thinks

Not long ago, Michael Arrington wrote about his experience getting support from Comcast after mentioning their service - negatively - on Twitter. Well, it seems I’ve joined rare company. Er, on the Comcast front. Chickens, not so much.

I, too, recently maligned Comcast on Twitter, due to a series of partial and complete service interruptions (mostly of my television service. Internet was sluggish, but more or less functional). And within a couple of minutes, I got a response from a Comcast representative, giving me an email address (we_can_help@cable.comcast.com) for me to get help with my issue. Since then, I’ve had continuing contact with Comcast field supervisors, office personnel and service technicians hell-bent on resolving the problem. And they did. Not only is my cable service now whole again, but my Internet service is faster, too.

Maybe the Comcast folks hoped I would say something positive. Maybe not. They never asked me. But, two things impressed me throughout the whole situation:

1. The dedication of the people I talked to at Comcast. I don’t know if these are the regular customer service reps. I don’t know if they’re specially trained. I do know that each one focused on addressing my concerns and did so with grace and consideration.
2. Comcast clearly has their finger on the pulse of where customer complaints take root. That’s not surprising given their history. But, they’re clearly trying to improve that perception. The reality behind that perception, too, I gather. I only hope they provide equivalent service to customers who call their support lines, not just those of us with bully pulpits.

The lessons here:

1. Tools like blogs, and Twitter - when it’s working - provide your business with an “early warning system”, a place to hear what’s on your customers’ minds. And a way to engage with those customers to resolve their issues. Both big points in Arrington’s original post. Using tools like Tweetscan, Comcast has put their emphasis on dousing these issues before they turn into raging fires. Maybe Comcast hopes those customers will say something nice. Maybe not. But the negative comment a customer doesn’t make carries its own rewards. Not least of which is the likelihood you’ll retain that customer.
2. Want your employees to do their jobs well? Give them a clear mission and get out of their way. The Comcast employees I dealt with seemed to place my satisfaction above all else. And satisfied, I now am. Whether that would have happened if Comcast put its focus on traditional “customer service” center metrics like talk time is doubtful. These people knew they were supposed to make me happy. And they did.

My “Twitter friend” Brian Solis has an ebook about using social media to improve customer service and, ultimately, marketing. It’s worth the read.

What’s your customer service story? And does your team know how much value you place on customer service? Let us know in the comments.

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Heard any great customer service stories lately? I did. Yesterday at SES, Jennifer Laycock, editor-in-chief of the terrific Search Engine Guide (The small business guide to search marketing), told an amazing story called “I Heart Zappos”. Must’ve gotten something in my eye at the exact moment she was telling the story. No. Really.

What’s the best customer service story you know? Tell us about it in the comments.

I arrived in Prague this morning, safe and sound. My luggage, however, is still enjoying the sights and sounds of London’s Heathrow airport. At least that’s what my airline thinks. They should arrive sometime between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM local. Ignoring the fact that they should have arrived around 11:30 AM, with me.

My hotel didn’t know I was coming. Again, they should have, but they didn’t. They sent me to another hotel with a similar name. Who also didn’t know I was coming. That hotel confirmed that my reservation was in fact at the first hotel.

But, the second hotel did something about it. They gave me a room and apologized for my inconvenience and contacted my airline to make sure my bags show up in the right place and provided me a shaving kit, toothbrush, dental floss, and comb. Without me asking for any of it.

Little things? Sure. But very much appreciated from a guy who’s operating on about 3 hours sleep after flying all night from Newark to London to Prague.

Sometimes meeting customers’ expectations is doing nothing more than showing a little empathy and treating your customers like human beings. And that’s really not so hard, is it?

Jackie Huba discusses the best and worst of customer service in the mobile industry. What’s really remarkable about this post is that only one company was mentioned. All the other examples are of individuals. Is the key hiring better people or empowering the ones you’ve already got?

Twitter disappeared today. So much for its e-commerce potential. Who knew in advance? Apple “iPwnd” the first iPhone customers. OK, they’ve backtracked, but, jeez, what a miserable thing to do.

The downside of the bleeding edge is the whole “bleeding” part. Moral: Your cutting edge customers shouldn’t end up shredded to ribbons.

I started my career in show business, which also means I waited tables a fair bit. I learned valuable lessons from each about satisfying customers. Entertainment audiences want to be surprised. They want to see something they’ve never seen before. Customers of a business, by contrast, simply want you to meet their expectations. They don’t want to be surprised, unless those surprises are really, really good ones.

Seth Godin notes how the expectations you create often lead to disappointment and how important it is to match the expectations you create to the experience you deliver. A colleague of mine coined a term that illustrates the risks of failing to meet heightened expectations. He calls it “antici-pointment”. When a customer has heightened expectations, the failure to deliver on those expectations hits much harder.

As “The Sopranos” completed its storyline Sunday night (or didn’t, depending on your point of view), it disappointed a great many among its audience. * In film and television, though, that’s not always a bad thing. Great art takes risks that may disappoint its audience. The art of great service requires that any surprises delight the customer, every time.

Thanks to Fred Wilson, BTW, for a couple of really useful links. He never fails to meet my expectations.

The Sopranos Finale capsule review - I disagree with the folks who didn’t care for the ending. I thought the final scene was a brilliant example of how a guy can spend his life looking over his shoulder to have it either amount to nothing or to have everything go dark in an instant.