Why It Pays to be Nice to the Customer Service Rep
I don’t know about you, but the level of customer service these days isn’t what it used to be. And, working for a company that purposely goes out of it’s way to create that “WOW” moment, I feel even more resentful when I get bad service. Still, I work retail, so I suck it up and move on. But, this story is one where I wasn’t going to just move on…let me tell you why!
As many of you know, I’ve been lusting after the Palm Pre since I had to great fortune to stumble upon it over at Fabulously Broke and found out that my very own cell phone carrier would be the only ones to have the new phone. Oh goodie! I’ve been saving for this phone since then, fully expecting to drop $300 or so on the phone. Needless to say, I could barely contain my excitement and my coworkers are all ready to shoot me since I’ve been talking about it nonstop for a week now.
So here’s how it went down. On Friday night I called to make sure that I was going to be eligible for the $299 price with the $100 mail-in rebate. The guy I spoke to on the phone told me that I would be eligible AND that I’d receive the $75 upgrade discount as well. I was pretty excited about that, but I wanted to make absolutely certain because something told me I should. So I repeated myself two more times and asked at least three more after that if he was sure. Finally, he said that he was positive that I’d get my phone at the special price rather then retail ($549, in case you’re interested) and that I shouldn’t have a single problem when I got to the store.
Excellent…that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.
Next morning I talk my boss into letting me run over and try and get the phone. I get there and discover that they opened the doors at least two hours earlier and have already been taking customers. I should have expected that, but I couldn’t stay there in the line, I had to get back to work. I managed to get my hands on a piece of paper that pretty much guaranteed I’d have a phone, so I was alright when I left.
I came back after work at about 4:30 pm. There were only a few people ahead of me and most of them were waiting for other things, so I didn’t have to wait too long once I got in there. The lady who helped me was very pleasant initially and took me to the back as we discussed what I wanted. Of course, she knew I was there for the Pre, but it was a nice conversation starter, so I went with it. At any rate, she’s looking over my account and tells me that I’m not eligible for the $299 special because that price included the $150 upgrade discount. I was only eligible for $75. So, I could buy the phone for $549 less $75…um, no.
I explain to the lady that I called the night before to ensure that I qualified for the phone at the $299 price and the guy assured me multiple times that I was. There was no mention to me that the price included the $150 upgrade discount. She apologized, but said there was nothing she could do. I could buy the phone at retail with the $75 off, but I didn’t qualify for the $299. Naturally, I asked to speak to the manager. She said she was the manager. So I asked to speak to her manager. Apparently she didn’t like that because she stormed off, rolling her eyes and slammed into the back room. She didn’t even excuse herself or say anything to indicate that she was going to comply with my request.
As it turns out, several minutes later she comes back out and tells me the manager will be right with me. So I stand there patiently waiting, thinking of the best way to handle the situation. My goal was to get the phone at the $299 price as that’s what I was told I would get. So, I gathered my thoughts on how to present the case. Finally, the manager came out and introduced herself. She was extremely friendly and seemed like she was going to help, so I felt comfortable talking to her. She didn’t come out on the defensive.
I explained the situation to her and told her I just wanted them to honor what I had been promised. So, she tells me that since customer service were the ones to make the promise, they would have to notate my account and then she would be happy to honor what was notated. We call up customer service and sat on hold for a few minutes. She was extremely friendly so we started chatting about the phone’s features and what I intended to use it for and so forth. Finally, a customer service rep came on the line and I launched into my explanation.
I’ll admit that I used the ‘long-time customer’ card, which is perfectly true as I’ve been there almost 10 years – and I’m only 27. I explained that I’ve never had an issue with Sprint, but that I expected them to honor what their employee told me. If they didn’t, they would lose my business. Mind you, I was perfectly polite the entire conversation – I kept an even voice at a friendly tone, I said my ma’ams and sirs, and I even smiled while talking to them. Point is, I’m not the type that makes a scene to get my way. And I’m a firm believer that people will go out of their way to help you if you’re nice rather than acting like a jerk.
Anyway, after a few minutes of explaining the situation to the lady on the phone, she puts me on hold to do a little research. When she comes back she apologizes and tells me there’s nothing they can do since the rep I spoke to the night before didn’t notate my account with what I was saying. He notated that I called to confirm my upgrade status. She refused to look any further into it, so I asked to speak to her supervisor. She put my on hold for about 10 minutes and then I was placed through to a supervisor.
Mind you, all of this is taking place in the Sprint store. I did step to the side and let the manager take a few transactions while I was talking to the customer service department, though.
The supervisor on the phone was repeating the same stuff the girl before her had said and I was getting a little annoyed. So, I tried to explain it again. My entire point was that I was told one thing and they were not going to honor it. I needed them to take responsibility and live up to what was promised. I told the supervisor on the phone that I appreciated the information she’d given me, but I needed to figure out what they could do for me.
Finally we get down to the fact that the store can make the upgrade override decision. But, again, the manager at the store said that since customer service made the promise, they would have to notate the account before the store would honor it. After a few minutes of back and forth with me on the phone between the two, the manager at the store asked to speak to the supervisor on the phone. They spoke about it for a minute or two and the supervisor on the phone notated the account that I was promised the upgrade and that they would honor it. The store gave me the phone at $299 with the $100 mail-in rebate.
I don’t think they would have helped me if I’d been belligerent about it. And, I was so impressed with the manager’s help and friendliness that I sent her boss an email telling him what a great job she did, and she did an awesome job. Even after taking up an hour and a half of her time, she still helped me get my numbers switched over, the phone set up, and my email and Facebook all added to the phone. After the initial frustration, I was very pleased and reminded of why I stay with Sprint. I’ve never had problems that haven’t been taken care of to my satisfaction.
After all that, I finally got a Palm Pre….and it rocks! I plan to write a review of the phone to follow this post soon!
What about you guys? Any Palm/Sprint horror stories? Any good stories about how being nice to your customer service rep got you what you wanted?
Related posts:
- The Customer-Centric Culture
- You’ve Got Service Charges! What to Do When Free Stops Being Free
- How to Talk to Creditors
- American Rights are an Illusion
- Quality vs. Price
When I used to travel a lot I always found that being really nice and joking (in a friendly way) with the airline ticket agent worked wonders. I always got better deals than I could find online or even get through a travel agent. Sometimes they had access to deals and information no one else had, but their jobs essentially suck (because most folks calling are calling to complain,) so being nice and creating a better experience for them, they worked harder for me.
Good for you for sticking to your guns though! I’m not sure I could have done that. I think I would have caved. I do find that my call center people for my cell phone are more friendly and more apt to help than those in the store, but I am not sure why that is.
Thanks for the useful info. It’s so interesting
Jealousy.. all over my face. :P
Pics? :)
I agree with the above post on being polite to airline ticket agents. I travel quite a bit overseas and some international airlines are usually strict about the baggage weight requirements, yet I have managed to get few extra lbs every time just by being nice and polite and making a bit of small talk with them while they are checking my passport, tickets and baggage and so far every time they have just ignored the additional weight with a smile :)
@ Dawn – I don’t deal with the airline ticket agents a whole lot because I don’t really have bags to check when I travel and I do most everything through the automated system, but I can certainly see how being nice might be beneficial to me! And about the phone, in most cases I do cave, but I REALLY wanted this phone and I don’t think I should have to pay retail for something I was told I qualified for at the lower rate. Mistake or not, I believe people should take responsibility for what they tell their customers. That’s why I stuck to my guns on that. Anything else and I might have caved and walked away, though.
@ James – You’re welcome!
@ FB – I’ll try to get some pictures up when I write the review. It’s AWESOME!
@ BM – Being nice does wonders! Glad you’ve not had to pay for a few pounds more, though. Checking baggage can get expensive!
Why must we jump through such hoops? I’m proud of you for sticking it out…clearly the phone was worth it to you. I vote for being polite over being rude anytime…except when you deal with Nelnet student loans…here’s the story.
I went through Nelnet for my undergraduate student loans. I had a student loan and my parents had a Parent Plus loan. When I started paying them back they continuously got us confused. The amount for my parents’ loan would be taken out of my account and vice versa EVERY MONTH. I was convinced that they thought my dad was the student.
I kept all the records in a handy binder. Each month I would have to call and get the issues fixed and I’d have to go through the same bullshit from low level customer service agents every time. It was the same problem, but because the company was so big I had to explain it all to a different person each time. I’d as for their supervisor. Then I’d ask for the supervisors supervisor.
After a while this got annoying and one month I was frustrated and I lost it. The customer service person did not want to pass me on to their supervisor. So I said something that I can’t even believe I said, which was “I am going to slit my wrists in mere moments if you don’t pass me along to your supervisor.” It worked. I felt silly about it.
Once I got angry and voiced my concerns and frustration was I taken seriously by someone. Sometimes it pays to be nice but sometimes, to get your way, you have to get angry.
@ mimi – Yeah, student loans I can understand your frustration on. I admit, dealing with Sallie Mae has made me loose it a time or two. Your story is a lot like the ones I read on the Sallie Mae boards, big company that treats you like a number and passes you around with no notes on the account so you have to explain yourself repeatedly to like three or four people. That would piss me off, too. I’m glad you got your situation taken care of, but I’m sorry it was only after you had to get mad!
I totally agree with you! I’ve always espoused to the belief that it pays to be nice and my recent experience with a certain cable company is proof! After a week of no internet service and getting the run around (having no internet is especially problematic for me since I work at home) I decided to stop letting my husband call and yell at the customer service people and deal with them once and for all. Eventually, I think it all came down to the fact that I could make the customer service people laugh, which is something I imagine they don’t get to do on a regular basis. Because I was nice and funny and relaxed, she went above and beyond her duties, manipulated the cable company’s crazy bureaucratic system, and got the problem fixed for us! It’s a true testament, in my opinion to the Power of Nice, which, incidentally is one of my favorite books and also illustrates concepts I read in the follow up, The Power of Small. If I hadn’t read those books a few weeks prior, I might actually not have gotten the same results– and I might still be without internet! ;)
Customer service is awful these days. I am a dual US/CDN citizen and so I deal with both countries a lot. I had a Vancity Visa application in and received a letter asking to call them to verify some information to process the card. The woman on the line was not helpful. She was downright rude. I own a business and employ people so I know the value of service, and she failed. She would not be someone I would employ.
I was tired of her attitude and unwillingness to help so I just hung up (something I never do. I mean never.)
Needless to say I complained to the company. I never do this. I do not expect a follow up or any kind of update and I don’t want one. I will simply never do business with their company.
I don’t think it is the job of the consumer to spend hours of their time arguing or being overly polite to people to get things the company advertises or promises. Sure it helps to have common courtesy and I would hope humans keep TRYING to be nice to each other despite that clearly not being our strong suit.
There’s a reason companies are failing and people are out of work these days. Most people are rude idiots and it’s catching up with them.
I thought I was tenacious, but it sounds like you are a little more tenacious than me. But you should have been, considering the circumstances.
I just spent less than a minute getting my money back (on a $12 transaction.) They had promised me over the phone that the item would be as pictured; it arrived and was not; I called and mentioned the item number and they assured me that it looks as pictured (that was my easy and justified entrapment of them – I had to first establish that they don’t know what they’re selling, otherwise they might claim to know nothing of whatever the prior CSR said); I revealed that it had just arrived in the mail and looked like the other item linked on the page, which was my suspicion of what might happen in the first place, thus my earlier phone call to verify what they were sending. They knew they had screwed up, not having the pictured item in stock at all but not originally knowing what was actually being shipped out of their warehouse, and they thanked me for calling it to their attention and credited the money back to me without even requiring that I send the item back (I asked but they declined. Not worth the shipping since the item itself was $3 before shipping. It’s a freebie to me now)
You had to spend more time but a lot more money was riding on your situation. Good for you, that you held them to their promise.
Thank you for the detailed comment on the World Card, also! I wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t mind waiting, and I appreciate the response from someone “in the know.”
I hate to be the devils advocate here, but I work customer service. In a telco in fact, and I have had this type of situation come up many many times…
One thing that always makes me want to help someone more, is if they don’t get cross AT ME. I,(usually ;p)didn’t make the mistake, but if you are yelling at me, I am going to have my back up, and I will help you, but not help you as much as I can. Its bad, but I can almost promise you that that is how most customer service people are.
@ Kate – If you have Time Warner, then you’re a saint! I have a really hard time keeping my cool with them! But, good for you for getting what you wanted with kindness!
@ Brad – While I understand your frustration and agree that many people can be rude and make decisions we would not, I do think it is the customer’s responsibility to act civilly. There’s nothing that says you have to be overly polite, in fact, my post kind of shows that. If I were being overly polite, I would have left and not made a big deal about it. But, consumers get caught up in the whole instant gratification thing and forget basic manners. Common courtesy is a two-way street. Just because someone works in the service industry does not mean we get to treat them with disrespect and nasty attitudes when we don’t get our way. I’m not saying you did this, by the way, I’m just speaking in generalities. On the same token, customer service people who don’t really want to deal with the public and all that entails should consider another job. There’s no reason to inflict their issues on other people.
@ Renee – I work in service as well, and it’s true. If you come in yelling at me, my instinct is to get you out of my face as quickly as possible. This is precisely why I don’t want a management position. I will help you, but I’m not going out of my way for you if you can’t be reasonable and polite. Mistakes happen and I can probably fix the issue pretty quickly, but if you’re rude, arrogant, cocky, and just generally an a-hole, well I’m less inclined to go the extra mile for you. But, on the same token, there are those customer service reps who generally don’t care and whether the consumer is polite or rude makes no difference, they’re not going to help either way. That irritates me because it gives the rest of us a bad name overall. I just think everyone needs to remember their manners and have a little common courtesy to other human beings and we’ll all get along just fine.
@ 444 – I’m only tenacious when it’s something I really want. In fact, I’ve lamented on several other pf blogger posts about my lack of haggling skills. But, in this case, I was going to get my way! Hehehe. You know, I hate it when companies say that the item you receive is just like it’s pictured on their site…that’s very rarely true. In fact, I’d say it’s almost always NOT true. But, you got a freebie out of the deal, so that’s not bad! Glad the answer on your World Card was helpful!
[...] Why It Pays to be Nice to the Customer Service Rep. Customer service reps are people too, and are more willing to be helpful if you treat them with the respect they deserve. [...]
I am involved in a customer service nightmare at the moment. I am not yet sure if it’s been resolved.
Last Spring, I was asked by a well-known company if I wanted a three-month free trial of a postage meter they produced. This would be for my very small business.
I accepted, given that I was suffering health issues which made getting my mail done rather difficult.
Right from the beginning (ie the promised delivery date) they made errors. They ended up charging several months rent (did I say this was a free trial??) to my credit card, which I had not authorized them to use for that purpose (as it was a free trial).
I returned the machine on time, and with relief, and proceeded to spend hours on the phone, mostly on hold, trying to get my money back. I do have to say that their wait times improved greatly, but their help desk people did not improve at getting my money returned to me.
Finally, in October, just a couple of weeks before I faced major surgery, I finally got a check for most of my money. At that point I was willing to cut my losses.
Then, last week, I got a past-due notice from them. I guess one of their attempts to charge my card did not go through. Anyway the charge was 392 days old, by their reckoning. And just now I got the bill…for something I never owed in the first place.
When I called, the help-person noted that I’d had some correspondence with them in the past (uh, yeah…) and said he’d try to get the bill written off. When I asked him how I’d know if it had been written off, he said, “Well, you won’t get another bill from us.” So helpful. It took them over a year to send the last one!
I switched to Sprint last summer and unfortunately can’t switch to the Palm Pre without losing my amazing plan. (I can live with that for now.) I’ve never had a problem with Sprint, so far I honestly don’t think the service is as bad as some people make it out to be. I did a lot of forum reading on Sprint before switching and more recently to find out if the Pre would be possible for me, and have come across quite a few horror stories. It seems the best thing to do is to keep calling customer service until you get a helpful rep that actually knows what they’re doing. Then once you get the answer that you want, have them make a note on your file. That’s a piece of info I’m holding on to for when I do run into a problem with them.
Not a horror story; quite the opposite with Sprint. 6 years ago, my mom passed away – VERY unexpectedly. I was a print subscriber at the time – had been for a little over a year. This was back when they had limited nighttime minutes, never mind daytime.
Needless to say, between sorting out tickets to go back home and getting condolence calls from a billion people, I ran over my minutes by – like, a ton.
About a week before my bill was due (hubby was a customer also) – we called Sprint to see if we could sign up for an installment plan, since we were students and could only afford so much each month.
First Sprint thanked us for getting to them in a timely manner, i.e., calling before the bills became overdue. Then they checked our accounts (this was before the days of family plans) and said the following:
1. Your hubby’s bill has already been processed, so unfortunately, we cannot waive that. We’ll put him on a payment plan immediately. Done – in about 5 seconds.
2. For me – Ma’am, we’re very sorry to hear about your loss. Your bill has NOT been processed yet, but we see it’s in the $250 range based on usage. We would again like to offer our deepest condolences for your loss. Your bill HAS BEEN WAIVED IN ITS ENTIRETY. You will only be responsible for the nominal tax on the account – $2.50.
You read that right. 2 dollars and 50 cents.