{"id":240,"date":"2006-08-17T13:18:49","date_gmt":"2006-08-17T18:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=240"},"modified":"2006-08-17T13:18:30","modified_gmt":"2006-08-17T18:18:30","slug":"how-important-is-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/08\/how-important-is-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"How Important is Customer Service?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Extremely important. I bet you knew that. Yet, it seems that many companies do not realize what type of customer experience they are providing through their customer service dept. Inc.com&#8217;s article &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/inc\/headlines\/~3\/11586221\/customers.html\" target=\"_blank\">Companies Receive Poor Grades for Customer Service<\/a> &#8211; is one of these annual surveys measuring customer perceptions.<\/p>\n<p>This following piece of information seems obvious, but&#8230;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The study also found that new technology is no substitute for helpful agents. Six out of 10 respondents said automated phone services, live online chat, and other customer-service technologies had not improved service quality. In fact, <strong>automated phone services received the lowest level of satisfaction among all customer service channels, while in-person services rated highest<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>60% of respondents<\/em> state that technology has not helped the experience. I personally use the online chat features fairly often and hold them in high regard. Apparently, I am in the minority on that topic. Nonetheless, when customers have a problem, they want to speak to a live person. Simple. But not always followed by companies.<\/p>\n<p>Personally as a customer, I feel abandoned if I end up navigating through some draconian automated phone system only to leave a voicemail for some unknown person. Resolution seems complete when you talk to a live person even if the problem is not completely resolved on the call.<\/p>\n<p>Are your customers wandering around a cyber wasteland or are they getting to a live person with minimal inconvenience?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Extremely important. I bet you knew that. Yet, it seems that many companies do not realize what type of customer experience they are providing through their customer service dept. Inc.com&#8217;s article &#8211; Companies Receive Poor Grades for Customer Service &#8211; is one of these annual surveys measuring customer perceptions. This following piece of information seems obvious, but&#8230;: The study also found that new technology is no substitute for helpful agents. Six out of 10 respondents said automated phone services, live online chat, and other customer-service technologies had not improved service quality. In fact, automated phone services received the lowest level of satisfaction among all customer service channels, while in-person services&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/08\/how-important-is-customer-service\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-3S","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1827,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/12\/bbd-pay-for-customer-service\/","url_meta":{"origin":240,"position":0},"title":"BBD-Pay For Customer Service","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"BBD=Bad Business Decision.\u00a0 I am always amazed that companies want to charge for customer service, but obviously it must work for them.\u00a0 I can see where computer customer service is a difficult thing since you often have uniformed end-users.\u00a0 However, this abcnews.com story is over-the-top (my bold): Many consumers are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1593,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/customer-service-hall-of-shame\/","url_meta":{"origin":240,"position":1},"title":"Customer Service Hall Of Shame","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a list you do not want your company to be on.\u00a0 From MSN Money: That reality is borne out in the results of MSN Money's second annual Customer Service Hall of Shame, a ranking of companies with the worst customer service, based on a nationwide survey commissioned by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Trends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Trends","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/trends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"hallofshame","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.selectmetrix.com\/images\/Posts\/CustomerServiceHallOfShame_8018\/hallofshame_thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":531,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/12\/workplace-fibs-in-britain\/","url_meta":{"origin":240,"position":2},"title":"Workplace Fibs (in Britain)","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"From Yahoo News - Gadgets seen as best way to tell white lies: More than four out of five people admit to telling little white lies at least once a day and the preferred way of being \"economical with the truth\" is to use technology such as cell phones, texts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1167,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/09\/the-best-customer-service\/","url_meta":{"origin":240,"position":3},"title":"The Best Customer Service","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"can be found at the supermarket according to the latest Harris Interactive poll (h\/t JustSell.com). This year\u20ac\u2122s annual Harris Poll ranking industries on how well they serve consumers finds that the supermarket industry does the best job according to U.S. adults. Fully 92 percent of adults think supermarkets generally do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Trends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Trends","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/trends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":436,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/11\/when-sales-job-postings-go-bad\/","url_meta":{"origin":240,"position":4},"title":"When Sales Job Postings Go Bad","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We keep an eye on the sales employment ads so we are informed of trends in the market. I came across an ad that was innocuous enough in its title. Then I read the opening sentence: This is a job in our Customer Service Department that can lead to an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1617,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/customer-service-dex-style\/","url_meta":{"origin":240,"position":5},"title":"Customer Service &#8211; Dex Style","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Unbelievable.\u00a0 I sent an email NINE days ago to Dex, the phone book company.\u00a0 They have an old listing for our business including a phone number and address we haven't had for over 3 years.\u00a0 I was just informed of this fact by a customer who was trying to reach\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Anecdotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Anecdotes","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/anecdotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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