TRUTHBUSTER.com

Seeing that we are in the heat of the Holiday season, we wanted to write about something cheerful– Customer Service!!! It’s that time of year when retailers stock up on CSRs (Customer Service Representatives) and turn their 10′ x 10′ call centers into a war room. If you have never been to a call center, it’s quite an experience.

To begin, if you’re here looking for phone numbers straight up, the best resource to find most major retailers’ secret stash of hotlines is DVD Talk’s list found here. And in case they ever take that site down, you can find them at the bottom of this entry. And of course, you should always check out the site that is now synonymous with getting in touch with live CSRs, gethuman.com. (Although they are missing quite a few notable companies.)

We are still new, so bare with us if you hear us use the word “bust” one more time. This entry is about busting open the truth about call centers. People think call centers nowadays consist of a group of foreigners, sitting in an abandoned building in India– not true. Some retailers, manufacturers, and tele-communications still have a call center or two located in the United States. Not all, but “some.”

The trick to call centers, as many of you know, is to find the flow to get to the CSR asap. Gethuman.com helps you out in that way, so we’ll skip over the “how-to” portion of this post. Instead, we will help you understand how it works, which may stir up some creativity on new ways to beat the system.

From our professional experience, most call centers are run and graded on several metrics: customer satisfaction scores from surveys, duration of call, productivity of calls (cases closed in a given time period), customer complaints through other feedback mediums (email), and # of escalated cases (that’s when you move up to a supervisor or higher). This is important because it will help you understand the mindset of the CSR that is working on your case. The misconception that many people have is CSRs will easily do a CSA (Customer Service Adjustment) and not care. If your aim is to get a CSA, you’ll need good timing, a willing CSR, and plenty of diligence (it may take more than one call to establish your loyalty and the degree of dissatisfaction).

The structure of each call center’s process varies by industry. For example, certain products or services benefit more from a long-term relationship and therefore, the lifetime value of a customer is relatively high. These are the phone companies (AT&T, Verizon), cable companies (Comcast, Direct TV), creditors (AMEX, Citibank)and high-end retailers (Nordstrom, Bloomingdales). They are more likely to do a CSA because the cost of keeping you as a satisfied customer through a minor CSA is much less than acquiring a new customer. There is usually a cap on CSAs per year, but very few people ever hit that cap.

But the question most people would follow-up with is, “But the Customer Service Rep doesn’t care whether or not I am happy. They are probably as disgruntled as I am.” Now this is where the “game” part of Customer Service comes in. For companies that value long-term relationships, you can take either option: 1) if the CSR does seem like they care about their job, but they still can’t do a CSA and assuming the CSA is a legitimate case (you can’t just ask for money), you either politely threaten to escalate this to their supervisor, or massage their ego and have them find a creative way to get you your money back, OR 2) if the CSR does not seem to care about his or her job, position yourself as a victim and hope they have it in them to break the rules. We here at TB.com are not implying lying or fraud, but rather, we want you to have a fair shot at getting your money back. It may not always work, but it’ll give you the best chance at creating a win-win situation– the company keeps your loyalty and you end up as a satisfied customer.

Now, for companies that are hit-and-run purchases or services, it’s much harder to work the system. That is because they already have your money and as long as they are legally fulfilling their contract, you have no right to ask for you money back, even if it wasn’t what you expected. It’s a very tough battle to win so be discerning on whether or not that defective pair of socks is worth the hassle. Also, some companies are now beginning to track Customer Service contacts by individual, so it will be easier to identify “trouble” customers. We all know who these people are… buy 10 items, return 9. Price adjustment on every purchase. These high-maintenance clients are sometimes flagged, so be cautious about the amount of times you call the call center or make correspondence with the Customer Service Center.

Since several of us come with years of corporate retail experience, we always get asked if companies really read the complaints from customers. The short answer is yes… but with their fingers cross behind our back. It may depend on the company, but from our experience, the company will screen the complaints using software especially made for handling Customer Service tasks and/or it will sit in a database and only be recalled when someone needs to look a topic up. You may be fortunate enough to have a live person read your email, but this only happens when the company is small enough that is not flooded with angry customers. So if you think writing or emailing that letter is going to get to the desk of the Vice President, we’re sorry to burst your bubble.

If there is any consolation for this last case– when the company simply doesn’t care or you can’t reach the person who does case– the only weapon you have left is the internet. You can report the business to the Better Business Bureau and possibly get your story exposed to a larger audience, thus prompting immediately action from the company or you can be a highly-regarded reviewer/advocate on popular sites such as Yelp, CitySearch, and Digg.com. One negative review can ruin a company’s reputation, especially local businesses who think they can break rules because Big Business is out to get them. These review sites are your mouthpiece and if your collective voice is big enough, the companies WILL listen– small companies can’t afford the negative publicity and big companies have PR agencies/teams that will try and cover up negative reviews. If your request is reasonable, you should have a response fairly quickly.

We hope this long-winded entry helped some people. Let us know if you have any questions! Cheers!

- Buster Family

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