I’ve been working in the Customer Support / Custom Service realm now for well over a decade. During that time I’ve learned and worked on becoming more empathetic and understanding on customers. I’ve learned how to understand what customer’s truly want/need. As well as how to communicate in more universally understable ways.
So how did that all make me a worse customer?
Yes, I am definitely a far worse customer now than I was 15-20 years ago. The reason for that, is everything that I listed above. Listening, communicating, helping customers find solutions… All the things that I’ve worked at are all reasons why I make a crappy customer now.
I know how little effort it often takes to turn a bad situation into a positive one. I know what it looks like to make a decision based on profit, instead of outcome. I know that you can show a customer that you value them, even when you can’t provide them with the solution they want. I know that scripts are great for efficiency and terrible for creating a customer experience.
you can show a customer that you value them, even when you can’t provide them with the solution they want
So when I get a canned copy/paste reply to an interaction, it annoys me that they could have taken 10 seconds to alter that message to fit my inquiry better. When someone defaults to blaming “company policy”, without actually thinking about other solutions that are possible. Or when someone offers an appology or an “unfortunately” and then proceeds to inadvertently explain why they aren’t actually sorry…. It pisses me off.
Providing a basic level of quality customer service can be done in any industry, at any scale. It’s a pretty low bar and there isn’t an excuse to not meet that. If you aren’t, it’s either lack of effort or lack of caring.
So, yes! I am a worse customer now because I can’t stand seeing companies doing the absolutely bar minimum to provide a access to their customers. Note that I didn’t say provide “service” or “support” to their customers, as I don’t think anyone would describe talking to their phone company a “service” 😂