JERRY: Well, [he] said he was waiting about two hours. Seemed a little put out.
KRAMER: Oh, was he? Was he? I guess the cable man doesn’t like to be kept waiting.
In the space of seven days I received approximately 21 phone calls that changed the way I view the world. Well, maybe not the whole world, but having a computer technician call me between two and four times a day for almost seven days straight did make me think long and hard about customer service.
I had always assumed that spending hours waiting for a computer technician was one of life’s certainties, along with death, taxes, philandering politicians, and never finding a taxicab in the rain. Every time I had a computer problem I would spend at least an hour alternating between pressing buttons on the phone (“Press 3 if you have a problem,” as if I’m calling for a social chat) and being placed on hold. I always assumed the technicians were busy helping other customers.
Recently, however, I discovered that wasn’t the case. After I had spent an hour and a half on the phone with Dell to resolve a problem (an hour and 25 minutes on hold/pressing buttons, five minutes speaking to a technician), the technician told me my warranty was up soon and asked if I’d like to extend it for a year for $182.
I told him I’d need to think about it. After a previous experience of being told a problem I had was excluded from coverage by the fine print of my warranty (my second major frustration after long wait times), and then having my intern fix the problem in 30 seconds, I wasn’t overly tempted. I asked if there was a sales number I could call later when I had made a decision, to which he replied: “Don’t worry, I’ll personally call you.”
And he did. Again and again. Sadly, I kept missing his calls — by accident, of course, although I certainly experienced some schadenfreude at having a technician listen to my hold music for once. Seinfeld fans may recall the episode where Kramer, who had been getting some premium channels for free, hides whenever the cable company tries to contact him, in retaliation for their past latenesses.
Cable companies are of course notorious. In my most recent experience with Time Warner, the technician missed three appointments in a row. Time Warner is like a government bureaucracy — in many parts of the country, it faces no competition, which means its people think they can get away with anything.
In theory, where consumers have alternatives, they’ll look elsewhere. As the old saying goes, “If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will.” In the case of Dell I tried to look elsewhere. But after consulting with friends, I found their experiences with other companies were the same. If I ever find a computer company that breaks the mold and puts at least half the effort into helping customers that it puts into extending warranties, I’ll be switching.
A quick way for Dell to improve its service would be by having sales staff rather than technicians conduct sales calls. That would cut wait times for technicians significantly. And while the fine print of warranties helps ensure that technicians aren’t spending time on problems they shouldn’t be (and creating longer wait times), if it’s a 30-second fix it would probably make good business sense to help the customer even if it isn’t covered. (The time I spent demanding to know why my problem wasn’t covered exceeded the time it would have taken to fix it by about 500 percent.)
As bad experiences go, the worst I’ve had was at Cohen’s Fashion Optical. There an eye doctor told me I needed new glasses, which she proceeded to prescribe. The next day — when I found I was having more rather than less trouble seeing — I went back and was told it had been a mistake: My old prescription was just fine. It took me five hours, including several calls to headquarters, to persuade Cohen’s to refund the price of the faulty glasses.
Cohen’s success, it seems, is based on offering lower prices than its competitors. In return, many consumers are willing to accept bad service, especially in a recession. Consumers who do a cost-benefit analysis, however, may discover that the money they could earn in the five hours they may have to spend arguing with customer service exceeds the amount they save by going to Cohen’s. At least I did.
It’s been a long time since the famous Swiss hotelier César Ritz advertised “Le client n’a jamais tort” (“The customer is never wrong”), and Gordon Selfridge changed it to “The customer is always right.” I used to contrast London, where I once lived (and where sales clerks acted as if they were doing you a favor by serving you) with New York (where sales clerks would make you feel like royalty), but that spirit is dying in New York.
The one bright spot in my recent run of customer-service experiences was with Brooks Brothers. I had bought several shirts, taking the sales clerk’s advice as to the size, and later discovered that a different size was a better fit. Customer service immediately offered to exchange the shirts, even though they had been worn. If only Brooks Brothers sold laptops, cable TV, and glasses too.
– Daniel Freedman is the director of policy analysis and communications of the Soufan Group, a strategic-consultancy company.