Customer Service Rant

[unisys12]

What the hell is up with everyone? It's not just here, because I actually see it less here than at my own place of employment.

Yesterday I actually stood up and said something to one of our dispatchers about her attitude towards a customer that had called in a service call. Now, the only reason I did this was because I had been told by other clients about her attitude since she had been hired. This was over a year ago and I have let it slide for that time, since I felt it was more the owners place to take this up with her. Like I told the customers that complained to me, I am just a tech... not service manager, not owner, not anything. Just a tech. If I come back to the office and say, "hey, this customer told me this..." it will most likely be taken with a grain of salt.

Well, yesterday, I figured that I heard enough. All our techs have started complaining about every call that comes in. I mean, It makes me sick to hear them complain with something like, "What the hell do they want now!? I was just there yesterday? Jamming again? Well, It's because they don't know what the hell their doing!"

When I ask them if they asked for the person that was having the problem, they say no. When I asked if they showed anyone there what the problem was, they say no. They just reply with, "The machine was working fine with me, so their just dumb asses!" Sorry guys, but that really just pisses me off!

So what happened yesterday was this... A customer called in with a jamming issue. They exclaimed to the dispatcher that they were paying "X" dollars for service and didn't feel that they were getting the service they deserved for the price they were paying. The dispatcher asked for their Machine ID Number (which we call their C number, since all our numbers start with a C) and they gave it, which was the wrong number. They accidental gave the C# of the color printer and not the savin 9927 which they were calling about. The dispatcher looked up the C# and found that there had not been a call on this machine for over a year. The customer, being upset, gets a little ill with her and this is were he states how much he pays in service and that he had just called two months ago for this same problem.

Now, at this point the customer thinks there's something wrong with our system, not to mention our machine, and what is he greated with... "Well, how are we suppose to know that your machine has a problem unless you call us? Don't call here and tell me how much you pay for service, cause I know. I do the billing, so I know how much you pay! And you haven't called for service in over a year, so... please!"

At this point, I got up out of my self-proclaimed cubicle and started walking up to her desk. Granted we only have two girls up front and should have three. I will give them that, but this is bullshit and I was not going to let it go unheard, I'll be damned what my rank in the company is!

After she hangs up the phone with the customer, I ask her to pull up the history on the machine in question. She did and it showed that no one had been there for almost two years. I asked her to pull up the color printer history and she found that I was there two months ago. I told her to pull up the description of my repair and she called it out to me. Which stated the actual call was on the Savin 9027, I even gave a machine ID number, but she closed the call on the color printer. That was her fault!!

So, after this finding I asked her... "ok, so who's the ass here?" She started going off about how no one talks to her that way and gets away with it. She didn't do anything to this guy and he should not have talked to her this way. I laughed and asked her, "ok, say you payed 120 dollars a month for cable service and every two months you had to call and have a repair tech come out and make adjustments to your system to make it work. Would you be happy with that?"

Her reply was, "Well, that's different!"

My reply was, "Hell no it's not!" I went on and on and on, but...

This goes for our other techs in the office as well. We have a national account with Daybrite Capri Omega. Actually, it's a global account that we landed for Savin. Anyway, they use Novell for their network infrastructure and when they couldn't scan to NCP, everyone in our company said that it was their problem. Well, I couldn't agree with that and took the problem on as my own pet project. Within a week or so of me taking it over, software was released that should fix their problem and I tested it. It worked and Ricoh released into mass production. Problem is that anytime they have a problem, be it network related or not, my co-workers pin the account on me.

Not long after, I found myself being invited into conference calls with top RIOCH exce's and the IT dept of Daybrite. It was then that I found that Daybrite thought I was the service manager of our company. It was sorta funny, but then again not, when this happened, because I laughed and told them that I was just a tech. I will admit though, that I actually get more phone calls back from regional reps than every before. I actually know a few national reps... oh well!

It just goes to show that my sig is more than just another random sig... It actually means something. It means that if you are willing to leave the cave, kill something and drag it home... welll, you will get something out of it. If techs would just listen to themselves sometimes. All you will hear is complaining!! So, why the hell wont you do something about it? Stop relining on your sales staff to train your customers. Learn your machines so that if you are asked a question by a customer you can answer it... better yet, learn that you can tell them that will figure out how to solve their problem. Take owenrship of this problem!

Now there's a damn concept... taking ownership of a customers problem. Treating that problem like it is your problem... because really... in the end... it is... so why not go out there and do your damn job and help your paying customer save money. Damn! Isn't that what were here for anyway? Isn't that why we all don't work for HP? COM`ON

[fixthecopier]

Yes sir, there is nothing you said that I do not agree with. We have had rude people answering the phones and they are gone now. Our girls are very nice and I tell customers that if they are really nice when they call in that the girls will call and bug me to fix your stuff first.
In the past I have ranted about coworkers doing poor quality work and you have captured a lot of my frustration. On Wednesday one of my fellow techs, the only other one I respect, was fuming and covered with toner. She followed another tech on a Minolta Di151. The asshole did not put the screw in the toner supply auger and there was toner all the way down in all three paper trays. When she ask him why he did not put the screw in , he said he did not have one. When she ask why he did not go get one and come back, he said he was busy. When ask why he closed out the ticket, he said uh, um, uh. lets see, um, well. That is not an uncommon scene. I have my own territory that no one else comes into. If it is wrong on my stuff, then I did it. I love it that way. When my territory is shut down and I have to do other calls behind other techs, the nightmare begins. I hear the same customers name that I always hear in the shop. I do not think that people should call in so much that techs who have never worked on their stuff would know all about their problems just from hearing them talked about all of the time.
I had the highest parts usage in the company last year and a lot of that was going behind another tech who would not change parts to fix the problem, so I did. I would have to explain that I was putting another $500 drum in a month after it was changed because the other guy did not change developer, charge grid, reset the counters ect, ect. I just did a call to put an I.U. in a Minolta Di251 because the message was on the screen. Next morning I was told that it was changed last week for that message. That means that the other guy did not even check the screen to see if the fuse had reset the counter before he closed the ticket. WTF?
I could go on and on. In the end doing a good job is a matter of attitude. You either have it or you do not. I also believe that most people can see through the bullshit and know who the real techs are that are concerned about customer service. That is why there are some locations that have notes in our computer that say do not send the other guy, only me.

The way I see it the overall company quality policy starts at the top. If your owners and managers really believe in it they will make it happen, including the way the help talks to customers. Patience is a virtue, if you set an example, someone else will follow!

[unisys12]

In the end doing a good job is a matter of attitude. You either have it or you do not.

Thank you so much... I thought I was the only weirdo`.

At our shop, we used to have a service manager that cared about this sorta stuff, but he passed away about two years ago. He had a stroke, at the shop, while he and I was clearing out old equipment. He taught me, quickly after coming to work at this company, that customer service is all attitude. Just as you said above. Hince the reason I quoted it.

Before I completely understood our business, I use to complain about a middle school that used to call every few weeks for us to install ink in one of their duplicators. Every time he and I had to go out there, I used to bitch about it up to the door, then from the door back out to the truck. Funny, he used to just shrug his shoulders and say, "Well, they pay the bills, so... who I am to tell them otherwise."

It wasn't until I was on my own that the customers started telling me about the things that he used to do for them. In my head, I was telling myself that I would never do those things. I wrote them off as "spoiled customers" and that was that.

The same year that our service manager passed, thankfully before he passed, I got the ticket. I understood what our companys goal were. And the funny thing is that it was the same message my Dad used to pound into me, while I was working for him in his glass shop all those summers. My Dad's motto was, "If you or I can find something wrong with what you have done, then my customer probably will to!" When I expressed this to Rodney, our former service manager, he just smiled really big. This was followed by, "You finally get it? I thought you would." Two or three months later he had a stroke at the shop and passed a few days later. One thing he used to press upon me was that when you pull the back cover of a machine, you shouldn't be able to tell that anyone had ever pulled that cover before. Umm... Something so simple, but something we should all strive for!

I don't know. Maybe most folks have never experienced piss poor customer service. I think when they do, maybe it would change their tune in how they treat, or talk about, their customers on a daily basis.

Thanks for the support FTC.

[Mr Spock]

I had a service manager that told me " I am lazy so if I do everything to the machine today that it needs I do not have to keep coming back to it." That is what I try to do to every machine. It reduces service calls (which makes customers happy) and reduces stress over recalls. And no matter how or what is going wrong the customer should never see it...

[cobiray]

All you will hear is complaining!!

I'm with you on this one hundred percent. I can't believe the amount of complaining I hear out of our techs on a nearly daily basis. They don't like so and so, so and so's a big fat idiot, so and so doesn't know which end of the screwdriver to use. I really think sometimes that I am the only one who cares about doing a good job and keeping customers happy and not just collecting a check every two weeks. Bitching and moaning about having to take a call at 3:30 as if it is such a bad thing to be employed. Some days I just want to say, "If it's really so bad, go count your car stock and turn in your car keys and call it a career." I really don't think they know how good they have it? They get to drive about (on someone's dime I might add), no one breathing down your neck for deadlines, stop for lunch when you want. Granted, we have a largely rookie (>4 years) group of technicians, but I think it's more of a generational thing. Content to be lazy whenever they can get away with it. Do thinks for yourself and F everyone else. They can't seem to understand that even though you have a basic territory, all of the machines are ours as a group. I'm hoping they catch on sooner than later, but I really wouldn't be surprised if they continued this way. (sigh) Now I'm really not looking forward to Monday. LOL.

Don't worry, you're not the only one paddling in that boat.

[Rob Sandberg]

As techs we can fix a 100 machines a day and fail.

If the customer is not fixed the call is not completed.

Rob S

[copyandfax]

all true

its funny, in a customer related business, we focus on the equipment but its all about the customer. Rob is correct, fixing the customer is the true service call.