Make it easy for frustrated customers to contact you, get problems solved. You’ll create loyal clients.
In the past 30 days, I canceled service with three companies I’ve used for years.
Customer service was the reason. It was that bad.
But I kept my business with another company even though its actual service keeps messing up. That business’ customer service is that good.
Customer-service representatives are everywhere. Anyone with a phone, TV, computer, coffee maker, credit card or insurance; or who buys subscription services or makeup from shady companies advertising on TV has dealings with them.
And let’s not forget about business-to-business customer-service reps.
Their numbers are growing by the minute. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the profession will expand 15.5% through 2020.
Call centers alone had almost 23,000 vacant jobs, more than a third listed in the past week, according to CallCenterCrossing, which calls itself the largest collection of call-center jobs. The company cites the health care law, holiday season and general economic expansion as the chief reasons for a rise in call-center hiring.
As long as companies offer things to buy and services to use, folks will need help.
[Customers have over a period of many years now indicated that METABANK and its affiliates, including the Network Branded Bank Card Association, fail when it comes to customer service. We, as former METABANK customers/clients believe, based on our own personal experience using METABANK et al., that METABANK by design treats their customers in an abusive manner. We have been scammed and lied to. We have been treated in an inhumane manner. METABANK does not offer any kind of model that should be used as a guideline by any other entity…. METABANK relies on numbers and the population is growing rapidly. METABANK relies on getting partner corporate entities to market their prepaid bank card a relationship which is in fact one that will increase the rate of decline of that partner company. At first the partner company will experience an initial spurt that may appear to be great and fabulous; this is the honeymoon, but it is a marriage that is doomed by design. METABANK only wants their partner companies’ list of customers whom METABANK will use for their own financial gain. In establishing this partnership, METABANK promises to take care of all the collections for their partner. Collections is the dirtiest of dirty work so the partner company is happy to hand over this part of the operation to METABANK. METABANK, as we former customers have found, has an abusive customer service system by design. When METABANK’s customer serivice representatives basically went through a list of standard lies they had been handed to use for all situation; the lies serve to blame the customer for the problems the customer had encountered using METABANK. However, by design, METABANK created a prepaid bank card which customers load with cash money, and then METABANK limits and controls when and even if a customer will be able to have access to their own money…. This scheme is predatory. It is based upon false and misleading promises. METABANK is by design immoral. Only consumers can speak up to warn others so that METABANK can be stopped from doing this great scam on the people.]
Companies claim to know how important these front-line jobs are. They say they strive for a “customer-first mindset,” “transparency and accountability,” “positive customer relationships” and “consistent and efficient delivery of superior customer service.”
So why don’t more customer-service reps deliver? Is it the company or the employees?
Likely both.
Workers tell me they want these jobs because they like people. Yet too many companies do everything they can to not let their people talk to us.
Finding contact information can be like a game of hide-and-seek.
Some refuse to talk to you. Take Twitter:
My account has had a problem for four months. I’ve obediently followed Twitter’s directions and sent in a dozen requests for help.
I’m still waiting for an answer.
On the other hand, companies such as crowdSPRING help businesses and creative talent find each other and make it easy for customers to communicate with them.
[This concept is an old one that worked. It worked very well. This is what we as consumers expect, but this is not at all what METABANK provides. METABANK uses this concept to catch consumers and their partner companies off guard so that METABANK can get their foot in the door. What META BANK does is an IMMORAL ACT.]
This company posts its phone number on every page of its site. No doubt this springs from the philosophy of co-founder Mike Samson who tells his reps that the spoken word is better than the written word, to say “please” and “thank you” and always end with “much obliged.”
People who get into customer service tell me they love to solve problems.
Yet “I can’t help you with that” are the last words that a lot of people hear from a customer-service rep.
- Those workers either don’t know how to think like a problem solver or don’t think they have the authority to help.
- Some customer-service reps are plain mean. The other day I asked a one that I could barely hear if she might speak a little louder. She snapped, “No, I can’t scream.”
- When you keep getting bad customer service, you wonder why companies keep sending surveys asking how your customer-service experience went.
- I also often wonder why companies insist that customer-service reps speak canned faux caring phrases like “Have a nice day” after they’ve been mean and obstructive.
Chief Operating Officer Zach Cusimano of Bizness Apps, which makes mobile apps for companies, says his business doesn’t coach reps to use particular phrases. Company officials do encourage them to “throw in some love” and foster more interactions by saying, “I’m happy to help,” “Please let me know if you have any other questions,” and “Looking forward to hearing from you again.” [However, if these statements are nothing but empty words with no real response and no action behind them then they are useless. It is our strong impression as former METABANK customers that the CEOs of METABANK have created all of the guidelines, which include a list of rote excuses for why it is always the customers’ fault for any problems they may have encountered. METABANK creates the problems by which they get rich and then richer; METABANK breaks with every expectation that any person would normally expect. METABANK creates all the rules and retains the right to change all of the rules without notice. This is bad, but on top of that METABANK takes customer’s money and keeps us/them from having access to their own money while using the NETWORK BRANDED PREPAID BANK CARD. The NETWORK BRANDED PREPAID BANK CARD amounts to being an interest free loan from customers to a very rich bank. The whole concept has been reversed. Potential customers are mislead into taking on such a card by the partner company who is in effect being used as a “PATSY” in this dynamic triangle of abuse of the consumer.]
I contend that more people would like their customer-service jobs and customers would be happier if they did what Jesse Richardson does.
“We love our customers,” Richardson says. She is conscious community officer for Conscious Box, a subscription service for eco-friendly products.
Seriously.
If you want a satisfying career helping solve problems for people who are frustrated, confused and sometimes angry, care for them no matter what.
Find a great company that values them and you.
In the 25 years I’ve counseled people with their careers, most tell me one thing: I want to be of service to others. Here’s your chance.
[As former customers of METABANK we had expected this kind of treatment, but METABANK and the NETWORK BRANDED PREPAID CARD ASSOCIATION act in a predatory manner so that they abuse their customers, only to move onto the next person so they can dupe that person. The huge size of our population is how METABANK has been able to get away with this kind of scam for as long as they have. Only you can stop this kind of a scam.]
Career consultant Andrea Kay is the author of This Is How To Get Your Next Job: An Inside Look at What Employers Really Want.
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