Is customer service dead? The Discover Card commercials with the bearded, Ukranian and very male credit-card customer-service representative named Peggy, certainly speaks to our times.

These Discover Card commercials focus on customer service, or more specifically, the lack thereof at some of the financial institutions in the US. But, sadly this is a situation that spans across several industries.


Peggy Puts a USA Prime Credit Customer on Perpetual Hold

Every time these commercials come on, I watch them and laugh out loud. I don’t even skip them if I am watching a DVR’ed program. However, in reality, when you are struggling to get through and then to deal with a customer service representative, it’s no laughing matter.

Today I received a very thoughtful gift from my husband and daughters, a bouquet of pink roses and calla lilies … you noticed I said thoughtful and not beautiful. It came from FTD and typically their quality is superior. But this is Mother’s Day weekend one of their busiest times of the year…

I opened the box and my bouquet of flowers looked awful! The pink roses were brown around the tips and at the base and the calla lilies were flattened. I have experience with flowers and know that sometimes you have to pull the outside layer of petals off of roses when they arrive … if I did this with these roses, I would have nothing but the stem left!

So, knowing that my husband spent a considerable amount of money on this bouquet, I called FTD to resolve the issue. I was told via a recording that the wait would be approximately 15 minutes. It took 25 minutes to get connected then I was on the phone with a gentleman whose first language was not English.

  • TIP: If outsourcing your customer service, it is critical that all of your representatives have good English languish skills.

It was hard for me to understand how FTD was going to resolve the problem. Like Peggy, my representative’s inability to answer simple questions – beyond reading from a script – was quite frustrating. In the end, I was told that they were going to replace my bouquet.

  • TIP: Empower your customer service representatives. The consumer can tell when a customer service representative is simply reading off of a computer screen.

Next my husband’s phone began to ring and buzz at 10:30 PM. The same customer service representative was on the line. I will give them an A for follow up but still the language barrier was a real issue. I think I was being told that the flowers my husband had ordered were no longer in stock. The representative was giving me instructions on what to do next, but I couldn’t understand him. I nicely told him that I thought we were having a communication issue and asked to speak with a supervisor. I was put on hold for a couple of minutes and then he came back and said, “He’s not around.” This is no joke!

  • TIP: Be prepared. If this is your busy season, staff up and sock up!

Customer service is one of the most important parts of your company’s overall strategy to conducting business. So why is it mostly every consumers can easily mention examples of poor customer service in their daily lives?


Peggy Disappoints a Customer Who’s Calling to Redeem Her USA Prime Credit

Every company either has or thinks it has good customer service. However, if certain steps are not taken to ensure this, the reality of their situation is often far worse than their current perceptions.

You need to be the company that gets it right the first time, and if you don’t, you must quickly rectify your mistakes. If you consistently make this part of how you conduct business, customer loyalty will continue to grow. The surest way to continued success and future growth is to not only meet your customers expectations, but to exceed them at every possible turn.

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