What Has Happened to Customer Service?

I’ve worked within customer services for over ten years. In some of my jobs there have been training, but for some reason there has never been any customer service training as such. It’s always been a case of working it out as you go along and thinking of how we, as customers want to be treated. In Florida many staff in customer service roles have to attend a customer service course before even starting their job, add tipping and generally the standard of customer service in Florida is pretty high.

The standards of customer service across the UK are slipping from shops, restaurants, bars right through to telephone based customer services like mobile phone companies and internet and service providers. The number of British call centres moving abroad has risen and if you ring the majority of call centres after 5pm you are very likely ringing India or Mumbai. There used to be a time in the UK where the standard of customer service was high. Where has it gone and what are the possible reasons for the lapse in receiving good customer service:-

1. Many call centres for banks, internet provides and mobile phone companies are abroad. The staff their speak very basic English and are trained as robots to repeat call sheets only.

2. Many of these jobs are minimum wage or just over. What’s the point of giving good customer service when you are paid so little?

3. Lack of actual customer service training within employment. No training in how to deal with angry customers or with difficult customers.

4. Customer services jobs are seen as a necessary evil within larger companies. Many bosses and managers in larger companies don’t even know what people do in customer services or what they contribute to the running of an organization.

5. Companies are more bothered about profit than customer service.

Above are just some of the possible reasons why customer service is a dying entity here in the UK and across Europe.

Shopping, of any nature has become more stressful over time. It used to be fun to go out clothes or food shopping. Staff would be more than happy to offer assistance and they would more often than not be friendly and polite. How many times can you think of an instance where you have been greeted with an abrupt and unhelpful customer service assistant, who snatches your money from you, slams the change back in your and just stares at you in silence. I can think of so many examples of this behaviour both in the UK and in Europe. When you are shopping, especially with face to face encounters, you expect a cheerful and helpful assistant. It makes me wonder why customer service is getting worse not better.

Mobile phone companies such as Orange and Talk Talk have two of the worst reputations for giving good customer service. My partner and I have used both Orange and Talk Talk and will not be using them again. Why? Their customer service is appalling, they are not flexible and do not take responsibility for their actions-even though they make mistakes. My partner cancelled his Orange broadband back in March of this year, yet they took another four payments out off his credit card, for a service we had cancelled. He had repeatedly rang the bank to stop the payments form going our yet it took several calls and letters and a new credit card before Orange stopped taking the payments. Orange never apologized for their errors and their advisors were often rude and aggressive. Not exactly a good example of good, solid customer service where the advisors would tell you different pieces of information an pass you through to different people as and when. We must have spent hours on the phone.

Talk Talk were no better. If you ring them after 6pm you are transferred to ca call centre in Mumbai where they refuse to give you their full name, don’t understand what you are telling them, they won’t put you through to a manager when you ask for one and they repeat the same phrases over and over again. I set up a direct debit for a monthly phone and internet package. I rang them in order to set this up and they agreed it was all fine. Two days later they stopped the internet and refused to switch it back on again. I then cancelled the direct debit and they kept sending bills. We hadn’t made a single call on the landline phone and decided to use mobile broadband with another company instead. Yet Talk Talk still sent us bills and the more they send the higher the amount to pay became. My partner and I made so many phone calls to their customer services team, in the end it just became such a shambles between them and Orange we are now just ignoring any letters from Talk Talk. Ringing companies like these can be very stressful and trying to get any sense form them is a waste of time.

Good customer service is:-

• Remaining professional at all times
• Being polite
• Friendly
• Sounding happy on the phone
• Good listening skills. Making notes of details and any information given
• Being calm when dealing with angry or demanding customers
• Going out of you way to help a customer
• Keeping your promises
• Keep the customer informed if you are doing searches on a database
• Treating all customers the same regardless of position etc

I think if companies introduced better training, or in most cases customer service training at all we would benefit from this. It is not a good reflection on the UK at present of the horror stories you here from bad examples of customer service. Some people in Britain do give out good customer service, it’s just a huge shame that we tend to remember the bad more. That’s probably due to more examples of bad rather than good customer service.