By Rick Stanton
I just got off the phone with Melissa Coffman, the publisher of my new book (shameless plug), How to Sell a Chicken.
And boy was she p….. off.
The Devine Ms. M is as intense about quality and accountability as anyone I’ve ever known, and she was pretty intensely angry about the reproduction of the photos in the last order of my books. And she was/is equally angry about the fact that there seems to be no one high up enough to solve the problem.
“Gosh, we’re sorry.”
Who can I talk to, to get this problem fixed?
“Gosh, we’re sorry.”
This comes on the heels of my experience with AT&T Mobility, which has a new take on the old Bell Telephone line: “We don’t care, because we don’t have to.” I’ve had cellphone service with AT&T for about 20 years.
I hate the cellphone and find it highly ironic that today’s versions are referred to as smartphones. They make morons out of most users.
Having determined that my $60 monthly fee costs me about $30 a call, I decided to switch to Consumer Cellular for $14 a month (AARP finally came in handy).
I called AT&T on Friday, June 5th, and got a lovely woman who understood my reasoning and asked me when I’d like to discontinue my service with them. I told her, “The end of the business day, Monday, June 8th.”
This all seemed way too easy and—as it turned out—it wasn’t.
When I called Consumer Cellular to begin the transfer to them, they said they couldn’t access the data needed to do what’s known as “porting out.”
The reason? AT&T had locked my phone and, essentially, “killed” my decades-old cell number at 12:01 a.m. on the 8th.
After two days and half a dozen calls to AT&T, mostly with people I couldn’t understand, I was basically told, “Gosh, we’re sorry.” But she said I could unlock the phone online with my IMEI number. Until June 8, I had no idea what the hell an IMEI number even was.
I learned it’s on the box the phone came in! Do you have the box from a cellphone you bought in 2011— through your business? If you do, you need help.
So, I was forced, yes forced, to get a new phone that I only use as a phone.
Years ago when I bought a new cell from AT&T, I asked the 20-something sales guy if they had a cell that was just a phone. He looked at me like I had three heads and said, “No.”
Did I say that I hate cellphones?
So, I got the same iPhone that my tech-smarter-than-me wife has. It’s brand new and pretty slick.
And when I called CC to activate it, they magically had recovered my old phone number. The person I spoke with said notes from our less-than-a-week relationship told them it was important to me to keep the number, and—since no one had claimed it—they were able to recover it.
Customer service has nearly gone the way of the Dodo, common sense and manners. On the rare occasions I encounter good or great customer service, it’s almost shocking.
In a world where most companies don’t give a rat’s ass about caring about “you” as an asset, it strikes me that—all things being equal—customer service could be a deal maker.
I saw this with my client, ERNST Home & Nursery, back in the ’80s when their near-sighted president announced they were getting rid of the “Fellows in Yellow.” These were retired or semi-retired craftsmen who could answer any question you had about do-it-yourself home projects. The result was a double-digit drop in sales that went over to Pay N Pak and other competitors.
And they also stopped selling hunting and fishing licenses which gave customers at least four more reason to come to ERNST, because it provided added value . . . wait for it . . . customer service!
And people wonder why Amazon is kicking ass.
https://www.shopkeep.com/blog/retail-customer-service-tips#step-1