Comments on: Five Minute Finances #12: Contact Customer Service

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:53:44 +0000

I work the customer service desk and have learned that like 99 percent of all callers are complaints or information/person requests. Does ANYbody compliment others these days?

If you like how a cashier performed, *please* go through the extra five minutes and compliment him or her – it could make a promotion that was years away become immediately available. Or, it could also affect the person’s pay and/or evaluations.

I once received a poor evaluation rating simply because I did not earn any customer compliments!

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:08:05 +0000

:) – I did some IT work for a customer complaints line for a large shaver company. They tracked every single caller on little bits of paper. We were implementing a basic CRM for them. So I’m not sure that every company puts you on the blacklist.

Oh – and any complaint – OR COMPLIMENT – usually ended up with free stuff.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:13:25 +0000

Something to keep in mind is that often you will get coupons if you really like the product and call to tell them about that, as well. True, they aren’t as worried about keeping a customer from becoming a possible loss, but they are usually happy to help a satisfied customer become more so. Like they say, word-of-mouth *is* a better advertisement than what they can pay for.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 18:42:27 +0000

I worked in customer service for a while. Besides the crazies my most memorable calls were when the people offered to help me. One lady offered me a place to stay if I was ever in her town. The other guy told me to look him up if I were ever in Vegas and he’d get me tickets to a show. For this type of customer I would have done anything to help.

The other thing that made me want to help the customer was when they used my name at the beginning and end of the call. If you forget the persons name by the end of the call just ask.