How not to do customer service

I’m not exactly a pro when it comes to customer service but of this much I am sure, when a customer is angry, it’s always better to listen to them. Angry customers will say things to harm you, maim you and generally make you feel bad. They may be mostly wrong BUT their hearfelt and raw input is just the thing you need to make your business, service or organization of any kind more customer responsive and successful. It’ll hurt in the short term but help you in the long term.

Some companies can’t hear that though, and so resort to bizarre means to shield themselves from the customer onslaught and then mask it as being more attentive to the customer. The primary means of this is either technology that makes it appear (at least statistically) that you are getting better service or by offshoring and throwing poor souls trained only to follow a script at the problem.

I think the best most recent example of how not to hear your customer’s though is found in this post at the Inquirer about Sutton & East Surrey Water. In their own words:

LONDON’S second-leakiest water company has installed paradigm shifting leading edge award winning new technology that promises to do absolutely nothing to help the poor, dehydrated suckers who make up its customer base.

You can read the story for yourself by clicking HERE

(super cute photo courtesy of Shopping Diva used under Creative Commons License)