New Tag For New Media: “Customer Service”
The last 48 hours has really brought something into focus for me: customer service is going to be as important to the coming wave of new media as it is in retail.
Think about walking into a department store where the sales clerks avoid eye contact, tell you that your questions can’t be answered by anyone there, and occasionally tell you at the checkout that they can’t process your payment today so come back later. Would you ever come back?
Hell no. In fact, not only would you never come back, but you’d actively search for alternatives and tell everyone with ears about them. The only time you’d ever come back is if they were the only department store in town, and even then, you might be willing to drive out of town to get some decent service.
Why do you think so many of us English-speakers are experimenting with HiPiHi and NovoKing instead of just continually singing Second Life’s praises? I mean, Second Life rules, but they really have to do something about that customer service.
As we chose our interactive information and entertainment sources in the future, this will be the pivot point. Ten (maybe even five) years from now we’ll have at least six of every kind of world we can think of to chose from. Ease of use will be the first selection criteria we’ll use, and customer service will be the second. Veoh vs. YouTube is a great example of this - one could even argue that Veoh provides a much higher-quality product, but YouTube is people-focused vs. company focused. I don’t have to tell you which one is bigger.
There are nearly an infinite number of things to say about customer service, but we’ll come to that in later posts. The only thing I really wanted to say is this: customer service is not a wiki, nor is it a trouble-ticket system, and it has nothing to do with ISO or Six Sigma or any of that nonsense. It’s the art of doing business.
UPDATE: I was just made aware of the latest customer service / public relations blunder by Linden Lab. Someone claims they licensed user-created content from inside the world of Second Life by paying the Lab for it. When asked, the Lab said: “Read our Terms of Service. No comment.” Guys… could you be any more suicidal?
November 15th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Do a Google Search for “The Telephone Doctor.”
We here at absurdly large hosting company had to go through that series of videos in order to drill into our minds to be polite, nice, professional, and happy little mindless robots who still can’t do anything for anyone.
Customer satisfaction metrics are up, but it makes me wonder if in the long run people will come to realize that their problems truly aren’t being solved… they’re just getting a sweet whisper in the ear as another monthly fee is pulled from their pocket.
The answer is always: solve the real problem. Get people to solve the real problems, not people to throw in the way of folks waiting for those problems to be solved. Or people to sell more of the problem-heavy product. Or managers to manage all those people doing everything but solving the problems.
When you solve the real problems, the need for layers and layers of happy-talking drones to mollify the angry crowds is greatly reduced.
(As for your addiction to Jasmine tea, try mint-hibiscus. Even better.)
November 15th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Yeah I know “The Telephone Doctor”. Most larger outfits and union shops tend to buy that package. Managers see it and think: “Wow, a bunch of easy answers! Awesome!”
The content wouldn’t be so bad except that the people in the videos are so terribly phony.
November 16th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
thanks for bearing with the chinese interface at HiPiHi. we hear ya and are working in ensuring ease of use (ie the english interface) comes out soon.. =)
November 16th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
thanks for bearing with the chinese interface at HiPiHi. we hear ya and are working in ensuring ease of use (ie having that english interface) =)
November 17th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Hiphi is a pain at present, hopefully it will get better quickly. Here is what I find amusing, a lot of companies are testing the use of Second Life for customer service. Some like IBM are having some success with it. However the primary complaint is a lack of customer service by the creators. Sure they have office hours, a phone number, but it is hardly enough. They need to get a lot better at it, or Second Life will continue to be vast but empty spaces.