I’ve been an Earthlink customer for about 2 years. They, in combination with Time Warner Cable who actually services the cable for them, have the monopoly in my area of NYC. To be honest, I’d much rather use Cablevision, but I’m not in their "service area", so here I am.
Over the past 6-8 months or so, I’ve had some problems with my email. Periodically, emails that are sent to me are taking anywhere from several hours to days to get to me, and some are being returned to the senders as undeliverable.
I’ve spoken with at least 6 different people at Earthlink in the past couple of weeks and despite their promises, the problems continue.
To make matters worse, several of the representatives have promised me that they would get back to me, and haven’t. They have told me that the problem has been corrected, but it has not.
I also found out today, that the level "2" support staff only consists of 3 people! How dare an ISP be allowed to operate with a monopoly in a given area when they’re so understaffed!
Just as an aside, several representatives have asked for my phone number as a way of identifying my account, and when I give it, they have the wrong customer’s information connected to it. They’ve also promised to fix this…
Each time I contact them, I wait on hold for a ridiculous amount of time, only to find that the person I’m speaking to has to send me to another person, and so on.
I tell you this story for two reasons. One is to vent. The other is to pinpoint how companies hurt their own reputations every single day.
I’m sure that my story must sound familiar to you, since this type of behavior is all too common when dealing with tech companies and public utilities.
Unfortunately, smaller companies make these type of mistakes too, every single day. But the risk to smaller firms is even greater. With a smaller pool of customers, and no monopoly, every customer is precious.
Is your company committing any of these 7 deadly customer service sins?
- Long hold times.
- Poorly trained representatives.
- Lack of follow-through.
- Non-responsiveness to calls and emails.
- Making promises you can’t keep.
- Technical support that isn’t equipped to resolve problems.
- In-adequate amount of staff to handle problems.
So thanks for letting me vent, but please think seriously about what kind of customer service your company delivers, it can make or break your reputation.
-Susan Martin, nyc business coach
