We often hop on our motorcycle “just to see what is around the next bend.” Whatever is there can be interesting, intriguing, challenging, frustrating or a nonevent. The same is true of our businesses. It is often difficult to know “what is around the next bend” in a business environment, but whatever it is will be interesting, intriguing, challenging, frustrating, or a nonevent. . . . and we must be prepared.
What is the best way to be prepared for an unknown future? In any industry, customer care is paramount to future business. When your customer calls or e-mails with a problem, you must have processes for responding. Your response must be quick and it must address the actual problem in a way that is acceptable to you and your customer.
Let me give you an example from real life. A friend’s daughter who is in college had a problem with her computer. The friend filed a help desk ticket with the company that made the computer and with whom they had an extended warranty which called for on-site service within 24 hours. The ticket clearly said that the computer was located at a specific address in another city and gave the daughter’s cell phone number. After two more filings and a phone call during the next week, the mother finally got a phone call from a service tech to say he’d be at her home in an hour to fix the computer. When the mother explained that the computer was with the daughter, the tech agreed that he could see that if he scrolled down on his request for service. He also reported that the delay in service had been due to the company’s sending the parts to the wrong city twice already that week and now the company would have to re-send the parts again – to the college city’s technician. Three days later a technician called the daughter and arrived to work on her computer the following day. However, when he arrived, he said he thought from the mother’s description the computer might need a new video card which the company had not sent him. Instead, he had been sent a new motherboard and LCD screen to install. Sure enough, those did nothing for the problem. He then spent more than hour on the phone to the company to talk them into sending the video card. It is now three weeks since the problem was reported and the computer still cannot be used due to the screen flashing like a strobe light.
What went wrong? This company appears to have a problem with their help desk ticketing system. However, it is hard to tell if it is the software system or the human users of the system. Obviously, both have to work. If nobody is going to read the section that says “physical location of the computer” then it should not be a part of the ticket. However, to do on-site service, it would appear that the physical location of the computer would be important to know. If the company sub-contracts their service, then they need to understand the geography (using zip codes or GPS or names of the cities) so that the technician is somewhat close to the location of the computer. They also need to trust that technician’s assessment of the problem. No technician should have to argue for over an hour – in front of the customer – in order to get the necessary parts!
Is this company ready for what’s around the bend? Not so much! What should have been a slight bend in the road that took 2-3 days to get fixed has now become a series of hairpin turns on an insurmountable mountain of over three weeks. I think this computer company may be down an embankment!
The real question becomes: Is your company ready for what is around the bend? Does your ticketing system work? Are there processes in place to make it more effective? What about response time? Your company is only as good as its customer care. Not only is the “customer always right,” but the “customer needs help now” in today’s world!
