Hey there, Mrs. 1500 writing today.
to Customer Service
This past weekend, there was a big blogger conference in St. Louis. Mr. 1500 and I attended, and had a great time. Right before we left our house for the drive there, Kathleen from Frugal Portland sent out a tweet saying “Frontier is officially the worst. $25 to check a bag, $50 to carry it on!” Frontier Airlines responded that if you book through their website (rather than a 3rd party like Orbitz which Frugal Portland had done) there is not a carry on fee. WTF? (Remember, on 1500days.com wtf means what the fee? Family site and all that…)
So Frontier, you are saying that you will allow other people to sell seats on your planes, but if I, the customer, actually buys one from someone else, you will, effectively, punish me for not buying direct from you by charging me extra for things other airlines give for free. Really? Is that the message you truly wish to convey? You know, Southwest Airlines doesn’t charge all these extra fees. They also don’t let anyone else sell seats on their planes. Ever been on an empty Southwest flight? No such thing.
Fast forward…
On the drive to St. Louis, I read an article in Bloomberg Business magazine about Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com. It was an excerpt from a new book about him, and the beginning of the article talks about their customer service. Bezos reads many of the emails sent to him regarding customer service issues. (He actually makes his email address known, so if you have an issue with his company, you can tell HIM.) If he agrees it is a problem, or notices numerous people complaining about the same thing, he will forward it to the proper person in his company with a “?” added to the top. The article goes on to say that if you receive a question mark email from Jeff Bezos, you drop everything to find the answers for him. Customer service means that much to him.
It is unfortunate that this is even a distinguishing characteristic of a company. Think of the last time you received good customer service? Kind of hard to remember, right? Now think about the last time you were disappointed in the service you received. I bet you can come up with at least 3 right off the top of your head. I will share my most recent customer service disappointment: my newspaper carrier. I asked for a vacation hold on my paper. I happen to receive two different newspapers every morning. I left the house on Wednesday, and returned Sunday evening to discover 8 newspapers on my driveway. This is not the first issue I have had with my carrier, I had to somehow convince them that I did want two newspapers every day, when we first moved here. They would deliver one or the other, but not both. ?!?! It took 2 weeks of me complaining and calling for redelivery to receive both papers every day.
According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, 96% of unhappy customers will not complain, but 91% of them will leave and never come back. A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9 and 15 people about their experience, but a happy customer will only tell 4-6 people. It costs 7 times more to gain a new customer that it does to retain a current customer. Yet companies are still treating their customers like nothing, assuming they will come back again and again. Frugal Portland will probably never fly Frontier again. This is the second bad customer-service related item I have heard about Frontier. I have never flown them before, and will most likely not ever try. Why purposely make myself angry?
Now the hotel the conference was held in, is an entirely different story. We stayed at the Hyatt at the Arch, in St. Louis right smack in front of the arch. This place was something else. We usually stay at a Choice Hotel location when we travel. They are inexpensive, comfortable, and offer free breakfast and free internet. I have stayed at more expensive hotels when traveling on work’s dime, and while they are nice, they usually charge for breakfast and internet. I prefer free. The Hyatt was beautiful. The employees, without exception, smiled when they passed you, greeted you warmly, and genuinely seemed to be happy to be there. If they were having a bad day, you certainly didn’t know about it.
At the last job I had before “retiring” (staying at home with the kids) the customer service department transferred a disgruntled customer to me. (I worked in the buying department.) He wanted to know when he could expect a book to be restocked. He had about 6 copies on backorder, and they had been on backorder for about 6 months. Every time he called, he was told they were backordered, and the customer service agent either couldn’t give him any more information, or chose not to delve further into the matter. I believe the latter. I looked in the computer, and was puzzled at what I saw. It needed further investigating before I could give him an answer, so I took his phone number and said I would call him back.
I went into the head buyer’s office, and asked her about the book. It had been put onto two different orders, but both had arrived at our warehouse without this book. She contacted the publisher in Japan, who told her the title had been discontinued. Not an uncommon occurrence in the publishing world. I went back to my desk and called the customer back, giving him this information. He gave me a customer service lesson I will never forget. He told me he had called my customer service department at least 5 times, asking about this book. No one, not one single person had ever taken the time to look into it and give him the information. He wasn’t angry that he wasn’t going to be able to get the book. He was angry that he wasn’t being kept apprised of the situation.
I think most people would agree with him. As adults, we know that things won’t always go our way. There just isn’t a great enough supply of Felix Felicis. (I am in the middle of Book 6 and I could not resist the reference.) But having all the information would make us happy – or at least happier. Frugal Portland may or may not have been happy to pay that extra bag fee if she had known in advance. She may have made different options completely had she known. I don’t think she is stupid or unobservant. I think this page popped up saying bag fees are $XX and she assumed this meant for a checked bag. Who charges you to carry your own bags onboard? Who would even think an airline would charge for that?
It seems the luxury market is teeming with good service. Is this what it has come down to? In order to get good service, you must pay higher prices for basically the same service or product? Why are customers treated with such disregard?
I think the proof is in the pudding. This has to be the longest post I have ever written, and I could still write more. I just think many of you have started nodding off. Thank you for reading. Let’s bash some more companies… Tell me your bad customer service experience.
photo credit: dog.happy.art via photopin cc
I work for a solid, experienced, and well respected insurance firm. Our business is sales. (mine personally is technology, I support them) After being in this company for over 10 years I see how the salespeople are the “drivers” and decision makers, and how that can often leave customer support in the lurch. It’s an unfortunate reality in our business, and I often wonder how much that happens to other businesses out there that are structured similarly to ours.
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I can completely see your point. One person cannot promise something just to make the sale, and then leave it up to the support staff to figure out a way to make it happen. So frustrating, and the customer ends up leaving or feeling lied to, probably because they WERE lied to. ARRGH! But that goes back to my original statement, customer service is dead. Instead of servicing their customer properly, that sales person is just lining their own pockets.
My worst experience recently was with Target. I had ordered some baby bottles online. I noticed as I was sterilizing them that at least one of the bottles had been used previously–there was yellow residue on bottle, and the nipple had bite marks. It was obvious I had been sent a returned item. I was utterly disgusted. I contacted customer service and was told, by someone who I believe was in India, that I could not return the bottles because *I* had used them, but they would be happy to give me a partial refund. That means I would have had to eat the rest of the cost to replace the bottles. I used their website to lodge a separate “Health & Safety” complaint, and received a response from another person with an Indian name saying that the message was cut off and could I please call him. I didn’t bother. I finally took to their Facebook page (something I try not to do too often with complaints), and got a response from their social media people, who promptly refunded the cost of everything in the entire order, not just the bottles. That was in addition to the partial refund I was given earlier. So, happy ending, but I couldn’t believe how much effort it was.
Another very bad experience was with Sears. I ordered a snowblower on sale, chose store pick-up where the item was shown as “in stock” on their website, and they cancelled the sale the next morning. Their website stock status apparently has little or no relationship to actual stock levels in stores, and/or the stores simply sell stock that has already been purchased online. Got a gift card out of that ordeal.
I have to say I have had some really amazing customer service experiences as well. Some stand-outs are Melissa & Doug, Home Decorators Collection, Folica and Red Envelope. Some companies do get it right.
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I am not a fan of outsourcing jobs to foreign countries – especially customer service jobs. I am surprised at Target for having such a policy. If you placed an order for XX bottles, and are trying to return one, you should not be questioned. And if you are feeding an infant, you want a clean, unused bottle! Gross.
So sad about Sears, too. They used to be such a great store. Now, the only time I go into Sears is when I am at a mall, because there is ALWAYS close parking by the Sears entrance…
I certainly agree with this hear. If I can find a place that gives me great customer service, I will frequent their establishment. That is how we can all vote for these businesses. I am one that will tell people of my good experiences and my bad.
The thing that strikes me is that customer service should be on the rise. With so much information in the consumers’ hands, wouldn’t customer service be the differentiation between good companies and bad? I would want to be on the good company side.
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With so many companies to choose from, I would think great customer service would be something to strive towards. Not so, says experience time and time again.
I think over time my expectations when it comes to customer service have dropped so low that I expect nothing, and am pleasantly surprised when a company does anything to be nice or generous to its customers.
Mrs. Pop @ Planting Our Pennies recently posted…Fear: Fight, Flight, or Opossum?
And how sad is that? The customer used to be king… (or queen)
I think that was what the companies were hoping for…
That way, once they have successfully lowered your expectations, they can put less effort and $$ into supporting that profit “loss center”.
I’m with Mrs Pop on this one. I just expect the worst. I stayed at a four star hotel in downtown DC (work payed!) and the staff was horrendous. Ignoring customers, chatting among themselves, moving slower than molasses…. Astonishingly bad for the cost and prestige of the hotel.
I do love, however, when a customer service rep/server/whatever can admit a mistake. It shows a lot of respect for the customer when you don’t lie or make an excuse (most of which are transparent).
You are right. I appreciate when they can admit they made a mistake and they offer to fix it. Overnighting a product, giving a significant discount on a future service. It really doesn’t take much to make that disgruntled customer gruntled again. (Is that even a word?) Some customers will never ever be satisfied, but most of us would just appreciate acknowledgement of error.
I had a negative experience with the USPS just last week. I order some accessories from Apple and they shipped them via FedEx. However, FedEx has a new “economy option” where they hand off the packages to the local USPS office, and the USPS handles the actually door delivery. I came home the day the packages were supposed to be delivered – nothing. Checked the tracking numbers, both say delivered at 6pm the previous day, while I was at home. After spending an hour on the phone talking to FedEx then the USPS, all I get is a phone number for my local post office, which I could have looked up online, and a promise that they will “call be back within 1 business day.” No one ever called.
On the flip side, I called Apple and explained the situation, and they over-nighted two new packages to replace the lost ones, free of charge. Quite a contrast there.
And the USPS wonders why they are operating deep in the red? There are few places you can go and be treated worse than many post offices. I have had great experiences with some, Monona, WI is one. But wow, you go into almost any Chicago branch, be prepared to wait a very long time, and have some of the worst attitudes thrown your way for daring to walk into the building and request something.
I feel exactly the same way about Frontier. I bought my (and my partner’s) ticket for Thanksgiving from Travelocity last month, having no idea that these fees existed. They didn’t when I last flew Frontier. This will add considerable cost to our tickets. We are so angry!!!!!! We won’t make the mistake of flying their stupid airline again – I refuse to do business with those deceitful bastards.
And PS – there was definitely no pop-up telling me about the bag fees.
It just seems so sleazy, doesn’t it? Now I double-hate them. For you and for Frugal Portland.
What’s a “newspaper”?
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Back in the olden days, people received their news printed on large sheets of thin paper. It was delivered to them at their house, and they could read it while enjoying a cup of coffee. This was the primary source of information, other than the feed store…
There are a few companies that I flat out refuse to do business with because of their lack of customer service, but they are relatively few. There are also a few that I *love* the customer service: Fitbit, Amazon, Zappos (go figure, also Bezos). I’m with Mrs PoP – I don’t expect much from retailers and am pleasantly surprised when I get good service. I do expect a minimal amount of service from waitstaff and hotel staff, because their job is customer facing and they are the “face of the company”, but in most hotels, I’ve been pleasantly surprised.
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When we first moved to Madison, WI, I was shocked at the appalling lack of service at restaurants. It was across the board. So bad, that I never went back to many of them. And Madison has a lot of restaurants to choose from, so whenever we wanted to dine out, we tried a new one. The Avenue Bar on East Washington does a great fish fry on Fridays…
I’m weird in that I can deal with mediocre service (e.g. – a waitress who’s new or just not that great) as long as the person is friendly and is trying hard. But if I get disrespect from someone in customer service, I see red. I don’t know why, but that’s a trigger for my anger. I have too many stories on this but they basically all roll out the same way: someone gives me attitude, I go over the top, and my wife puts her head down in embarrassment. No bueno.
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I completely agree with the whole seeing red thing. Also with having a spouse who hangs their head in embarrassment…
I feel like I am a nice customer – I say “please” and “thank you” and ask how their day is going. I have nice little chats while I’m at the register – perhaps that’s because I spent years working retail as a teenager, or because I’m Canadian.
But my customer grudges go to Best Buy, and LG. LG because it has a warranty that states if your tv breaks within one year through no fault of your own, they will replace it, granted you have a receipt. Well it was manufactured in July 2011 (it says so on the tv), bought in August 2011, and it broke in June 2012… how on earth could it be older than a year? They “offered” to fix it, but the parts were discontinued, and since I couldn’t find my receipt (yes, lesson learned) they wouldn’t do anything about it. I spent over eight hours over multiple days on the phone with Best Buy trying to get my receipt. Finally I did, and it made me view Best Buy a bit more favourably because of the end result… but it took a lot to get to that point. Lesson learned!
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Who keeps receipts? (Please don’t barrage me with notes about how you all keep every receipt you ever were issued.) That is really frustrating. At least Best Buy was able to finally get your receipt. But it should not have gone that far. If the TV has that warranty, and a date stamp when it was manufactured of less than one calendar year, they should not require the receipt. Now I dislike LG on your behalf, too.
Funny you should mention Kathleen’s experience with Frontier! Living in Atlanta, we have the luxury of Delta being based at our airport and they fly just about anywhere in the world (and we’ve always had a good experience with them). But for a recent trip to Colorado, Frontier ended up being the cheapest option for the trip out. I think you’re absolutely right when you say customer service is now something you are going to have to start paying for, because the low price of our tickets was reflected in the low quality of everything – from the plane itself, which had such a strong (and unpleasant) smell it was making me nauseous, to the flight attendants, who were rude to the passengers and mostly hung out in the back of the plane. That’s where we happened to be sitting, in the very last row – no big deal, except for the flight attendants. I had an aisle seat, and one of them continually leaned into me the whole flight, at one point putting so much weight on me she might as well have been sitting her butt on my shoulder. I kept trying to wiggle away without saying anything, and when that didn’t do much good, passive-aggressive me finally jerked my shoulder away and sat forward so fast she nearly fell into my seat with me. Then I just glared at her without saying anything (like I said, passive aggressive, and probably not the best way to handle the situation, I admit). And while we didn’t have to pay for the two bags we planned to carry on, they told us at the gate that they had no more room for carry on luggage and made my husband check his bag. Once we got onto the plane, we saw there was room in the overhead bins of nearly every single row. So frustrating!
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If that ever happens again, stick something into her butt, like a pin or a pen or anything sharp/uncomfortable. (My own little passive/aggressive personality expressing itself.) I understand this is a new fee, the carry-on bag fee. What next, the armrest fee? A credit card reader for the oxygen mask that drops down in the event of a change in cabin pressure? A fee to let you off the plane once you have landed?
Haha, I just might have to if that happens to me again. I was honestly shocked that it happened in the first place! That’s really crazy about the fee – I would have been so mad if they charged me to carry on my bag!
Kali @CommonSenseMillennial recently posted…Stuff You Should Know Podcast: 10 Easy Ways to Save Money
It is amazing to me how short sided some companies and business owners are when it comes to customer service. What they fail to realize is word-of-mouth and personal referrals are the best advertising in the world, especially to a small business. I used to work for a used car dealership and the owner and it amazed me the overall lack of care for the customers. Just because you aren’t dealing with new cars and buyers with decent credit doesn’t mean they should be treated like trash. Crazy frustrating…
Fun fact Mrs. 1500: Two weekends ago I was flying into Chicago on a Southwest flight on one of their gorgeous new 737-800s. The best part about the flight was it was nearly empty. As a result, I had six seats to all to myself. I have never been so spoiled in my life for a discount fare!
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I have heard of a near-empty Southwest flight, but never actually seen one, or known anyone who has seen one! Kind of like a Coelacanth…
Last Sunday I paid using a P.O. and I verified it first before I can use it but the Customer Service was so snob! Even if I’m already in front of them but it’s like that they didn’t see me, one of the customer told me that they always treat their customer like that.
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When you get a reputation for having bad service, there is almost nothing you can do to change that. People will always remember the bad service, and try to replace you.
That’s really interesting about the retention/referral rates of unhappy vs. happy, though I believe it. If I receive either horrible or outstanding service, I make sure to either complain or praise about it. I do think customer service has gone down in the last few years, but I do think there’s also companies that try to strive for top notch service, so I give props to them when it’s due.
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I was really surprised when I read those statistics. But then I thought about it, and decided it wasn’t really all that surprising. Are there any monopolies left out there? Is there anything that cannot be obtained somewhere else? Nope, not really.
I didn’t read your comment before posting the answer to FI Pilgrim. You said it better than I did.
I’ve had many bad customer experiences, but many more good ones too. I think it’s easier to remember the bad ones because they are incredibly aggravating and time-consuming.
I think it’s easier to give a good customer experience when there are front-line employees. When everything is done online by a mass system it is easy for customer complaints to fall through the cracks.
And I’ve definitely boycotted certain companies because of a bad customer service experience.
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Now you make a very valid point, it is easier to remember the bad experiences because they are so frustrating. Yet another reason to strive for good customer service.
I really dislike the trend where airlines are going towards. They want to show you how low their sticker price is for a ticket but then make up for that loss by charging a fee for every little thing. If you want to go that route, I can understand it because someone flying with small bag is less costly that the guy with the oversized carry on that barely fits in the overhead bin (I’m sure we have all seen those folks). However, they should be transparent about the whole process. If I know it’s going to cost me $50 to bring a bag on the plane, I can plan accordingly. If I get surprised by them, I’m going to leave upset and not use their services again. Once you consider social media, it can hurt if you upset the wrong person.
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You are absolutely right! Two different blogs have now written on two consecutive days about this ridiculous policy. Two people commented above how they dislike Frontier. With so many other options, why would anyone choose them, not knowing what extras they didn’t factor into the price?
Mrs. 1500! We haven’t space for such tomes here. Microsoft could not figure out how to get my acct info correct to purchase a product. Just could not do it. I was passed on to 4 people before any progress was made and it took nearly 3 hours of my day. I never spoke to anyone above entry level although I requested it.
I called about my retirement acct recently and was rewarded with “that’s a good question” 4 consecutive times. Translation: I don’t know what the eff I am talking about, so I am going to put you on hold and ask someone who does. The questions were very basic and I thought I probably had the answers and wanted a confirmation.
I cannot imagine telling a student, “A C chord, you say? Good question. I’ll figure it it for your next lesson.”
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You could tell them you don’t know what a C chord is. Think they will be back for the next lesson? I don’t…
I think everyone appreciates good customer service, and cringes when we are ignored, but it’s interesting to sometimes be on the other side of the equation. I’d say 15% of my job is customer facing. It’s also the least important part of my job. I want to always research the issue and give a good answer, but sometimes I don’t have the bandwidth to do it. I’m just saying that it can be a structural issue instead of just an unhappy employee.
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You are right, Cash Rebel. It can be a policy that prevents the employee from giving good customer service. This is the case with the Frontier Airlines thing. The company decided to institute a ridiculous policy, but only for people who don’t buy direct from them.
One thing to keep in mind is the #1 factor people look at when choosing which airline to fly: Price. All other things being equal, better customer service costs money. Good employees cost money. Quality equipment costs money. Call centers cost money. Refunds cost money. Etc. Amazon does pretty well, but if they had a competitor with a worse return policy, but lower prices, I get the feeling they’d be sweating a little bit. Luckily for them that hasn’t happened yet.
I get the frustration, it’s just that this is what consumers have been telling these companies to do. If you truly valued customer service, you wouldn’t be picking airlines based purely on cost (which most of us, including myself, do) and buying through priceline or travelocity. There’s a reason Wal-mart and McDonalds are two of the most successful companies in modern day America, and it’s not customer service. They offer the lowest of the low prices, with none of the frills. If they had focused more on service, we’d be talking about Floormart and McDougall’s, the two businesses who focused on lowest cost first. You can talk about how Best Buy has terrible customer service, but how many of you tried to find a mom and pop electronics store to buy your stuff at? I’m sure they have better service (and higher prices). Most of those stores don’t even exist anymore, precisely BECAUSE they couldn’t compete pricewise with the big box stores, even though their service was probably far superior.
I just have to say I used to work for Frontier. When we were in training, they were always pushing good customer service, which is not to say that every employee does it very well. Frontier has been struggling to hang on for the last several years, and I truly think they have gotten stuck between offering low prices but also needing more cash to stay afloat. I’m not saying that this makes the baggage situation right, but it’s just a thought. One thing I learned working at the help desk is to always, always book directly through the airline’s site. It’s usually comparable in price to the travel sites, and if your flight gets cancelled for some reason, you do NOT want to be dealing with Expedia.
Anyway…I had a bad customer service experience today with World Vision. I switched my donation to be through United Way because my company will match it, so in my mind double money = better. I called World Vision to be removed from autopay as it will now be a payroll deduction. They gave me SUCH a hard time about it, saying that the money could only go to their general fund and wouldn’t go to support my child, etc. I said well, it’s been finalized and I can’t undo it, and my husband and I can’t afford to keep up both donations. The lady I was speaking with gave me a huge guilt trip saying they’d just have to find another sponsor for my kid. I mean, seriously…I’m just trying to donate money!
I remember having to call Comcast multiple times to cancel service for my office. I had to call back 4-5 times to finally get to a cancellation rep – they even hung up on me a few times! It’s so infuriating!
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Oh wow, the cable companies are the absolute worst. Can’t stand em’. Come on Google Fiber!