Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Bad customer service amazes me. Granted there are often circumstances that we, the customer, cannot see which may explain the reason for the poor customer service. However, there are often times when I just scratch my head and ask myself, “Does this guy not want me to buy from him?”

For example, last week I set about getting wireless broadband from my broadband provider. So this is the scenario - I plan to call the provider, ask to upgrade to wireless broadband, pay for it and be done with it.

Ignoring how long it took me to find the number to call, when I finally got through, I got to talk to the dumbest sales rep ever. Over the next five minutes, I have to repeat my request three times, hear him cough full on into the telephone receiver and not even get a thank you at the end of it all.

As a customer, I would have thought I could just ring up and say, “Hey I’m paying you money already and now I want to spend more money with you, is that okay?” and get a positive response. Instead the sales rep pretty much tries to talk me out of spending my money.

I liked reading this quote on Tara Hunt’s website, “The secret to success is to make everything one-button easy, then get out of the way.” My example exemplifies that. If I can’t ring the provider up and ask to be upgraded to wireless broadband and be processed in the space of a couple of minutes, then something is essentially flawed with their process. I guess that’s the beauty of running a monopoly - your customers don’t matter!

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