Baby I Need Your Loving: The Anonymity of Customer Service on the Internet
How many customer service reps does it take to answer a simple question? When they’re not paying attention, the answer is a very frustrating “too many”.
Manuel V., Priscilla T., Ambrose C., Tim G., Laurie J., back to Priscilla T. These are all customer service reps at Hostgator (the company that hosts my website) who responded to one very simple email query this past weekend: How can I prepay my account? They were all eager to help, no doubt, but since my proclamation in an earlier post saying that I love Hostgator, there doth seem to be a wee crack in the glass ceiling, Martha.
I wanted to prepay Bella-Fella.com’s registration for a few more years because I learned that search engines give you a little star on the forehead for doing so. Unfortunately, the “Billing” section of Hostgator’s site didn’t allow me to do this, forcing me to deal with a human. Okay, so not altogether a bad thing but my initial question, submitted using their “ticket” system, begat a series of responses that resembled Abbott and Costello’s comedy routine, “Who’s on First?” Seems that, in their zeal to respond quickly, none of the reps bothered to read the previous email in the thread.
To be sure, Hostgator’s telephone customer support IS a completely different experience: always very patient, helpful and knowledgeable… if you don’t mind being Caller #9. Ha! Gotta love it. But what can we do?
I very much dislike poor customer service experiences, from this recent one to the frustration of looking for that elusive Google Customer Support contact info (also noted in a previous post). We all lead busy lives, and who needs this runaround, especially when it can be easily avoided? Maybe it’s one of the hazards of dealing with big, successful companies that become staffed with drones confined to their very own cubicles. I hope that won’t be the case for this little fish in the pond.
As this baby bedding company grows, I’d like to hire Miriam D., Matilde O., Robert W. and many, many others but I’d like YOUR customer service experience to be always personal, helpful, short and sweet. I value your time, and I appreciate your business. This is my wish list. This is my vow to you.
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