Customer Service – Page 4 – Phil Bernstein's Advertising, Marketing, and Sales Training Blog

Crackberry’s Sales Prevention Department

Here’s a story of what happens when a cranky customer and an inflexible merchant meet: both sides lose.

I’m a Blackberry user, willing (so far) to put up with the slow browser, lack of features, and iPhone envy. In return I get a physical keyboard and a comforting sense of the familiar.

I also have to deal with the fact that most of the really cool apps don’t come in a Blackberry version. So when I read about a travel app called Flightcaster, and learned that they make it for my dowdy old phone, I went right online to find and order it.

My search took me to a place called Crackberry. I pulled out my credit card and put through a $2.99 order at the Crackberry Store.

The next day I received an email which read, in part:

We are anxious to ship your order, however we need some additional information to complete the order process.

To ensure that only the authorized cardholder placed the order, we would like to verify the supplied billing information. Your order has been placed on hold until this verification is completed.

The following information is requested to ensure that the authorized cardholder placed the order. Please email or fax at least two of the following:

– Top portion of the most recent credit card billing statement showing, name, billing address and last four numbers of the credit card
– Photo copy of your driver license
– Photo copy of the front and back of the credit card before the order can be filled (optionally block out all numbers except first and last four)

My initial reaction was that this couldn’t possibly be real. It was clearly a phishing attempt from some nefarious individual intent on stealing my identity. But when I went on the Crackberry website, I found the same message in the “order status” section.

So I fired off an email to Crackberry Support:

…if you truly want a photo copy of my driver’s license and/or my credit card statement just to put through a $2.99 order – please cancel the order. Amazon doesn’t ask for this information. Zappo’s doesn’t ask for this information. Delta Airlines doesn’t ask for this information I spend a couple of thousand dollars on airline tickets. And I’m not sending it to you, either.

Before we go further, I’ll stipulate something that is probably obvious to the dispassionate observer: I didn’t need to go my-way-or-the-highway quite quickly. I could have politely asked for an explanation first. Noted.

But the support staff for an online retailer should be equipped to deal with the occasional customer who is quick to take offense.This one wasn’t.

I received an email from Jim B., a Crackberry “customer service specialist”, this morning:

Hello,

We have received your email request for the cancellation of your order. Your order has been canceled and a confirmation email has been sent.

Thank you,

Jim B.
Customer Service Specialist
Toll Free (888) 599-8998

On one hand, I’ve got to respect them. Crackberry has rules, and if a customer doesn’t want to follow those rules, they’d apparently prefer not to have the business.

But here’s what could have happened: Jim B. could have explained the situation (rampant fraud? a problem with my card number? something?), started a dialog, and tried to see if there was some way to accommodate a customer.

If we’d worked something out, and I got the app, we’d have a relationship going forward. Crackberry might have received further orders from me in amounts much larger than $2.99.

In addition, I’d have been a great referral source: I’d have shown off Flightcaster to my colleagues who travel, and told them where I bought it. More customers, and more revenue, for Crackberry.

Instead, it stops here. I don’t have the app; Crackberry doesn’t have my money, future business, or referrals. We both lose.

Are there “customer service specialists” on your staff? How do they handle cranky customers?

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Safeway Print Ad Fail

Today’s lesson: make sure the folks in Marketing and Operations are talking to each other.

This ad was on the front page of today’s Sunday Oregonian:

As an ad professional, they had me at “$15 off plus free delivery”.

A nice, simple offer. Strong call to action, with a reward for taking it. Although the print on the deadline is way too small — they would have been better off making the deadline font every bit as big as the rest of the copy — but there is a deadline.

As a person who consumes groceries, I was interested, so I went directly to my computer and logged onto their web site. This is what I found:

We are sorry for the inconvenience, but our site is currently down for maintenance from 9 PM until 7 AM (PDT).

It was 8:35am. In an effort to take care of delivery customers, there was a link, but it went to this:

Our home delivery system is temporarily unavailable due to a scheduled system maintenance. Thank you for your patience.

While the folks in Advertising were arranging to spend thousands of dollars to invite new customers to their web site, somebody in IT was scheduling a maintenance activity that took the site down. And if they figured that the maintenance would be over by the time most Oregonian readers were up and reading the paper, they figured wrong.

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Delta’s New Campaign Misses The Point

I’m a Delta Airlines frequent flyer. Not quite George-Clooney-“Up In The Air”-frequent, but I average two round-trips a month on the airline, have managed to hit Gold Medallion status, and have an outside shot at Platinum.

A week ago, I was one of 180 passengers who had to hike from one terminal to another at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport because Delta had parked its plane at the wrong gate. This was the third time in 2010 this has happened to me on a Delta flight.

So I was amused and astonished to see see this ad in today’s morning paper:

The substance of the message is terrific: Delta is bringing back their “Red Coat” agents to assist passengers who need help rebooking or otherwise solving problems. This is a good thing.

The problem with the ad is its self-congratulatory tone, which directly contradicts the experience of anyone who’s ever flown Delta.

You should be able to depend on an airline to make your trip easier, no matter what’s going on in the industry — those are our concerns, not yours.

Well, yes.

But this is not some secret information that only Delta knows. In fact, there is considerable evidence that in terms of dumping the industry’s problems on their customers, Delta has been one of the worst offenders for years.

Delta has consistently ranked near the bottom in national customer-satisfaction surveys. Their Skymiles frequent-flyer program is considered one of the very-worst in its availability of free tickets. Google “Delta Sucks”, and you’ll find page after page of horror stories.

Passengers really don’t like Delta Airlines.

There is significant evidence that Delta’s senior management recognizes the problem, and is taking steps to address it. The return of the Red Coats is certainly a signal of that. If the campaign told its customers, “We heard you, we know we have a problem, and we’re fixing it”, Delta would deserve applause.

Instead, this ad attempts to position Delta as if they’ve always led the charge for good service. Which reminds one of Judge Judy Sheindlin’s timeless advice:

Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

Until Delta proves to its passengers that it is committed to improvement, this is one message that will be met with derision.

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Customer Service Done Right: Amazon

I’ve been known to use the immense power of Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog to rip companies who either can’t or don’t feel like taking care of their customers. Today I want to salute one who got it right: Amazon.com.

My wife had a significant birthday this past weekend. As part of her gift, I ordered her the new Amazon Kindle. Although I ordered it nearly a month in advance, it was already on backorder, and they couldn’t give me a delivery date. As the birthday weekend got closer, I resigned myself to the probability that it wouldn’t arrive in time.

Until the Thursday before, when Amazon emailed me to say that the Kindle had shipped. I was delighted until I looked closer, and saw the deliver date of Tuesday, September 7. This was a problem, because:

1. As an Amazon Prime member, I was entitled to automatic two-day shipping on all orders. Two days from Thursday would have been Saturday.

2. With the birthday weekend upon me, the difference between Saturday delivery and Tuesday delivery was huge.

I called Amazon. The first person I spoke with explained that they had shipped the package via UPS ground, and since it was already en route, there was nothing she could do. So I asked for a supervisor.

This brought be to Tawny in Amazon’s “Leadership Team.” Tawny listened to my tale of woe, understood the implications right away, and put me on hold to check with UPS. When she came back, she said that she was “90 percent sure” that my package would be delivered on Saturday.

What about the other ten percent, I asked?

She said she was going to monitor the package through Friday, and that if it looked like they would miss the Saturday delivery, she’d have another Kindle sent via overnight shipping. She promised to call me with an update on Friday. I was dubious, but it seemed like my best option, so I thanked her and ended the call. My assumption was that she would forget all about it as soon as she hung up.

I was wrong.

Friday afternoon, my phone rang. Tawny was calling to say that she’d been tracking my package and didn’t trust UPS to deliver it on Saturday, so she was having it re-routed back to Amazon, and shipping out a replacement. Overnight delivery.

9:15 Saturday morning, my doorbell rang, and a driver handed me the Kindle. Problem solved, in the nick of time.

I suppose one could quibble: the argument could be made that I shouldn’t have had to ask for a supervisor. The customer service rep I initially spoke with should have been able to take care of this.

But there are plenty of places where multiple levels of management will shrug, apologize, and move on. When your group is called the “Leadership Team”, the expectations are a little higher.

Tawny’s empathy, hard work and follow-up lived up to and exceeded those expectations. Amazon is lucky to have her.

Wanna know what else I did for my wife’s birthday? Read this.

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Are You There, Holiday Inn? It’s Me — Phil

Most recent books on marketing and customer service recommend that companies monitor what’s being said about them on the Internet, and respond quickly to unhappy customers who express themselves there.

Some companies are doing a great job of this. Today I’m going to find out if Holiday Inn is one of them. This post is going up on Friday after noon — I will update it if I get a response. Here goes:

Dear Holiday Inn,

I just completed a stay at your Sioux Falls City Centre location, and I have a bone to pick with you. Here it is:

You promise free “high speed internet access”. In reality, there are two levels — “basic” access, in which the access is free, but is anything but high-speed — the connection is slower than dial-up. There is also a “premium level” that is supposed to be much faster.

On Thursday evening, I finally broke down, pulled out my credit card, and paid $8.95 for the “premium level.” It was just as slow as the free version. After 20 minutes on the phone with Ibahn Tech Support and another half hour of rebooting, I concluded that it wasn’t going to get any better, so I went down to the front desk to ask for my money back

There, your front desk people told me that:

1. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We usually tell people not to pay for the upgrade.”

2. They didn’t know how to give me a refund.

3. The manager (no need to publicly embarrass him by naming him here, but his first name is Tom) wasn’t in, and they didn’t know when he was coming back. “He might be in tomorrow, but he might be on vacation. We don’t really know.” They suggested calling and leaving a voice mail.

That’s when it got really interesting. The manager’s outgoing message voice mail message said (I’m paraphrasing here)

Today is Thursday, and I’ll be out of the office this afternoon and evening. I’ll be back on Friday, so please don’t leave a message — just call back tomorrow.

I must admit, I’ve never heard that one before.

Rather than inconveniencing him by expecting him to call me back, I thought I’d try to reach someone who cared. Here’s what I’d like to suggest that you have your local managers do:

1. Empower your employees to make an $8.95 decision without having to seek help.

2. Have a manager available, or at least tell them when he/she will be back.

3. Take the trouble to accept messages, promise to call back, and do so. Don’t make your customers do all the work.

4. Either have decent free wi-fi, or skip the free stuff and just charge for a good connection. Don’t bait and switch.

And, Holiday Inn? One more thing:

I’d like my $8.95 back.

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