The Truth About Customer Service

I (Andrea) am letting the image you see above you sink in.  Go ahead and read it a couple of times if you must.  Your brain will fill in the blocked out words, I’m sure.

I received this email about a week ago.  Well, to be fair, one of my clients from my other business  received it, however I monitor the email box and take care of all questions, concerns, issues, etc. that might come through.  So, it’s mine to deal with.  The problem is that I can’t deal with it.  At least, I can’t deal with it in the way I’d like to.  Because if it was an email coming to my business, I would have posted the entire thing here in our blog and on our Facebook and Twitter pages, along with the person’s name and email address.

Why would I have resorted to internet shaming?  Because it’s frustrating to have to deal with people like this. It’s angering and hurtful to receive messages like this.  And it’s not the only one.  I blogged about this several years ago.  Customer service people get messages like this all the time.

Providing good customer service is difficult work.  When Starbucks changed their Star Rewards program last month (we talked about it here) their Facebook page blew up with thousands of rude comments.  But the customer service people that monitor that page did an amazing job responding, and probably went home exhausted, not wanting to return to work the next day.

The truth about customer service is simple.  There are thousands and thousands of people out there answering phone calls, responding to emails, Twitter and Facebook posts for companies.  They’re hired to do a job that is, at times, thankless, and at times, filled with nasty people that they can’t react to because it’s not their business.  It’s just a job they do.  They are the frontline infantry in days of old that were lined up and the first to be shot.

I understand that, as a consumer/shopper/client, you may come across problems with a purchase or service or whatever.  And you may be angry.  But that shouldn’t give you the right to abuse someone on the other end of a phone or email box just because you can’t see them. ​