I've had so many frustrating experiences with companies such as Comcast to Verizon, even the American University administration. Reading the "Practical Guide to Social Neworks," I couldn't help but think of how all these places would benefit from a nice look at their social networks.
There have been so many times that I've called a Call Center and the person on the phone is absolutely no help. Most of the time they don't have the authority or the knowledge to remidy my problem. Or, the person only has a script of technical solutions. My favorite from Comcast: "Did you try turning off the cable box and turning it back on." A lot of these service companies tend to have a very routine response.
It seems that a lot of these service companies would benefit from expanding their network, and having more connectors. For example, Comcast's Customer Service could have more of a connection to the technicians.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I totally agree with your point of view. I had the same problem with T-mobile and Dish network.In fact, I just had a problem with my Dish service and the funny thing when I tried to call them to find out whats going on with the signal, I was told that I had missed a payment. However, I was transfered for some reason to another person and he told me that I'm fine and the problem is technical!. I waited on the line for 30 min and at the end the problem is still not solved.
I completely understand.
My favorite place to call is to get my prescriptions refilled throughmy insurance company, because there are about 30 prompts. Whenever I want to ACTUALLY speak to someone, there are about 10 more prompts. More often than not, the person is of no help. Networking would help places like this if they had better intergration and better, more knowledgeable people on the phone. If the people on the phone had a better knowledge of what was available of what was in their stockrooms (and thus better networked with the warehouse), and management with the technicians (to implement the changes) such that people don't want to have to go through the over-complicated prompts, life would be exponentially simpler. I guess though that is why we have insurance companies.
It is great considering I'm getting diabetes supplies and that is only...you know...my life.
i completely agree with you!!!
these companies (especially verizon!) would greatly benefit if they had a clearer social network. i had a similar problem to khaled's!... yesterday i called verizon’s customer service for the third time to be able to fix my internet line. after being transferred from one person to another in what seemed like forever, i was able to talk with one of their representatives and he told me that it was disconnected because we did not pay last month's bill (which we actually did, because it is paid automatically each month) and then my roommate talked to another one and he said that our side of the building does not reach their signal!? (our internet was working properly until last week) How can two people have completely different reasons for our problem working at the same place?
It's funny you mentioned Verizon, because I currently am having an issue with them at my house. My friend in charge of utilities has called their support services over a dozen times and he kept getting transfered to another location, sometimes another country, and once, somehow, to his own house in BOSTON.
So, I agree with your suggestion and would have to believe that companies can benefit from expanding their networks and communication lines.
Wow. It looks like we've all be in the same boat on this one. I used to work in Customer Service at the company that I currently work with and from my experience it is mostly a case of having several networks (Customer Service, Tech Support, Billing and management) that we're not communicating. I would get questions from customers that would completely baffle me. If I was lucky, I could find someone in my row to take the call but I would usually have to transfer the call to tech support - usually a fatal decision.
But I think that there is also something that companies need to give to employees in their service departments. I think that employees need to be rewarded for good handling of customer problems and I don't just mean putting their names on a wall.
I haven't worked in the support department in three years but from the jokes that still circulate around my department it would appear that we are as helpful as ever.
Post a Comment