Definition of Customer Service
Posted this in Shop Talk forum but that forum is dead, so here goes:
As of late, the entire paradigm of Cingular has shifted with regards to billing and crediting charges. Before this shift, if you went over your minutes, got charged for roaming/long distance, and disputing your final bill after porting out, customers would call in and we (CSRs) would tell them, too bad, pay your bill, etc. Even when a customer has escalated a call to a higher-up, they would defend our decision and quote policy to the customer explaining why the charges are valid.
Fast forward to today now. Cingular's customer service has been "branded" the worst in the industry from every which way imaginable. Now, the primary reason why customers complain about a w...
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As of late, the entire paradigm of Cingular has shifted with regards to billing and crediting charges. Before this shift, if you went over your minutes, got charged for roaming/long distance, and disputing your final bill after porting out, customers would call in and we (CSRs) would tell them, too bad, pay your bill, etc. Even when a customer has escalated a call to a higher-up, they would defend our decision and quote policy to the customer explaining why the charges are valid.
Fast forward to today now. Cingular's customer service has been "branded" the worst in the industry from every which way imaginable. Now, the primary reason why customers complain about a w...
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Hopefully it's still at your discretion to give or not give partial credits. You could do a small part by not giving away illegitimate credits and forcing them to escalate to get anything.
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The only problem with that, is that if they escalate, they still get it. Our managers have been informed that NOTHING is to get escalated above them, which basically boils down to one simple thing: Credit them to shut them up. Tail is right, its the same way where I work, if the customer is threatening to escalate, or right letters to BBB or FCC we will give them whatever they want, whether its valid or not. I had a call the other day, a customer called in, she went over her minutes, she knew she had, and knew the charges were valid, she just wanted us to credit her the over 600$ in overages b/c she was a good customer (which she wasnt, just started in January, and already been turned off three times for non-payment) and she got the credits...
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WOW thanks for the "info"!!!
Just kidding. I have over 1300 in the RO bank. But it's still nice to hear the inside scoop. No wonder they call it Phone Scoop.
Just kidding. I have over 1300 in the RO bank. But it's still nice to hear the inside scoop. No wonder they call it Phone Scoop.
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Now, the primary reason why customers complain about a wireless company and their "customer service" is related to the first paragraph.
That's a bold statement. Considering the number of complaints I have seen here relating to such issues as:
False charges
Contract extensions
Misleading information (aka Lying about service/plans/features)
Rude representatives
among a few - I would have to disagree with your statement.
Most of the customers I imagine - would be happy to get what they are told they are buying into with no surprises and have someone available to answer their questions if needed.
The very fact that customers have to call in to ask some of the questions they do clearly in...
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You really are getting bored now aren't you. Hanging out in the "lounge forum".
At least you had a relatively good point with this one, albeit you tend to jump to the "lying" card when you have no real understanding either way.
At least you had a relatively good point with this one, albeit you tend to jump to the "lying" card when you have no real understanding either way.
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Yea, it is painful to agree with Plooky from time to time. But I'd have to say he is more or less correct.
The reasons customers find Cingulars service sub par are many. To say it hinges solely on "credit vs. no credit" is a complete cop-out on behalf of the representatives. That's not to say the giving out more credits would not help customer service stats; just not for the right reasons. CS sucks because Cingular has taken on polices at prensent and in the past that serve only to bone the customer. The RSA package posted earlier as an example. It really should be a matter of a carrier being up front and honest with the customer, if they dont like the terms they can take their business else where, otherwise they have been informed.
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The reasons customers find Cingulars service sub par are many. To say it hinges solely on "credit vs. no credit" is a complete cop-out on behalf of the representatives. That's not to say the giving out more credits would not help customer service stats; just not for the right reasons. CS sucks because Cingular has taken on polices at prensent and in the past that serve only to bone the customer. The RSA package posted earlier as an example. It really should be a matter of a carrier being up front and honest with the customer, if they dont like the terms they can take their business else where, otherwise they have been informed.
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I also take offense to several things that seem to be happening in Cingular as well, in particular the attitude in some of the emails we have been getting which infers that basically every problem that cingular has is customer services fault. While I understand that Cingular has lagged behind the competition in CS rankings, not all of the blame is on Cingulars CS. Many of the complaints have to do with Cingular policies, that CS cannot change, we simply are the ones who enforce them. Other complaints have nothing to do with us, i.e. one of the biggest complaints at my location is customers who get charged for roadside assistance but never asked for it. Originally we thought it was just agents trying to get commission for extra features an...
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I agree that Cingular mgmt is placing too much of the blame on the Reps. Cingular's "par metrics" do little to encourage Reps to take good care of customers. For instance, Cingular dictates that our average handle time is not supposed to be more than about 400 seconds -- meaning you better not be patient and slow down for too many customers or you'll be getting a "development" score report from your supervisor regardless of whether or not you were doing a good job helping your customers and explaining things at their pace and level of understanding. Another ridiculous metric is the call transfer rate. What this metric does is basically forces a Rep to just provide a number for the customer to call rather than actually taking care of the ...
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Well the credits are frivulous but they can go a long way to keep customers if they randomly go over their minutes and if it is done right they could really lower churn.
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I think it's total bull that that's happening. I work in sales, migrations from blue to orange, in a call center. I was in retention pre-"merger" and I remember specifically in training when the trainer told us that cingular doesn't simply offer credits just because. even in a sales dept i know what it's like to have a customer who wants a phone for free w/ no agreement because they're a "good customer" or they've "been with us for soooooo long", even tho it's only been like a year or two. we're a business not a charity.
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I know this is kind of off the subject of discussion, but i think alot of what makes a companies reputation is how many times its customers actually have to call customer service. If a company's service is that poor where its customers are frequently calling customer service and expecting credits, there is something inherently wrong with the service being provided. And if a company is getting that many customers calling expecting credits that the CSR's are not instructed to try and help or retain its customers, then even cingular knows what they are selling people is garbage. Now i used to have t-mobile, who has the smallest network and the crappyest coverage. While i couldnt place phone calls in a ton of places i wanted to, i never once...
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