The internet has turned the Customer Relations Management world on its head. Just five years ago it took thousands upon thousands of unhappy customers before a company lost enough business to change its ways. Today, just ONE disgruntled client, through access to the internet, can cause a company to lose millions in a matter of few days.
This growing power of the customer is seen most clearly in the backlash against company's with poor call center services. A company’s help center (call center) is the first point of contact that a customer has with the firm. Customer retention, satisfaction and loyalty, all depend on how well the person at the other end of the line handles the customer.
So how can we convince these companies to realize the importance of providing decent call-center services? At our end, we have created a hall of fame and shame where we honor the companies that have made customer service a priority and shame those that haven't.
If you want to see better customer service across the board, and in particular call center service, we encourage you to use this list in deciding who to do business with, and who to avoid!
The Hall of Fame…
1. 
1-800-Flowers.com: Flower Carpet
Recently awarded ICMI Membership's prestigious Global Call Center of the Year Award, 1-800’s story is a simple one – it just cares for each of its customers. And it wants to deliver the best possible services to these customers. Its USP is definitely the fresh flowers, but there’s more to 1-800-Flowers than just well,... flowers. What makes 1-800-Flowers unique is the way it makes its customers feel – especially at peak times.
As MT Joplin would agree: “I was sick a few months back and received many flowers. Some of my flowers didn't hold up. When my husband called, they quickly replaced them. I was very pleased by the service, so when my friend fell ill, I purchased from 1-800-FLOWERS.COM!”
Firstly, they ensure that they maintain their customer rep population and more importantly, their quality. Secondly, whenever sales peak, they have a system of scaling up operations by creating a seasonal career path for retirees or teachers.
1-800-flowers.com has call centers around the country, including agents who work from their homes in Arizona and Florida and is now looking to expand their network. And even as the company moved its call center operations from New York to cheaper states a few years ago, their agents either went with them or worked as remote agents for them. The pay is performance-based and good part time reps are invited back during peak season. This helps them meet peak time challenges and saves the company training dollars.
2. General Electric – Lighting Up The Path
One thing GE head honchos realized early on is that customer loyalty was one thing they couldn’t afford to take for granted. GE has always gone that extra step to woo its clients to ensure that they didn’t move to another provider.
For instance, GE Capital International centers in India provide IT-enabled business process outsourcing services to GE and non-GE customers around the world. GE's business objective is to deliver quality services at competitive cost. And the company backs it all up with excellent service and assistance to consumers, quite a bit of which could even be absolutely free!
In a bid to improve services and build a satisfied and stable customer base, professionals at GE have even gone a step further. They now use their Access GE services to assist clients by understanding their challenges and problems and helping them identify solutions for the same.
3. Citibank—You Can Bank On
What’s especially heartening about Citibank being in the list of good companies is that despite being embroiled in a really bad controversy, it managed to bring itself back up to the top, thanks to its customer service. Not only did Citibank correct its errors, but also managed to better its services.
The almost US$23,000 call center fraud last year almost derailed the company’s outsourcing work. Citibank however managed to jump out of this problem quite soon and is now once again topping the customer service charts. In a recent mystery shopping survey of 15 banks' call centers, Citibank along with Bank of America were among those who did the best job handling inquiries about opening accounts or applying for loans.
4. IBM – Simple Solutions, High Satisfaction
What is it that irritates you most when you dial a company’s customer service number? The inability of a call center rep to resolve your problem may not worry you so much as their heavily accented English. While IBM’s services were par excellence, the company did feel a need to improve its reps on this count. IBM is one of the few companies that have been working to find a solution to this seemingly simple problem.
IBM, which operates through large call center facilities in India, has developed a Web-based training technology that can help improve the language skills of the operators. The program evaluates grammar, pronunciation, comprehension and other spoken-language skills, and provides detailed scores for each category. It uses specially adapted speech-recognition software to score the pronunciation of passages and the stressing of syllables for individual words.
Another reason IBM is up here is that it realized the need of creating jobs for people back home as well. The global tech giant has offered to locate a new 1,000-employee call center somewhere in Indiana and contribute $6 million in equipment to boost the capacity of Indiana University's "Big Red" supercomputer. This means Indiana will get 1,000 jobs that pay $10 to $20 an hour with IBM benefits.
5. Southwest Airlines – Quality & the Peanut King
This is one company that just keeps soaring higher and higher. The different approach adopted has helped Southwest Airlines remain at the top when most other airlines in the country are grounded today. And what’s better, customers are so happy they’re coming back for more. So, what’s the secret of this low-cost airline? Its peanuts? 
Interestingly, low-cost at Southwest doesn’t translate into lower quality of service. On the contrary, Southwest doesn't use IVR menus. The management team at Southwest believes that keeping things simple for customers is an extension of their brand and culture. "We are a very flat organization. There are not a lot of hoops to jump through, not a lot of red tape. And that trickles down to every aspect of our business," said spokeswoman Marilee McInnis.
Flesh-and-blood people rather than automated sounds do make a whole lot of difference. And that’s probably why the peanut king is laughing all the way to the bank.
6. Direct Television- Clear Transmission, Clearer Service
A simple question here: If two companies provided exactly the same quality of service, what could make a customer prefer one to the other? The quality of service of course. And that’s where Direct Television seems to have managed to carve a niche for itself.
While the cable/satellite industry has not shown any improvement in the past three years, DirecTV is well ahead of its industry rivals. While it’s not way ahead of its competition, it’s still ahead. And one big reason is the way the company treats its customers. Here's a snippet from Julie: "I just contacted Dish network and Direct Television to get a comparison for new service. I'm going with Direct Television. The girl I spoke to was an American college student and did her best to explain services."
7. Verizon – On The Route
When it comes to our phone and computer companies, we can get a bit too emotional and varied opinions makes it difficult to choose the good and bad ones. So, while Verizon has got a really huge haters forum, it still is better off than the competition with an American Consumers Satisfaction Index score of 68. This means the level of satisfaction that Verizon enjoys in this sector is more than any of the other companies. Agreed, this doesn’t mean service is great, and there is definitely room for improvement. But Verizon does have an edge over other telecom firms.
And the company can boast of a large and dedicated clientele that will agree with this statement: "I have been a Verizon Wireless customer for a little over a year now... Whenever I need to call their customer service the person I talk to is friendly, prompt, and gives me the info I need."
Of course there are others who say: "I wish I was exaggerating when I say I was on the phone for 2 1/2 hours. I kept getting transferred then put on hold. No one seemed to know whom to transfer me. With each person I talked to, I explained the problem and they'd transfer me to someone else, who'd transfer me to someone else, etc. I kid you not when I say that one person who I was transferred to answered with "Boiler room. How can I help you?" BOILER ROOM???
8. Apple -- Towering Over Others
If the ACSI score (81 against an industry average score of 74) were the only criterion for determining quality, Apple would still have come out tops. The company seems to have the knack of knowing what customers expect from it and delivering more than expected. As Jim Dalrymple says, "Apple's superiority in all aspects of support, including waiting on the phone and Web support, suggests that it invests its support resources wisely."
Satisfaction with tech support in the desktop computer market is one of the lowest rated services. While consumer satisfaction has continued to dwindle since 2001, Apple still managed to provide its customer with above average support. "In this atmosphere of low expectations, Apple Computer has actually raised its support satisfaction for the desktop computers over the past three years to levels well above all the competitors, while offering the most reliable desktop hardware," the report says.
The company's focus on product innovation and customer service has won it a cadre of famously loyal customers, unlike any other PC vendor.
9. Amex: 'Outstanding'
Their rates may be high and it could be difficult to pay them. But one area most customers don't complain is the customer service at Amex. While Amex has always been one of the better service providers, it now seems to get better. Some gushing customers just cannot seem to have enough of Amex: "Outstanding company and always a pleasure and easy to talk with. Probably the nicest customer service people in the Credit Card business."
As TVMattNYC puts it, No matter what hour of the day, you always get a LIVE customer service rep ... in the UNITED STATES!"
10. Accenture
How does Accenture manage to retain its customers? Simple – The Company helps clients achieve high performance by mastering the customer relationship management capabilities that impact customer loyalty.
For Accenture, the road to superior service begins with superior customer contact operations. At Accenture, a Global Quality Assurance Manager is responsible for a quality assurance team, which defines the global quality management program for the company's help desk function, which emphasizes customer satisfaction and performance measures. Its six contact centers located on four continents handle more than 4,000 phone, e-mail, Web-based and chat customer support interactions daily.
And Now...
For Our Hall of Shame
What most of these companies don’t realize is that offshoring their customer service operations is neither the cause nor the solutions to their problems. All they need to do is improve the quality of service and their customers will return.
1. Dell Hell
Recent statistics show that in one month, thousands of Dell customers wait at least half an hour to talk to a human. The problem is Dell cannot seem to be able to decide how to handle this situation. At one point of time, they were all gung-ho about outsourcing to India and other destinations, and then when the backlash occurred, they decided to call back a few sensitive operations. Now they plan to outsource even more.
What executives at Dell don’t realize is that outsourcing or home shoring is not the solution; it’s the quality of service delivered that makes all the difference. Of Dell, Professor Claes Fornell of Michigan's Ross School of Business and director of the National Quality Research Center, wrote in a report, "Customer satisfaction in particular has become a problem (with Dell), and service quality lags not only Apple but also the rest of the industry. Customer complaints are up significantly, while long wait times and difficulties with Dell's call center abound."
And yet, if this little report is to be believed, you cannot blame the support guys at the other end of the line – they are even more miserable than you could ever be.
2. Comcast Bombast
Need we say more? While checking for the most hated corporate entities, it was found that Comcast had the dubious distinction of turning up most number of times. Rather, there was a stiff competition between Comcast, AOL and Vonage.
This is one company that never seems to learn. Not only is it way behind when it comes to providing good services, its customer service is appalling. The reasons are not far to seek. So let’s begin with the napping Comcast technician. The poor guy slept off after waiting on hold for an excruciating and obviously mind numbing 90 minutes to his own office. And what does Comcast do? In a knee jerk reaction, it fired the poor guy.
And then there was the case of the customer who called the company several times to ask questions about her bill and her service, with which she was not happy. Instead of helping her, the customer service worker changed her name to, guess what… Bitch Dog.
Here is what LaChania Govan had done to irritate the customer service reps at Comcast: The 25-year-old working mother had the audacity to complain. More than 40 times over four weeks she phoned Comcast's customer-service department asking for help. "Calling Comcast became my second job," says the Elgin, Ill., consumer. "I had to ensure the cordless phone was fully charged and the kids were content -- and I sat and called, I cooked and called, I cleaned and called, and just called."
PS: Now it seems, Comcast has made some improvements. The company launched its "virtual hold" feature 18 months ago. Now customers who call and don’t get an agent on the line, can expect a call back when an agent is available or schedule the call for a time convenient for them.
3. AOL: Knee Jerk
Here’s another knee jerk company that fails to understand a problem when it sees one. The result of a recent survey shows that.
“If you have a question for America Online, prepare to give your index finger a workout. You'll press 0 no fewer than 18 times before you reach a human being — and that's if you don't comply with AOL's commands to enter your account number, screen name, phone number or ZIP code into its automated system. By the time you reach a person, you may forget why you called. AOL's dim-witted automated phone system was among the worst we encountered in dialing dozens of companies and government agencies, trying to outsmart their phone systems and get to a human.”
When AOL fired " John", a customer service rep caught on tape making it very hard for Vincent Ferrari to close his account, there were some who said, "John shouldn't have been fired, he was doing his job." And guess what, now there seems to be evidence that the former AOL employee was indeed just following the company policy. At least that's what it seems like if you check out this document.
For those who are at their wits end trying to cancel their AOL account, here’s a tip from Utterly Boring: A guy tried for better part of a week to cancel AOL. He talked to six or seven different people on six different days. Each time he was thwarted. Finally, weary of the runaround, he went into a "chat room" and started threatening to kill people in the room. His AOL account was canceled in less than 3 minutes
4. Vonage: Hell's Angel?
I doubt any of us would want to be in Loren Velthamp's shoes. Velthamp of Chanhassen, Minnesota, said he grabbed the phone and called 911 when he realized a fire has started in his home. "I called 911 using Vonage broadband and they put us on hold,"! Unbelievable! your house is burning down, and you're put on hold by Vonage.
A simple call on Vonage's the "customer service" option, (Option 5) gives you a message saying that it’s an "improper selection”. And if you try long enough, it rewards you by disconnecting you. If you do get a person at the other end and ask them to help you, chances are, the rep will say you got the wrong department and that you will be transferred to Customer Service, and then, you will be… yes you guessed right, disconnected!
Here's what Ricardo of Miami has to say: "I called Vonage customer service. After more than 1 hour of conversation they would not cancel the service. I told them that I never connected the line, never used the equipment and never received their service. They told me that I had to wait until the end of August and call again. They charged my credit card 4 months for service I never received.
The complaints about Vonage involve the company’s poor customer service and technical support, and it’s causing people to drop the service. Reputation matters and Vonage needs to step up and fix its problems. One big issue may be that there is no regulating body in the Internet phone service, so Vonage doesn’t have any incentive to work on its customer service problems.
5. ‘Dish’ing It Out
Here’s a typical complaint against Dish: When I push "1" to speak to a human being, the minute I say that I am already a customer, I am rudely hung up on. There is no way to contact anyone to get my number removed from this list as these continous calls are both intrusive and annoying," says Donna.
6.Macy’s: No Humans
Callers trying to reach someone at Macy's now face a confusing array of menu options, despite a pledge by the company last year to make it easier to reach a person. You're even asked to give up your Social Security number before the system finally agrees to transfer you to a human. A Macy's spokeswoman said the company continues to refine its automated phone system while trying to strike a balance between providing good customer service and minimizing its costs.
Well, how about bringing some humans into the picture?
7. eBay No Support Offline
In a recent survey, at 12 ½ minutes, eBay had the worst hold time of any of the companies that were tried. While on hold, "the world's online marketplace" played recorded messages strongly urging us to go to its Web site for help (as well as a recording of the 1978 Doobie Brothers hit "Minute by Minute"). eBay emphasizes Web-based support, said spokeswoman Catherine England, including an online chat function. Phone support is limited. “It’s kind of second nature for our community of users to be online and seek answers there," she said.
And what about customers who would like to SPEAK to someone?
8. AT & T Wireless & Clueless
Despite spending billions of dollars to improve its networks and offer more products and features, the cell phone industry is falling behind in delivering the kind of reliable service that meets consumer expectations.
Of the six largest cell-phone carriers, AT&T Wireless generated the most complaints overall and the most complaints per subscriber in the recent past, according to FCC records. AT&T Wireless had 3.39 complaints per 10,000 subscribers, compared to best-ranked Verizon’s 0.76.
And this is nothing new to AT&T. Its “customer care” ratings, as measured by J. D. Power, plunged from above average in 2003 (four of a possible 5 stars) to below average this year (two out of 5 stars). And now, consumers may be bearing more abuse than usual as the former Ma Bell sheds her consumer businesses.
9. Home Depot: Facing the Music
Home Depot seems to be one of those companies that want to give up without even the hint of a fight. The company insists that providing perfect customer service is near impossible for a company that processes 1.3 billion transactions a year. Even a 99% satisfaction rate, it says, would leave 13 million unhappy customers. But if the University of Michigan's annual American Customer Satisfaction index is to be believed, its more than just 13 million unhappy customers that Home Depot has to deal with. Home Depot has now slipped to dead last among major U.S. retailers.
In addition to bad services, what has rankled most customers is the fact that calls are not answered or returned. Just goes to show how important we are.
Things may be changing though. Now there are reports that the company is trimming its headquarters staff by 300 people as it shifts resources to the shopping experience, with plans to “refresh merchandise, hire more staff and start a customer service hotline at its retail stores.” 10.
10. Compaq: HP's Achilles’ Heel
According to ACSI, HP "continues to struggle with lagging satisfaction three years after its merger with Compaq." Satisfaction with HP-branded products rose nearly 3% but was offset by a drop in satisfaction with the Compaq brand, which, with a score of 67, matches its all-time low.
Jarred Fenlason’s run up with Compaq help center executives may have happened a while back, but things haven’t changed much since. “When I called the (Compaq) repair center the lady I was talking to could not find our case number… After talking for about 12 minutes I asked to speak to a supervisor. She said, “I am the supervisor… So I asked who was above her that I could talk to. She said “No one, I am the supervisor.” Then I asked her name and she hung up on me. My tone of voice was calm for the conversation. I was very shocked that I was hung up on.
An article in The Wise Marketer, (free registration required), Top ten factors that make or break consumer trust, discusses research that was recently conducted in the UK by Corporate Culture. Here is a summary of the research findings:
