Cool Beans

As programmers or service providers, our lifeblood is our customers. Well, duh! you may say. Yet many a (young) programmer would like to think they could just code away at their desks creating elegant and properly formatted perfection, avoiding "useless meetings," and being largely abstinent of the business side of things.

But what happens when things fail? Fail massively? What happens when our front-line support staff are forced to face the music as dozens, if not thousands, of customers start calling in? How do you manage an audience that is starting to share horrible things about your products?

It's bound to happen... Are you prepared for it?

I was recently reading an article by HighTechDad about the do's and don'ts of customer service. HTD is well-versed in this area, having run Customer Service departments in the past. He shares some experiences and provides many tips about keeping your cool and getting to resolution from the customer or company perspective, e.g.:

• Offer solutions
• Try to go beyond the expected
• Don’t let the customer know that you are frustrated
• Be friendly and conversational
• Try to connect at some level with the customer (e.g., if you know their location, ask about it)

In this day and age, you don't want people walking away from your service reps feeling deprived or ignored. Especially since there's the added vector of complaint when your socially-networked customers instantaneously broadcast their pain and suffering to hundreds of friends, family, coworkers, business contacts, Twitter followers, and blog readers.

Many companies dread the periods of high support traffic and view it in the "lock down" mentality; a mindset of merely dealing with damage control. Service representatives are trained to tell frustrated and/or impatient people that: Yes, we know there's a problem, we don't know exactly what happened, we don't know yet when it will be fixed, and we are sorry for the inconvenience. Customers who deal with "enterprise vendors" in particular are almost used to the abuse and don't expect much from a submitting a trouble ticket. I believe people on all levels, from the coder in the trenches, to the person who has to answer the phones, can go beyond what is expected to help retain customers and let them know they keep us alive.

The difference between how a company treats us when they make a mistake can be the ultimate in loyalty building (or destroying). A mistake handled well might makes us more loyal customers than we would have been had we never experienced a service problem. Remember this with your customers when you make mistakes on the job.

- Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer

From the end-user point of view, nothing sucks more than having a valued service suddenly fail to perform at the minimum acceptable level. Even retail purchased items that were once prized possessions (before they broke) cause us much disappointment when they fail to do their function. If I paid hard-earned money for it, it better perform. We've all been there: High elated expectations come crashing down as we realize, "What? It doesn't work? Why? What alternatives do I have? Do I really want to stick with this and try to get it fixed? Can I refund it? Nooo, can't it just work! Aaagh, why's life so hard?"

A Good Bad Good Customer Service Experience

Recently I visited a well-reviewed winery called Darioush. This was about 2 wineries into a trip, so I had already sampled and enjoyed a bit of Napa Valley to this point. But what wines I thought were good were far and away superseded by the ones at Darioush. I had no problems handing over $80 for a bottle of wine that I absolute had to take home with me.

You might be thinking, "Who cares? I thought this was about customer service! Why are you talking about your dumb yuppie-wannabe wine trip?" Well, let me get to that.

Once I got home, I unpackaged the wine to admire its serene bottled beauty. But then I noticed a little purple residue in the cork wrapper. I knew immediately this meant the cork was leaking, which meant the wine was probably bad. From high to low. What to do? Such an insignificant single item in the grand scheme of wine production. Dejected, I went to their website sent them a note about my discovery. For a few seconds I considered driving the 40 miles the next weekend to exchange it in person, but in the end I resigned myself to $80 down the tubes. Sigh.

The next day I got a call from a number I didn't know. The person on the other line asked for me by name and was suddenly apologetic about my experience with my wine purchase. Without even questioning the nature of the problem, she was ready to send me a replacement bottle immediately, and only needed to verify my original purchase and get my shipping address. Wow, just like that, they want me to be happy with their product. They've gained a loyal customer in me.

Then I waited a week and a half.

Bad. What happened to my shiny customer service impression? It faded into mild acceptance. I felt like I was duped, like a yes-man (or woman in this case) told me what I wanted to hear then left me in the paperwork. "Immediately" was not really so much. Once again let down, I counted it a loss and sent another short message via their website.

The following day I got a FedEx tracking number originating from Napa. No call, no reply.

They followed through on their promise, albeit with a little reminder. This, coupled with a great product, was good enough for me. I can still share the story about how they went beyond initial expectations to keep me happy, but the story is not as punchy as it could have been. They have, my loyalty, retained.

Moral of the story? If you're the customer, don't come to the table feeling entitled; manage your own expectations. For the service representative: Be honest and receptive (even if it's bad news) and be ready for your product to fail. You never know who's socially networked and waiting to share. Do whatever you can to transform the mistake or problem into a chance to build loyalty, and, perhaps most important of all, follow through on your promises.

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* This article title I got from Chad Fowler's book referenced in the quote. Please read this book if you're in any sense working with code, it has some fantastic advice.