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| Customer Service In The UK Is Dead. |
| Customer service has died. In other countries, people seem to care about giving customer service, but in the UK, it seems the sale not the service is king. |
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We live in a consumption driven market, not one based on satisfaction. It used to be that
businesses would strive to please their customers to make them willing to come back. Now, most
business' attitude is, "I don't care if you don't like my product, other people will buy it."
If the products that businesses sold were of quality, that would be tolerable. But given that
quality and service are going down as prices are going up, consumers are and should be starting a
backlash against such companies.
Companies bet on the sheer numbers of products sold to protect them from bad publicity. A good
example Microshaft's "red rind of death" on its Exlaxbox, and its attempts to avoid fixing broken
products; their "business plan" is to ignore people, not to fix their mistakes. Instead, customers
are using the Internet to collectively talk about the third-rate garbage such companies are making,
and it's getting attention.
Go visit web sites by and for consumers. Publicly post your difficulties with the product and
company; nothing gets their attention faster than bad publicity. Some companies are actually going
to customer websites to prevent such publicity. At first, they were trying to silence it, but that
only made it worse. Now, some companies realize that dealing with their failures is the only way to
silence their critics.
Don't be afraid to speak out. These companies are depending on your silence to get away with their
theft and ineptitude. Use small claims court and your local Attorney General's office to file
complaints, that will get their attention. But don't use the BBB, they work for the companies, not
you. |
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 K9  18 May 2008 07:05
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The computer says no!!! |
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Yes, this is what I find true that customer service in UK has become a dead thing nowadays. The main
aspects of the companies are just to sale the products and whenever the sale got over, they do not
bother about the proper customer service. According to the orange UK customers opinion, there are
nothing left as customer support in orange mobile services. If any one calls from his orange mobile
phone, the unreachable tone can be heard. And if the call has been made from any land line, one
usually gets the message that the call is unable to process. This is the scenario of UK and in the
field of tele-communication world where the customer service is mostly needed every now and then. So
the customer service system must be evaluated in UK in near future to support the number of the
customers instantly. |
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A sale is just a physical transaction but emotionally the customer will never be able to relate to
your product or outlet if you fail to satisfy them through customer service. The customer service
reps are hired to ensure customers are facilitated every step of the way and even after the
transaction is completed they are to be treated well in case of a product malfunction.
The relationship that you build with your customers through good customer service efforts will last
for a long time and will ensure repeated visit by the customer. |
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I agree with what you're saying. My experience with American customer service has largely been
through online outlets but, even from that limited perspective, you can sense an entirely different
approach to it. They correctly see good customer service now as an investment in the future. They
know that an alienated customer isn't going to come back. There are quite a few British shops and
companies that I'm boycotting because of a grievance about the way they treated me in the past. When
I think of the profits they might have made through my custom, had it continued, in most cases it's
far greater than any amount they would have spent to deal with the thing properly in the first
place, but that just seems a little too abstract for them.
Frankly, in the UK today, it's hard to actually get any indigenous customer service at all. You are
far more often shunted to a call centre in India. Usually, it's very difficult to make out what the
people on the other end are saying. The last time I had a call with BT's technical department, I
spent most of the time trying to pretend that I knew what the guy was saying so as not to embarrass
him. Of course, the problem didn't get fixed. |
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Customer service is about providing the customer with the service that they need to support them
when they need it. I find it absent in almost every aspect of business. In most cases, it seems
that business places a great deal of emphasis on sales and marketing, on getting the customer in the
door and to part with their money, but very rarely do they back it up with solid customer
service.
Customer service does not receive the kind of financial backing as the sales force. Whereas the
sales line of most businesses might have hundreds of phone lines, then the customer service centre
has sometimes only a couple of lines. Of course, there are massive so called customer service
centres for big organisations. However, they are essentially sales centres that all provide a
certain level of customer service. Once they have passed your request on to someone else, they will
try to sell you insurance or an upgrade or whatever else they sell in that particular call
centre.
When the business does something wrong, most of the time, they do not accept the blame. Instead,
they treat the customer as if they are in the wrong. Huge national companies often require their
customers to return items to the same store they bought it from. These days, the customer aren't
always wrong, but they are very rarely considered to be right. Why? Customer Service is dead.
They are not interested in providing service to customers, they are interested in dealing with the
'annoyance' to their other tasks.
Customer Service in countries like America seems to count still. The customer seems to be king,
they seem to be treated particularly well and serviced effectively. However, customer service in
the UK seems to have a different function. They are the customer facing staff, their job is to
divert the customer if they are unhappy. Divert and sell, divert and sell. Since massive companies
own the high street, if they don't service you, you still end up going to them for whatever you
need. Why should they provide service to those who will give them money regardless of how they are
treated. Until customers start demanding service, they will be treated without customer service.
Why provide something that the customer does not appear to demand. Business supplies demand, if the
customer does not demand, then the business will not supply.
The businesses will only start providing customer services when customers refuse to give them trade.
However, the businesses know that since the level of choice is minimal,
the customers have no choice but to pay out and expect no service in reply.
In my experience, calls go unanswered, letters get short reply, claims for compensation are
minimised and endless phone calls to customer service numbers cost money but are never compensated. |
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