Here's a happy holiday quote for you: "no one is allowed to cancel and re order if we catch anyone doing it we will simply just cancel your order all together and you can buy it retail somewhere else."
Wow. Just… wow.
This is not the first time I've heard this comment (posted in a blog by Penny Arcade co-creator Mike Krahulik). There were a lot of stories this year about retailers (like Best Buy, Target, and others) who screwed with their online customers by not only cancelling online orders, but offering older models of items for the same price as the newer model sale. Also, let us not forget the PayPal vs. Regretsy debacle of the season ("It’s too late, we know what you’re trying to do and we’re not going to let you do it.").
Seriously, folks, I spent the first fifteen years of my working life in customer service, not including the side jobs that I was able to work as a kid, and this is NOT how one earns or retains customers.
I was taught that 1 customer with a bad experience would go and tell 10 other people about it, while a customer with a good experience may only tell 2 or 3 other people. With social networking on everyone's list, that paradigm has shifted drastically. Now 1 person with a bad experience can tell thousands of others with one strategically placed comment. But big business apparently hasn't figured that out yet. What will people remember about this year's holiday season?
Paypal cancelled Christmas for needy kids because customers hit the wrong button.
Best Buy ruined Christmas.
Target says "No Christmas tree for you" and then won't let the customer cancel the order.
Ocean Marketing screwed over its pre-order customers and mocked a powerful online gaming community voice.
The CSRs behind these incidents deserve to get a pink slip. They have dropped a grenade of monumental proportions on the reputations of the companies they serve. But the CSRs shouldn't shoulder all the blame. PayPal, Best Buy, Target, Ocean Marketing (and all the others) deserve at least half. Shame on them for failing to properly train their CSRs, for failing to empower them to resolve problems, for failing to ensure they received enough of a break to deal with the stress of the season. Shame on you all for not paying attention to proper customer service.
I get it. I really do. Christmas is crap for those who work in retail. You have to put up with pushy customers who yell at you for not having their item in stock (you, not your company), deal with shoplifters and scam artists "returning" items they never purchased, and survive extra-long work shifts full of women wearing too much perfume, children screaming at the top of their lungs, people tearing apart displays you worked hard on designing. I get it. Surviving the Christmas shopping season should earn you the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart. But there are better ways to deal with situations like these. And a CSR should never take out their bad day on a customer who is asking valid, legitimate questions on how they can resolve their problems.
"Never say no," is one of the first things I learned as a customer service rep. Letting a cooler head (like a co-worker or a manager) deal with a difficult situation is another lesson. Lastly, if company policy keeps you from doing your job as a good CSR, it's time to seek employment someplace else. Heaven knows there are plenty of customer service jobs available, even in this economy. Whatever else you do, though, do not be the person on the other end of the line that told an honest customer "we're not going to fix this, and you can't do anything about it."
Wake up, folks. Customers have more options today then they did twenty years ago, and they are more than willing to use them. Be nice to the people who pay your wages, or watch your company close its doors when the backlash hits. It's your choice.
