The Basics in Customer Service: I have to say that I think that I am pretty good at servicing my customers. I have those few have an emergency that I can't handle because I am out of pocket, in a meeting, or asleep. But for the most part I do okay. But even those customers who might not like the service that they are receiving know that I understand them when I talk with them. Why? Because I speak the native language of the people that I service. Not really a big deal for me, I was raised in a country that is primarily mono-lingual, although that is changing I suppose.
But here is the deal. If I were to need to have customer service that was dealing with people that spoke a different tongue, I would either make sure that I really knew it, or I would find someone who did. That seems pretty simple doesn't it? If I want to support my customers I need to speak their language with a minimal level of proficiency.
So why is it that every tech help desk has a guy named "Mike" who can't speak English enough to know that I need help? I slowly say "The....Digital...Life......dot....net" and they start "Very good, this is most excellent. D as in David, A as in..." I blow a fuse and say "No, The, and as in ... THE!" I had a tech guy recently even ask if there were any spaces after "The". Hello, you can't have spaces in a domain name. But I should blame him, he is only the tech guy for my DOMAIN HOST. Then they all lie, "Excellent, very good, I will check into this and call you in 20 minutes. Then we go through the hassle of trying to say and repeat the phone number. I have the envious cellular that ends in 4 zeros. Most people love that, but for some reason the tech guy "Mike" can't handle that. He repeats the area code, the prefix, and then has to ask me how many zeros there are. Arrrrgh!
I know as I post this that Mike is reading my blog laughing his butt off, and flipping switches on my server to cause all my mail to disappear, my photos to be blurry, or redirect the entire domain to some obscure tourist site for New Delhi.
But here is the deal. If I were to need to have customer service that was dealing with people that spoke a different tongue, I would either make sure that I really knew it, or I would find someone who did. That seems pretty simple doesn't it? If I want to support my customers I need to speak their language with a minimal level of proficiency.
So why is it that every tech help desk has a guy named "Mike" who can't speak English enough to know that I need help? I slowly say "The....Digital...Life......dot....net" and they start "Very good, this is most excellent. D as in David, A as in..." I blow a fuse and say "No, The, and as in ... THE!" I had a tech guy recently even ask if there were any spaces after "The". Hello, you can't have spaces in a domain name. But I should blame him, he is only the tech guy for my DOMAIN HOST. Then they all lie, "Excellent, very good, I will check into this and call you in 20 minutes. Then we go through the hassle of trying to say and repeat the phone number. I have the envious cellular that ends in 4 zeros. Most people love that, but for some reason the tech guy "Mike" can't handle that. He repeats the area code, the prefix, and then has to ask me how many zeros there are. Arrrrgh!
I know as I post this that Mike is reading my blog laughing his butt off, and flipping switches on my server to cause all my mail to disappear, my photos to be blurry, or redirect the entire domain to some obscure tourist site for New Delhi.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home