The Penguin has been asleep, and I ‘m sorry I have to wake it with a rant, but I’m sure you can handle it readers.
In my home, my TV and broadband is supplied by Virgin Media. I’ll not bore you with the details, however I had a bill-based query to run past them. I took to the phone, and after a highly confusing (and long) discussion with a person in a foreign contact centre (grrrrrr!), I was none the wiser. My next step was to take to their website, fill in a contact form and await a response. How long do I expect to wait? 24 hours, perhaps 48 at the most. I think that’s reasonable in today’s world, especially for a business of that size. Three days later. Nada. Not a sausage.
So, I took to Twitter…
(I did send it via the contact form…)
28 freakin’ days!!!
Brace yourself, here it comes…
There we go! The big Twitter fob-off. A fob-off that contains a chuffing smiley at that! Basically translates as ‘we can’t be arsed helping you, so we will pass you to our call centre and they can deal with you’. Frankly I would rather be tied to a chair for week and be forced to watch the Ganhnam Style video while having my toenails removed by a beaver with blunt teeth than call you again.
The reason I took to Twitter in the first place was I saw it as a way to have a dialogue with someone I could actually communicate with and hopefully get a resolution. The phone didn’t have this effect. Three days and no email response left me without an answer. A 28 day expectancy rate is just ridiculous and to even communicate that is laughable.
What’s the lesson here?
If you’re going to offer Twitter (or any other social platform) as a place for customer service, don’t just see it as an opportunity to pass the customer on to your call-centre or site. Like many others, I don’t want to call an 084 whatever number from my mobile just to have a truly frustrating experience that gets me nowhere. People expect service regardless of the venue for the request. Offer high service levels across all contact options, and if you can’t properly support one, don’t bother going there. Oh and one more thing – put your contact details somewhere prominent on your site. Far too many businesses tuck this info away in the hope that nobody will bother them. Oh and one more additional thing – FAQ’s are not the answer to the world’s issues.
Have I had a resolution?
Yes. Over the phone. I had no choice.
I help businesses get better on customer service via my consultancy, Velocity Digital.
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About Mike McGrail
