I had a bad customer service experience today, which contained a valuable lesson. I’d like to share that lesson with you.
It started when I needed tech support from my email provider, Mailchimp. Every encounter I have had with their support team has been poor and today’s encounter was no exception.
My Mailchimp Customer service ‘blast from the past’
Now, any support person can have a bad day. Any company can have a staffing issue, resulting in customer service problems. What’s harder to understand, is why I had the exact same problem with Mailchimp today, as I had 7 months ago. If Mailchimp cared about customer service, that’s long enough for them to improve. Believe it or not, the problem I have is communication. No one I have emailed or ‘live chatted’ with at Mailchimp is able to understand me. This is even stranger when you consider that I’m a professional communicator.
Today, as I saw the ‘live chat’ going horribly wrong with Mailchimp support, I contacted a friend for help. Within 30 seconds via Twitter, she’d done what the Mailchimp support guy couldn’t – she immediately knew what the problem was and told me how to fix it. He wanted emails from me and screen shots, for an issue which didn’t require it. If he had listened, he’d have known it was a simple matter of changing one setting. That’s it.
Customer service matters
Today’s experience caused me to remember what my old boss used to call ‘the ultimate customer question’. It’s simply this:
Why isn’t my problem as important to you, as it is to me?
Customer service should ALWAYS matter more to the service provider, than the customer. As service providers, we can either delight our customers or frustrate them. We can take ownership of their problem or shirk responsibility and hope they go away.
That old saying is incorrect. The customer is not always right. However, the customer is always the customer. Until they’re not!
IMPORTANT: If you want to make more sales, boost your profits and grow an amazing business, this will help you!