Here’s a pleasant customer service story I pulled out of my memory bank.
I have two Paypal accounts.
One that I currently use. And there’s another one that I created probably years back, but I completely forgot about.
Apparently, the older account was created under my email address, but also under my brother’s personal information. So he asked me to delete the account.
The only problem was, there was one dollar in the account for some reason and we were unable to delete the account until the money was transferred out. And for some reason, I couldn’t connect our bank accounts either.
So I did the only thing I could do, contact Paypal’s customer service through online chat. Although looking back, I should’ve just talked to them over the phone.
But that’s not the point. Basically, the conversation went down like this:
I explained my problem to the representatives and they asked me to confirm my information. Yes, I talked to multiple people. When one representative wasn’t available to reply to my messages, another one would take their place and carry on where they left off.
Everything was going well until this one specific person took over and asked a question that basically circled the conversation back to the beginning. At that point, I lost my patience and gave up. I already spent a few hours on this issue and wasn’t going to spend more. So I wished the man a good day and moved on with life.
Thinking back, that was probably one of the only, if not the one and only moment where I personally experienced not-so-good customer service. There were dozens of other bad customer service incidents that people within my social circle dealt with.
Bottom line is, cross customers equals lost customers.
That’s why I’ve always been uneasy with the idea of outsourcing customer service. Paul Jarvis, the author of The Company of One, went into this a little bit during one of his interviews. Nobody knows the ins and outs of your own business as well as you do. And nobody knows your customers as well as you do, which is why I think the best customer service comes from yourself or team members, if you have any.
And if you give your customers good service and a great overall experience, then you can bet they’ll stay around for a long time.
That’s why I suggest you read Vance Morris’ Tales of the Customer Service Crypt, because good customer service is just as important as your marketing.
Probably even more important actually, because what good is it if you obtain customers through your marketing but can’t retain them for a long time?
It’s your choice. If you want to get a copy of his book, use my affiliate link below and it’ll take you directly to its Amazon page.