Being in Customer Service I frequently get ranted to by customers that are not happy about the service they are getting, or something that has gone wrong. Having been in their position I understand the need to rant to vent ones frustration… However when customers rant they seem to be more interested in telling you that “it’s” not “working”, telling you that “it’s” all your fault (“well not your fault personally” and “Oh I’m not blaming you I know you are just doing your job”), than actually telling you any information that can help you to solve their problem.

Good customer service people can turn this around rather quickly, making customer see that their rant isn’t really all that effective, and that if they can just see their way to providing a little more information it would help solve their problem so much quicker. I’m still having trouble with this myself, however I really don’t class myself as a Good Customer Service person. I’m just as likely to be one of those annoyed customers on the end of the line being frustrated and frustrating, not understanding that I’m not being very helpful.

So what was the purpose of this Blog post? To remind me, and well, anyone else that might actually be reading this, that no matter how mad we are when we contact customer service, it’s always going to be much better if we take the time to provide the correct information and be patient with the person trying to help us (yes, they are actually trying to help, they aren’t just their trying for fob customers off), as this will get the problem solved quicker. Once the problem is solved, by all means, send off a scathing email, or phone up and ask to speak to a manager and then rip into them, you do have a right to vent your anger. Just bear in mind that venting your anger to the support person is not very likely to get you anywhere and chances are you are a very very small minority of the customer base. If they believe you to not be worth the time and cost involved to maintain, they have the right to refuse you service.

It’s all very well threatening to expose them as a bad customer service company, however chances are that their logs of of the customer service they have provided far are more extensive, and prove that they have gone to great extent to provide the support you are complaining about. Am I supporting large companies in their attempts to exploit customers? Not at all, I’m just saying that shit happens, and it’s how it’s dealt with that matters. Large companies realise that shit happens, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t need Customer Service departments. They spend large amounts of money supporting their customers, and realistically the percentage of customers that actually use the Customer Service facilities is usually quite small compared to the number of customers actually being serviced.

Basically… Give us a break, we try… And the majority of what we deal with every day are those people who are always the first to complain about the slightest indiscretion or problem. There is probably only about 30% of people who contact us who have genuine problems.