{"id":3873,"date":"2018-04-04T13:53:09","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T17:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=3873"},"modified":"2018-04-04T16:06:47","modified_gmt":"2018-04-04T20:06:47","slug":"trust-loyalty-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=3873","title":{"rendered":"Trust, Loyalty &#038; Customer Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=1233\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1233\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1233\" src=\"http:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/TrustInccover313-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"122\" height=\"183\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This story starts with an increase of 30% on our monthly business phone bill for no apparent reason, and with no explanation. I set aside five minutes to call the company since this particular landline exists primarily to accommodate unsolicited robocalls, and not much more. Eighteen minutes later, I was still on the call.<\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First 2 minutes:<\/strong> A customer service telephone number is not displayed on Page 1 of the bill. (A number is buried on Page 4 as I was later told by Rep #2). Thank goodness for Google who popped the number right up on my screen.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;\"><strong>Next 5 minutes:<\/strong> Listening to a recorded message and series of prompts with no way to bypass and speak directly to a rep.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Next 5 minutes:<\/strong> Speaking to Rep #1 who advised that our &#8220;special&#8221; rate had expired and she could not extend it. When I suggested that I might discontinue the service, she asked if she should connect me to the &#8220;disconnect department.&#8221; I suggested that perhaps there was an alternative and&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Final 6 minutes:<\/strong> Speaking to Rep #2 in the &#8220;loyalty department&#8221; who reinstated the discount, but &#8220;just for 12 months.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think I need to name all the ways this company is busting trust and loyalty under the heading of &#8220;customer service&#8221; but I did share a few thoughts with #2. She had a rebuttal for every suggestion yet asked me to stay on the line for a customer service survey.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe that ANY organization still operates in this manner, yet so many do.<\/p>\n<p>Approximately 50,000 employees currently work for this public company. In September 2014, the stock traded at $41.00. Today that same stock can be purchased for $16.75. Are you surprised? I&#8217;m not.<\/p>\n<p>PS- The CEO, who has been in this role for over 25 years, recently announced his early retirement.<\/p>\n<p><em>Barbara Brooks Kimmel\u00a0is the CEO and Cofounder of\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/trustacrossamerica.com\/index.shtml\"><strong><em>Trust Across America-Trust Around the World<\/em><\/strong><\/a><em>\u00a0whose mission is to help organizations build trust. A former consultant to McKinsey &amp; Company, she also runs the world&#8217;s largest global\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/trustacrossamerica.com\/cgi-bin\/alliance.cgi\"><strong><em>Trust Alliance<\/em><\/strong><\/a><em>\u00a0and is the editor of the award- winning\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/trustacrossamerica.com\/order.shtml\"><strong><em>TRUST INC.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><em>\u00a0book series. In 2017 she was named a Fellow of the Governance &amp; Accountability Institute, and in 2012 she was recognized as one of \u201c25 Women who are Changing the World\u201d by Good Business International.\u00a0She holds a BA in International Affairs from Lafayette College and an MBA from Baruch at the City University of NY.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For more information visit our website at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\">www.trustacrossamerica.com <\/a><\/p>\n<p>or contact <a href=\"m&#x61;il&#x74;o:&#x62;a&#114;&#x62;a&#114;&#x61;&#64;&#116;&#x72;u&#115;&#x74;a&#99;&#x72;o&#115;&#x73;a&#109;&#x65;r&#105;&#x63;a&#x2e;&#x63;o&#x6d;\" class=\"autohyperlink\">&#x62;&#x61;&#x72;&#x62;&#x61;&#x72;&#x61;&#x40;&#x74;&#x72;&#x75;&#115;&#116;&#97;&#99;rossameri&#x63;&#x61;&#x2e;&#x63;&#x6f;&#x6d;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow us on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BarbaraKimmel\">@BarbaraKimmel<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TapIntoTrust\">@TapIntoTrust<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You may also join our <a href=\"http:\/\/trustacrossamerica.com\/mailing-list.shtml\">Constant Contact mailing list<\/a>\u00a0for updates on our progress.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright (c) 2018, Next Decade, Inc.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-best-social-bookmark\"><ul class=\"socials\"><li class=\"oknotizie\"><a href=\"http:\/\/oknotizie.virgilio.it\/post.html.php?url=https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=3873&title=Trust, Loyalty &#038; Customer Service\" title=\"Share this on oknotizie\"> <\/a><\/li><li class=\"twitter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=Trust, Loyalty &#038; Customer Service &raquo; https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=3873\" title=\"Share this on twitter\"> <\/a><\/li><li class=\"delicious\"><a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/post?url=https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=3873&title=Trust, Loyalty &#038; Customer Service\" title=\"Share this on del.icio.us\"> <\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Approximately 50,000 employees work for this public company. In September 2014, the stock traded at $41.00. Today that same stock can be purchased for $16.75.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[420,433,390,405],"tags":[122,18,135,116,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3873"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3880,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions\/3880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}