Customer service is something that affects me. And you, for that matter. We bitch about it, are delighted by it if its good, even though it should be expected to be good. What is absolutely apparent is that our expectations when it comes to customer service (CRM practitioner companies take heed here) are so low in general - meaning not about any particular company - that a good customer service "incident" is very noticeable.
So I have a story to tell. Its of Verizon (who I never have liked and handled this one horribly) and their tech repair guy, Jay (who I think is a champion - both for what he does and who he is) and...well, let me get into it.
The Problem
On February 28, in the midst of a conversation with David Myron, editor-in-chief of CRM Magazine (news on that soon, dudes/dudesses) and a friend, I heard a pop and the phone that serves as my business line went out. Just dropped dead. I happened to be leaving town for the SAP Insider Conference that next day until the 3rd so I figured I'd call Verizon who has our land lines, and they'd fix it and boom, done. Actually, I did the whole thing online and they said (online) that it would be repaired by 7:00pm on Wednesday, right about the time I was getting back from the conference.
Okay. That seemed good.
I got back, went upstairs to make a call and check on the phone - and guess what? It wasn't fixed and notably there hadn't been an attempt to fix it. Despite the "commitment" of Verizon on with their specific date and time - which of course means that expectations are set pretty specifically, now aren't they?
Apparently Verizon was unaware of that. This time I went back on line, set up a technical call for March 5, 2009 between 8:00am and 7:00pm - a horrible window length - because it locked me down to the house for the entire day - despite the fact that it was their problem.
Thinking about this aroused my NY-genetic ire and I called to Verizon repair - on the phone - a different one needless to say (though I said it). The repair person told me that she didn't see the March 3 record though it turned out it was there and that she thought it would be repaired by today from the Central Office. No prob. But she would leave the March 5 (This call was March 4) appointment in any case.
It wasn't.
She didn't.
So when I called March 5 in the PMI found that I had to schedule ANOTHER appointment for another day. I asked for a supervisor after a battle (though I was diplomatic and polite since it wasn't the tech person who I was talking to's fault) and was told one would get back to me that day in just a few minutes.
I waited and waited. Never heard from a supervisor. For that matter from anyone until.....
The Good Story of the Good Man
I received late on the 5th a call from a technician named Jay. He told me that he had been to the house that afternoon and checked the line outside the house and it was showing a dial tone. I told him it still wasn't working. He thought it might be the base unit of the Bang & Olufsen phone system I have. He then gave me some things to try and said, "if they don't work, call me tomorrow and I'll come back to help you." I thanked him, tried what he said, they didn't work and on March 6 I called him.
He came within about 1.5 hours and he checked every single line and cord until we isolated the the problem (he isolated the problem - I watched) to a bad cord. Fixed that, and voila! The phone worked.
Thing is not just that Jay went out of his way to make sure that this all worked but that he was dignified, good natured and calm the entire time he was at my house working on this. The power of his gracious nature was just simply...there. He went out of his way to help me figure this out and came back to do that - despite his protestations that this was "just my job." The reality is that this is the way he SAW his job - which means providing superb customer service above and beyond ordinary standards. Ordinary standards are baseline meeting of expectations - but Verizon would do well to learn that "meeting expectations" is considerably lower than decent service because of a history of horrible customer service.
What makes Jay unique was his personal character and his expectation of his own standard which are set regardless of the expectations of the customers being low and of Verizon accepting those low expectations as fine with them. What Verizon would be smart to do - which is why they won't - is to sit Jay down and figure out what makes this good man do what he does and institutionalize at least his customer service practices. They won't be able to do that with his personal dignity and decency - there, he owns that franchise.
I'm going to give Verizon a mulligan on this one because Jay was such a great technician and exceptional person. But Jay bought them the time. They'd better get their act together because if it weren't for him, they would have run out of time.
Good human beings always trump bad companies - even if they work for them.
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