering now if he regrets posting this as maybe it hasn't gotten the responses he sought.

[SmashMan]

Quote: Originally Posted by kt-od

I'm just wondering now if he regrets posting this as maybe it hasn't gotten the responses he sought.

Nah, he dug his heels in pretty hard even after the initial replies. I do like that it turned around into people posting good customer service stories too though.

[kehlis]

Quote: Originally Posted by PVarck31

My biggest thing is the fact they gave him/you a link to do it on your own, but you chose to continue to be difficult about the situation. If you needed it done so bad, go to the link and do it. No reason to keep getting an attitude with the lady. You could have even asked her to stay in the chat with you while you did it to make sure everything went through. I think we all can get annoyed with customer service at times. We've all had bad experiences, but you chose to make it more difficult than it had to be.

She even offered to stay in the chat while he did it to ensure it went okay! Literally the opposite of bad customer service but he won't acknowledge all the things she did right and is instead focusing on the previous conversation and something getting screwed up.

I think we've all experienced some form of bad customer service at one point but this example isn't it.

If the point of the thread was to share those experiences it's probably not best to start of the thread with that example.

[BunnyHardaway]

Quote: Originally Posted by SmashMan

Nah, he dug his heels in pretty hard even after the initial replies. I do like that it turned around into people posting good customer service stories too though.

I've been thinking about examples of good customer service ever since I stumbled upon this.

Had another one that just popped into my head. 2 years ago I bought a ticket to Game 2 of the Orioles/Tigers ALDS from a third party site. I've done it countless times without issue.

When I print the ticket, it has Game 1 listed...not really a big deal as I had off of work that day as well, so I figured it was just a mixup and the ticket was still good. The day of the game comes, and I try going through the gate and the guy's scanner keeps bugging out every time he scans my ticket. I go over to the box office, who explain the ticket was a duplicate and the owner of the "real" one was already in Camden Yards. 15 minutes of panic ensues before I was lucky enough to get a spare club level ticket from the box office. O's win 12-3 and I got to see it, which was fine with me.

I contacted the site from which I bought my initial ticket to see if I could be refunded, and they got back to me the next business day. They explained that there was an error in their program that caused some tickets to be listed as still available despite being purchased, and that I would receive a 150% refund. I figured that was just a typo and was happy regardless, but lo and behold they actually gave me a 150% refund within 2-3 days.

VividSeats FTW.

[woodjer]

Quote: Originally Posted by SmashMan

Yeah, we'll just agree to disagree. I know what you're saying and I know people like that, but I personally don't carry over any negative impressions from one rep to the other. My last real customer service experience (where I needed repeated attention) was trying to nail down a six-month-long intermittent noise issue that killed my internet multiple times every single day. I had to go through a lot of Comcast people before resolving it (needed someone to be checking at one of the moments it dropped because the signal read fine otherwise) and while I was frustrated at the situation, the rep didn't get any of that from me. I knew that for all they knew it was my first time having a problem and I went into it with that in mind. Going through so many "let's try restarting the modem" attempts had me screaming at home though, haha. I agree with the overall point of being respectful on both sides.

Just to be clear, I try not to carry over impressions from one rep to another, too. My problem is that each bad experience makes the fuse a little shorter for the next call, regardless of who I talk to. In the last couple years, I've been pretty good though. I think each person SHOULD be treated as a separate individual but I just struggle with that and I know I'm not the only one. What I've found really helps me is greeting that person by name, trying to remember their name to the end of the call, and thanking them by name. It's a stupid little thing but I feel it keeps me grounded a little better.

Speaking of good customer service in addressing a bad issue:
Took the family out to Friday's for dinner a while back. Terrible service and the only time in my life that I've asked to speak to a manager in a restaurant. She comes over and I told her about our experience. She comped what food we did get (never did receive my wife's food) and offers to box up the kids' food because she could see the frustration nearly had my wife in tears. When she brings the boxes back, she asks for my email address to see if she can do anything to encourage us to come back. Two days later, I get a couple emails each worth roughly what our bill would have been. So, while I wouldn't want the experience again, we ended up with what food we did get from the first trip and what amounted to 2 more free family meals. I was expecting like a $10 off coupon or something but this was MUCH more! I only wanted to relay the bad experience and ensure that we wouldn't pay for what we did get. Never asked for more but was pleasantly surprised.

[AC]

My first ever job was as a grocery store cashier + bagger in a neighborhood filled with Let Me Talk to the Supervisor Moms. I worked there for, like, at most 4 months.

For the rest of my mortal life I will never ever be anything less than excessively nice to retail workers

[dickey1331]

I had terrible service at IHOP once. I know IHOP isn't known for great service but this was terrible. Anyway I filled out one of those online surveys about my experience and the store owner ended up emailing me and gave me a $30 gift card. I was pretty impressed.


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