by Miriam Garvi
I spent part of this morning on the phone, taking care of some simple business. It turned out to be quite the interesting study of customer relations.
Call 1: I dial the number to my local bank.
Bank manager: - Elisabeth speaking.
Me: - Oh, is this not the … Bank?
Bm: - Yes, it is.
Me: - Aha. I am trying to figure out how to wire some money abroad over the Internet. Perhaps you could help me?
Bm: - I’m busy with a client right now. Can you call back later?
Me: - I thought I dialed your general number?
Bm: - Ehh… You did. But the call came to me nevertheless. Hm… let me see what I can do. Hold on, I’ll put you through to the cashier’s desk.
Question: Customer relations is about the client helping the service provider help the client?
Call 2: I call the swimming hall to book a massage.
- Welcome to … swimming hall.
Me: - Yes hello, I would like to book a massage for Friday morning if possible.
- Ehh, I don’t know if our masseur is in on Friday.
Me: - Perhaps you could find that out for me?
- Well the problem is that our binders with the scheduling information have gone missing. I’ll need to go look for them. Let me have your number and I’ll call you back.
(an hour later, an impatient customer tries again).
Me: I’m calling about a massage.
- Oh yes! That’s right! I’m very sorry about not calling you back, you see I haven’t been free to leave the cash-desk yet…
(massage eventually scheduled later in the afternoon).
…
Call 3: I need to reschedule a dental appointment…
Me: …I’d like to reschedule my dental appointment on the 25th.
Dental secretary: - Hold on a moment, please… Oh, that’s weird!
Me: - How’s that?
Ds: - You’re scheduled on both the 23rd and the 25th!
Me: - The notice I’ve received is for the 25th.
Ds: - Yes, but I have you in my computer twice! How can that be?
Me: - In any case, I need to reschedule for September.
Ds: - But twice the same week? Do you want to cancel both?
Me: - Eh yes, that would be good since I need to reschedule for September.
Ds: - Hm… I’ve never seen this before! What have they done here?
(customer still waiting…)
Ds: - Yes, so you need to cancel both? Ah! Now I know - we have training on the 23rd so they probably rescheduled everyone and forgot to cancel the initial date. [with a sigh of relief] OK! September, you said?
Question: if time is money, then how much should the customer be charging for lost time?
For some time now I have been wondering whether customer relations and customer service is in fact about clients coming to the rescue of bewildered service providers, as they offer suggestions out of sheer frustration on how to actually provide the service these organizations profess to offer.
Are we here for the customer or is it the other way around?
Philosopher Ayn Rand once said: “I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.” Well, if this is the dominant perspective in business, then perspectives have indeed been reversed so that we need think little about whether and to what extent the customer actually benefits from our ’service’ as long as we’ve gained a client - as long as clients add to our building.
