A friend of mine had an unhappy customer experience with a well-known delivery company (let’s call them S Delivery).
The story started when an international courier transferred my friend’s package to S Delivery. After the transfer, S Delivery told my friend that they could not deliver his package because they had been given an incomplete address by that international courier.
My friend was then told by S Delivery that he had to pay an additional “processing fee” of $21.40 to collect his package.
After speaking to a manager, S Delivery promised to waive the fee for my friend.
The next day, my friend gets a phone call and gets told that he would have to pay the additional charges after all. He was also constantly interrupted when trying to explain his situation
Upon feedback, my friend was told that he would get “resolution” by the following day.
Needless to say, my friend was most displeased.
What are the lessons about customer service that we can take away from this?
- Customers don’t like to be treated like they’re at fault for something out of their control. My friend was no way responsible for omitting his address on his package, and yet S Delivery’s first instinct was to try to impose an additional fee on him.
- Customers hate inconsistency from their service providers, especially when it comes to things like fee waivers. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes – would you like to be promised a fee waiver, and have it taken away without any explanation?
- You have to have a system in place to be able to make a decision about a customer complaint and make this transparent to everyone who is dealing with that customer. Had the system worked, there wouldn’t have been a flip flop on the fee waiver in the first place.
- Don’t interrupt your customer or get defensive when the customer has a genuine grievance.
- Don’t use vague words like “resolution” in trying to resolve customer unhappiness. It does not assure your customer that his concerns are being taken seriously.
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