“That’s on a different system.”

Mary Schmidt

May 02, 2012

A couple of observations regarding customer service/support.

1. The customer doesn’t care (and shouldn’t have to) that there are separate systems - for billing, levels of support, or sales processing.  I just got another statement for my mother’s cataract surgery. When I called about the first one received, I was told she was entitled to a credit (which was received) and to pay no never mind to the statement.  Today, I was told, “Oh, that’s on another system, she still owes for the doctor.” Hmmm…and yet I’ve got nothing showing a payment we made.  Sure, this is a medical billing issue - but how many times have you been faced with the system issue in product support? Banking? Credit card processing?

2. A product is only as good as the (perceived) service.  As far I can tell, the surgeon did a stellar job for mom.  But her perception is that the people didn’t know what they were doing.  I have to concur to a certain extent.  The facility does thousands of cataract procedures a year…which means elderly people…which means a lot of folks with very limited mobility , patience and mental capacity to understand (much less remember) the explanations.  (I now know more about cataract surgery than I ever dreamed, having reviewed the documents daily for weeks.)  Yet the whole process requires hours of waiting…going up and down long hallways…up and down floors…waiting some more…being faced with complicated (and sorta scary) machines…(Hello? We’re literally running out of oxygen here…) 

So, before you spend another dime on fancy software, a process template or a consultant - stop and think…what would your customer think? (Maybe make a phone call into your support center and see what happens.)

In Pet Peeves