Adventures in Customer Service, Part Bazillion
Just got a survey call about my recent experience at the local bank branch. They didn't ask whether it was a convenient time (it wasn't very, the baby was getting distracted from nursing) and ploughed right into a really stupid set of questions. Some highlights:
"Did you got to branch Yada-Yada in the last few days?" - Hmm, how else would they have picked my name?
"On a scale of 1 to 7" - we don't care for standardization, we want to make you think.
After a banal "How well were your questions and concerns answered?" to which I responded, "I didn't have any," they followed up with "How pertinent was the information you received" (didn't receive any), "Was the information you received as a response suited to your questions" (same), and "Were your questions and concerns answered in a timely manner" (rrrr). You might say that they're just reading the questions off a script, but shouldn't it have a dichotomous key in order not to waste time and irritate customers?
Finally, after hearing something along the lines of "Was your experience at the branch informative and useful" (No, I just stopped by to say hello to the tellers!) I told her I didn't have time to answer meaningless questions. She said that's OK, they'll call back at a more convenient time.
The first question, by the way, was "How likely are you to recommend TDBankNorth to your acquaintances" - I said very. Good thing they asked right away, as my opinion has radically changed.
In contrast, I dealt with Palm Customer Service, and even though the slight problem I had (I didn't download rebate forms for some orders right away) could have been conceived as my fault, they were extremely nice, went out of their way to locate the info, and with a minimum of repeat info from me - they got my email from a previous email I sent them, and just confirmed it with me. Black and white.
"Did you got to branch Yada-Yada in the last few days?" - Hmm, how else would they have picked my name?
"On a scale of 1 to 7" - we don't care for standardization, we want to make you think.
After a banal "How well were your questions and concerns answered?" to which I responded, "I didn't have any," they followed up with "How pertinent was the information you received" (didn't receive any), "Was the information you received as a response suited to your questions" (same), and "Were your questions and concerns answered in a timely manner" (rrrr). You might say that they're just reading the questions off a script, but shouldn't it have a dichotomous key in order not to waste time and irritate customers?
Finally, after hearing something along the lines of "Was your experience at the branch informative and useful" (No, I just stopped by to say hello to the tellers!) I told her I didn't have time to answer meaningless questions. She said that's OK, they'll call back at a more convenient time.
The first question, by the way, was "How likely are you to recommend TDBankNorth to your acquaintances" - I said very. Good thing they asked right away, as my opinion has radically changed.
In contrast, I dealt with Palm Customer Service, and even though the slight problem I had (I didn't download rebate forms for some orders right away) could have been conceived as my fault, they were extremely nice, went out of their way to locate the info, and with a minimum of repeat info from me - they got my email from a previous email I sent them, and just confirmed it with me. Black and white.