Several weeks ago, I deposited a cheque for £122 into my local bank account, but it was paid in as $122. Anyone familiar with the foreign exchange rate will know this left me out of pocket.
So the next day I went back to the bank, and I was lucky enough to speak to the original teller who had processed the cheque. He assured me that he would fix it, and he’d call me when he was done.
Several days went by… nothing.
So I phoned the bank and – big surprise – I was directed straight to voicemail. The machine invited me to leave a message with my phone number so they could call me back, so I obliged.
Several days went by… nothing.
Barnstorming
Soon after, I finally got around to reading 3 Examples of Stellar Social Media Customer Service. All 3 examples are certainly worthy of the write-up, but one concerned me nevertheless.
The article stated:
One customer, Jennifer Hellum, sought customer service after the glass top on her Pottery Barn table shattered in the extreme Arizona heat last summer. Calling the customer service line and the store where she bought the table didn’t get her anywhere. A few weeks later, she posted photos of the tabletop explosion on Pottery Barn’s Facebook fan page. Within 30 minutes she had a call from a customer relations representative who worked with her to find a new tabletop and reimbursed her for it.
WTF?!
Calling both the customer service line and the store where she bought the table didn’t get her anywhere, but complaining on Facebook did.
Kudos to Pottery Barn’s social media team, but shame on the brand overall.
Monkey see, monkey do
Given my problem with the bank, I decided to take a leaf out of Jennifer Hellum’s book. I looked up ANZ Bank on Twitter, but I couldn’t find it. So I googled “ANZ Twitter” and stumbled upon Did ANZ open a new branch and forget to staff it? – not a good omen!
The article states:
Last year ANZ established a dedicated Twitter account called @ANZ_Responds to communicate with customers. The account sat dormant for many months before being shut down earlier this year.
A spokesperson for ANZ says the account was set up as a trial. “However, we found that most of our customers were happier to discuss their banking needs with us directly, at a branch, on the phone, or online.”
ROTFL!
I did, however, find @anzmoneymanager on Twitter. While ANZ MoneyManager is the bank’s online budgeting tool – something completely unrelated – I thought I’d give it a go and ask them for help anyway.
Thankfully they said yes and a few DMs later all was fixed.
So again…
WTF?!
Star struck
Is this what customer service has come to?
Crap service face to face. Crap service on the phone. Stellar service on social media.
That’s no way to run a business.
I could draw a parallel to e-learning and bang on about maintaining consistency over multiple modes of delivery, but I figure that’s a no brainer so I won’t waste your time.
I just hope our service providers figure it out.
In the meantime, I feel sorry for my Twitter hero. Guilty by association, @anzmoneymanager will no doubt be pestered by the bank’s aggrieved customers, despite those customers being happier to discuss their banking needs directly, at a branch, on the phone, or online.
E-Learning Provocateur 
I read this and associated with the experience. I find, for example, that many businesses don’t attend to their email at all, even where their website actively encourages you to email or ONLY provides an email method of contact. What’s with the lack of response? I find I’m very lucky to ever get a response from emailing a company via their site. Then again, a few of us were talking the other day about people actually reading your email content. I sent an email last week and in it stated “Please note, if you need to contact me please do NOT phone my mobile, instead call….” Of course, they rang the mobile. And this happens a lot. Lack of focused attention and/or time to attend.
But you’re right, it is poor that one often needs to go to social media now in order to obtain a response. That is, when your query is noticed. Many companies are doing this well, some not so much. Quite a number are very responsive in first instance of connection but fall away after that.
And, yes, any worker who does well in terms of service can wind up swamped.
It bothers me how much time individual consumers need to spend when trying to resolve an issue. Far more than the businesses’ staff in many instances.
But try and let a business know about an issue – just off your own bat as a ‘decent person’ – and see what happens. That can be a realm unto itself. Few can understand common decency and someone offering info when they have nothing to gain from it. This has happened to me and the other party has spent ages trying to determine my agenda…simply because they couldn’t comprehend someone just doing the right thing. Funny old world.
An e-mail is seen by one person, a Tweet or FB post by thousands. It’s a bit of a two edged sword for a company. Put yourself on Twitter & Facebook to keep up & be seen to be with it, but then face a potential backlash if someone has a bad experience. I think it’s a good thing either way. By the way, thanks for your comment on my blog. I came across yours via the #edcmooc course & have enjoyed reading. It’s insightful, intelligent, well argued & researched. Learnt a lot from it. Cheers, Chris
Thanks Chris, that means a lot to me!
I’ve added yours to my blogroll too. Cheers.