| Customer Service 101 |
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| By Pam Lyle | |
| Monday, 28 July 2008 | |
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 July 2008 ) |
When I was given the privilege of writing these articles for WUH, I was not given the right to “establish contests” – those rights are only, for the present time anyway, for the “Editor-Mitchell” and the “Co-Owner Cody”. Well, I’m stepping out of the box here and taking a risk and saying that this could be a “contest go getter” and that Cody would “ante up” one of the great new WUH products (I’ve seen the tee shirts, cool bags, cups – they are tip top quality) for the winner of this contest! So get ready, set, GO!!!
My story would definitely win world wide but you all can follow up with yours! First a little more about me and a little history about this story. It takes a lot to upset me in a negative sense – I’m basically very positive and almost always look at the good side of things, seriously, you can ask anyone – my mom demanded it and it seems to me to make life a little better. Now, there are things… like if you were to go against my family, but really that’s about it. I feel strongly you have a right to your feelings, beliefs and you can express them the way you want as long as it’s not hurting anyone. I don’t always have to be right and I can very easily say I’m wrong and can sincerely say I’m sorry; again, I had a great mother who taught me well. I forgive easily as my God has taught me.
Well, not sure what happened the other day but I got my AT&T bill and “they were wrong”. It was three times what it had been for the last three years and I had DONE NOTHING DIFFERENT. I researched it CORRECTLY online as that’s how I pay it and called a very good friend of mine who works for AT&T and he advised me to email them. I did so and this is how it went. Exactly 17 hours later my phone rang and I answered it. “Mrs. Lyle, this is Tracy from AT&T and we’ve made a terrible mistake and we’re very sorry for the inconvenience we’ve caused you and we’d like to correct that immediately.” I said, “I appreciate that and I knew you had as I had done nothing differently and my bill was three times higher than normal”. (Actually said a little sarcastically.) Tracy said, “You are exactly right, Mrs. Lyle, and we appreciate you contacting us, and again, we are so sorry for the inconvenience and will get that corrected.” I told her I appreciated her getting back with me so quickly. Then she said, “We try to get these things corrected as soon as possible and when we saw that it was MEXICO phone calls and you have not had a history of making MEXICO phone calls we knew it was our mistake – have a great weekend, Mrs. Lyle.” Stunned, I said “Wait, uh, did you say Mexico?” She said, “yes, so we’ll get those off and your bill will be normal, again, thank you for calling and call anytime you have questions.” Again, I said, “wait, I’m sorry, I think I was wrong.” Tracy said, “Oh, I’m sure you weren’t.” I said, a little quieter than I was at first, “yes, I was – we did call Mexico, in fact, several times as we are going there in December.” Again, she asked if I was sure and I told her how sorry I was that I had taken her time and I would pay the bill, in fact I wanted to pay the bill THREE times! It was handled so well by them. I could not believe I had totally forgotten the calls to Mexico.
I sat there a while and thought back to about 18-19 years ago when I got a pretty “hefty” bill from them also – same company – and called them and told them I thought something was wrong. They told me someone in our house had been calling some “strange” numbers. I told them I couldn’t imagine who that would be. About that time, my son (yes, that would be Cody) came up the stairs and “fessed” up to him and his best friend messing around on the phone. I remembered the lady laughing and saying “kids will be kids” and taking the bills off (now don’t get excited – I’m not sure they do that all the time!).
But the story of all stories happened, gosh, must have been about 1995- 1996 when a group of Special Force Marines were in United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of them being my son, Cody. He called and told us that none of their calling cards worked to call home except his AT&T card (which the bill was coming to our house). Could they all use it call home once? They were all homesick and tired. They’d pay us back. His dad said “sure”. AT&T called us and said we were getting a fairly large bill and there had to be a mistake as the calls were coming from UAE. We told them that it was no mistake that our son was in the Marines and was over there and we were letting his friends use our card as it worked over there. They told us not to worry about the bill, it would be taken care of. I’ll never forget how much that meant to me. That’s customer service.
Now, you top it!! Not sure you can BUT it will be fun and a positive blog to come up with places and people that just “make your day” when you go to them and they give you great service and treat you right. Let’s spread the work on good customer service! We can all enjoy and probably learn something!
Didn't your momma teach you to share? Share us.
Users' Comments (7) |
 07-28-2008 11:32, , Guest The only things not included were other meals and a taxi from the Madrid bus station to the airport. I don't know if we got some sort of special group rate because there were 10 of us or what, but that's got to be the best $200 I've ever spent - talk about bang for your buck!  07-28-2008 11:43, , Registered I truly believe this... People are inherently good and what kind of customer service you receive has more to do with how the person answering the phone was raised than it does some junk in ATT's customer service manual. Companies must realize that they are represented by their CSR's none of us really care about ATT's CEO... we want the guy answering the phone be nice and courteous. One other point... Keep them in mind, if you call them and act like a spoiled brat, they are gonna treat you like one of the ten thousand spoiled brats they deal with a day. Golden Rule stuff. 07-28-2008 11:53, , Guest Adding to your story just a bit, AT&T may have been even more generous than you realize. My hubby made one of those phone calls from the UAE to me in 1991. He called collect, we talked for an hour and the bill was $500. Adding in a couple of stories of my own. In 2002, we had a storm here with a lot of tree damage. During it, the big old oak tree in our backyard was struck by lightning and came down. The next day I was working on getting the smallest part of it off the roof (no damage to the roof) and along came the Fire Department in their big truck. They had been working all day going around to neighborhood homes, cutting up downed branches and stacking them for a special trash pickup by the city. They asked if I needed help and I said it wouldn't be fair since I didn't have branches, I had a 40 foot tall tree. They jogged around to the backyard and said, no problem, it's good training for us as well as a community service. So all 6 of them, with the chain saws they brought with them, went to work on the tree. When they were done, it was all neatly stacked in a pile by the curb and they put it on the list for the city to pick up. Here in Sugar Land, the city chips and mulches most of tree refuse for use in the city parks and public buildings. They have a chipper they hook up to a big truck and they just feed the branches in in front of your house and mulch it right there. Within a week, the city had picked it all up. But I still remember the firemen from our nearest fire station who were so cheerful as they hoisted big chunks of tree as if they weighed nothing and jogged to the front yard with them. They could just as easily have been sititng at the fire station waiting for a call. Instead they were pro-active in helping where they saw a need. Going back a few years to Hurricane Hugo. We were living in Norfolk, Virginia. We lived between two areas of salt water. Just behind us was an inlet fed from the Atlantic Ocean and a block away on the other side was the Chesapeake Bay. We were just at the curve where the Bay isn't the ocean anymore. I had gone to a hotel that was further away from the water the night before. Hubby's ship (aircraft carrier) was in the yards so all hands were called on duty just in case the nuclear reactor (which was torn down) needed tending. We were lucky, though the Carolinas were not and I returned home in the morning. To get home though I had to drive through a couple of feet of salt water on our street. The car did great but the salt ate the starter by the next day. Allstate was so great. I called them up, they filed a claim over the phone and I had a check within a week for the car repair. I still love Allstate. We've moved several times since then but we've always found such terrific Allstate agents and service, we still use them. The world is full of really terrific people.  07-28-2008 13:00, , Registered One time, I was at Arby's and ... I'm drawing a blank on that one. 07-28-2008 14:51, , Guest There have got to be some great stories out there! 08-08-2008 23:33, , Guest 08-08-2008 23:44, , Guest I love hearing stories about great people. : ) My next door neighbor owns and runs the auto repair shop a block from our house. He has a bumper sticker on the wall behind the service desk that says "My boss is a Jewish Carpenter" and he'll smile and point to it when he sends you on your way with a smile and no bill. God Bless 'em each and every one. |
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