{"id":2025,"date":"2014-10-05T10:23:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-05T14:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=2025"},"modified":"2014-10-05T10:23:26","modified_gmt":"2014-10-05T14:23:26","slug":"trust-the-ringy-dingy-csr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=2025","title":{"rendered":"Trust & the Ringy Dingy CSR"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"TAA_R2_EDIT-CS3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.<\/strong><\/em> ~\u00a0<\/span>Tony Allesandra<\/i><\/p>\n

Who remembers Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Telephone Operator from Saturday Night Live?<\/p>\n

This past July I wrote a blog post called Sorry, Our Policy Doesn’t Permit It<\/a>\u00a0 that attracted lots of attention and followup notes. Today I have another customer service blunder courtesy of our\u00a0local phone company.<\/p>\n

Until this week I had not paid the bill for our office phone service for three months, simply because the online “Pay” button on the company website had disappeared and I had spent too much time looking for it. \u00a0The bill was now over $150.00, so it was time to make that dreaded customer service call. After pressing lots of buttons and codes, I was connected to “Jason” who quickly assessed the issue and advised me that I was connected to the wrong department.\u00a0 He could not solve the “Pay” button problem but\u00a0COULD take the payment over the phone, with a service charge of $4.00. When I told him I wasn’t interested in paying the service charge, but wanted to offer a suggestion, his response was simply “I don’t want to hear your suggestion as this call is being recorded. All I want to do now is transfer the call.” I told him that the recording of the call was all the more reason for me to make\u00a0the suggestion, hoping that maybe someone would actually hear it! Every “Jason”\u00a0should be given an $8.00\/day discretionary allowance to accept a phone payment without the service charge. After all, what company wants to forego $150.00 to save $4.00?<\/p>\n

Why is it\u00a0so difficult for companies to provide excellent customer service? Is it poor leadership, low priority, too many policies, poor training, low pay, or all of the above? Why should I\u00a0believe that this company cares about me as a customer? Why should I want to continue to do business with them? Why should I even care when apparently they don’t?<\/p>\n

Barbara Brooks Kimmel<\/strong>\u00a0is the Executive Director of\u00a0Trust Across America-Trust Around the World<\/a>\u00a0whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She is also the editor of the award winning\u00a0TRUST INC.<\/a>\u00a0book series. In 2012 Barbara was named \u201cOne of 25 Women Changing the World\u201d by Good Business International.<\/p>\n

Nominations are now being accepted<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for Trust Across America-Trust Around the World’s 5th annual Global Top Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business.<\/p>\n

\"Print\"<\/a>\"ND\"914Trust<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Coming Soon!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Should you wish\u00a0to communicate directly with Barbara, drop her a note at\u00a0Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2014, Next Decade, Inc.<\/p>\n

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