Customer Service, what is happening to it?

I just got off an instant message Chat with one of my close customers, actually, I managed and trained this customer when I was working at WennSoft, and he is someone whose technical skills are very sharp! It sparked something in me and I decided to blog about it a little bit…. Here is a cleaned up transcript:

(2:01:28 PM) Mr Customer: Stupid vendors!
(2:01:36 PM) Gjeret at Sensible Gurus: Hey! I resemble that!
(2:01:51 PM) Mr Customer: Xerox guy was going to come Monday never did
(2:01:56 PM) Mr Customer: called him Tuesday
(2:02:16 PM) Mr Customer: said he would be here first thing Wednesday never showed
(2:02:21 PM) Mr Customer: called him up today
(2:02:24 PM) Mr Customer: can’t get a hold of him
(2:02:28 PM) Mr Customer: not picking up his phone
(2:02:42 PM) Gjeret at Sensible Gurus: lol
(2:02:45 PM) Mr Customer: called the phone people yesterday because I tried saving a $200 service call and swap extensions myself
(2:02:54 PM) Mr Customer: and umm well I need them to clean up after me as it did not work right
(2:03:00 PM) Mr Customer: said he would have someone out first thing today
(2:03:02 PM) Mr Customer: never showed up
(2:03:05 PM) Mr Customer: same thing
(2:03:07 PM) Mr Customer: can’t get a hold of him
(2:03:28 PM) Gjeret at Sensible Gurus: you would think in this yucky economy that people would be pounding down your door
(2:04:03 PM) Mr Customer: well Xerox we are not paying for this as it’s a leased printer and we are still working out initial setup issues
(2:04:11 PM) Mr Customer: but the phone people get $200 for setting foot in the door

We then went on to talk about how my business partners can help this particular customer out…

OK, now for my rant.

What happened to Customer Service? What happened to putting an appointment in your CRM Program or even Outlook!?!

I’m looking at my bookshelf right now, and there are a number of books on the subject from back in the time I was a Manager including;

Why Service Stinks….

Raving Fans (Ken Blanchard)

Gung Ho! (Ken Blancard)

The first couple of time I read these books, I couldn’t help but think, wow! This must be a joke? Why would you NOT want to help your customers? The customer is going “Here, take my money, please take it!” and the vendor is just ignoring them!

I got off the phone with a new customer of mine yesterday echoing the same sentiment. She said to me “Gjeret, Thank you very much for calling me back, it is a refreshing change” I’ve been hearing again and again and again stories like this.

Please, if you are being ignored by your vendors, Let me know! In this economy, no, in ANY economy the customer… that means YOU… Should NEVER be ignored! If I cannot help you out, I will find someone who will! That is my promise!