Category: Poor Customer Service

Customer Experience Design by myragolden

A Tale of Two Delivery Restaurants

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One of the best things about travel for me is going to local restaurants and cafes and enjoying the food. I love tasting the food, seeing the local people and really experiencing the town’s vibe.

But then there are times when I’m exhausted, and I want to order in. Like last night. I’d had a lovely brunch at the Mesa Verde in Santa Barbra, and then I spent the entire afternoon reading and walking at the beach. The sun set my “sleep clock,” as my mother would say, and I just wanted to have food delivered to my hotel room and then retreat to my bed.

 

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I literally spent the entire day at the beach. I read, walked, and prayed.

 

A food delivery service left a postcard in my hotel room. The note said, “Quick delivery to XYZ Hotel.” They had vegetarian options, so I ordered. The food came fast. I opened the bag while the delivery guy was still at my door. There were no utensils or napkins. “Do you happen to have napkins and a fork and knife with you?” I asked.

“Nope. If you want those, you have to ask for them when you order.”

When I ordered, my mind was on food. Not on forks and knives. “I’m in a hotel, how can I eat my salad and entree without a fork?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. You didn’t tell us you needed a fork or napkins, so we didn’t include those things in your order.” And then he just stood there looking like he truly was sorry that I’d have to either eat with my fingers or go hunt down plastic ware.

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Customer Experience Design by myragolden

3 Ways Your Employees Are Killing Your Customer Experience

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Story highlights

Making it hard, rudeness and fighting with customers ruins the customer experience

I’m standing at the front desk of a nice hotel in Baltimore. The front desk clerk is having a problem with my reservation. I wondered if it was because I had literally just booked the reservation 45 minutes prior, just as I got into my rental car at the airport. I told the hotel employee that perhaps my very recent booking was the problem.

He called hotels.com, the company I used for booking, not once, but two times, about my reservation. When he didn’t get things sorted out after 2 long calls to hotels.com, he told me, “I’m just going to cancel your hotels.com reservation and rebook you in our system.”

I was eager to get into my room and rest up for a week of full-day training sessions. His suggestion sounded good to me. That is, until, a couple of months later when checking my hotels.com account, I get a message stating that my 6-night hotel stay in Baltimore had been removed from my Rewards Account and that I would not get credit for that stay.

The primary reason I use hotels.com is for the rewards. I travel a lot. It takes 10 hotel stays to earn a free hotel night. In June I received two free hotel nights and used both of those nights for get-aways with my husband. I travel a lot.

Now, hotels.com is telling me that because they couldn’t help my hotel in Baltimore sort out a problem, they are removing my earned rewards?

Using hotels.com as the perfect example, I will walk you through 3 Ways Your Employees Are Killing Your Customer Experience.

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Customer Experience by myragolden

A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.

A man without a smiling face must not open a shop. –Chinese proverb I took the day off yesterday. My family and I joined my parents at a WNBA game. Our team, the Tulsa Shock, […]

Poor Customer Service by myragolden

This customer recorded his call into a cable company. I listened. What I heard made me say wow. Just wow.

So this call was bad. Really bad. All the customer, Ryan Block, wanted was to cancel his Comcast service. Ryan shared 8 minutes of the call on Sound Cloud for all of the Internet world to hear. My favorite phrase from the call is, “Help me understand why you don’t want faster Internet?” I’m still laughing!

Listen to this nightmare of a customer service call and then be thankful that you train and monitor your employees. You do train and monitor your employees, right?

Ryan Block, the customer

Continue reading This customer recorded his call into a cable company. I listened. What I heard made me say wow. Just wow.

Customer Experience by myragolden

Be Welcoming to Your Customers So They Don’t Have to Talk About You On Yelp

My family and I are enjoying a spring break get-away in Memphis. We came to visit the National Civil Rights Museum, the Slave Tavern and Beale Street. Yesterday my kids were in the mood for […]

Poor Customer Service by myragolden

Febreze was the hotel’s answer to my request for a non-smoking room. Really?

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I was relieved to finally be at my hotel.  It was my second business trip in a week, and I’d just spent several hours stuck in the Chicago O’Hare airport because of a winter storm. The front desk told me I had a newly remodeled room with a river view.  That’s just perfect after a day like today.

I got to my room and inserted my key into the door. The second the door opens, I am overpowered by the smell of cigarette smoke. Lots of it. Clearly, there is a mistake. I always tell my clients to reserve a non-smoking room for me.  Immediately, I pick up the phone to call down to the front desk.

Continue reading Febreze was the hotel’s answer to my request for a non-smoking room. Really?
Call Center Management by myragolden

Do you want parrots or people in your contact center?

Do you want parrots or people in your contact center?, a photo by Myra Golden on Flickr. Last October, after I delivered a wonderfully-received keynote in Orlando, I grabbed my camera bag, slipped out of […]

Poor Customer Service by myragolden

What I’d Tell the Tag Agency Owner If He Asked Me for Advice on His Customer Service

Last Friday I made my annual trip to the Tag Agency. I went to a tag agency I’d never visited before and got caught up in a 45-minute nightmare “assembly line” service experience. It was truly unbelievable.

I was there to renew my tags. A simple process.  At my usual tag agency, I walk up to a clerk, hand over my registration postcard and my insurance, and my information is entered into the computer. I then pay, and I leave. This simple process was butchered at this tag agency.

I presented my registration information and insurance cards and then was told to have a seat and someone would call me to take my payment. That was odd. Why not just make my payment right now? I waited about 12 minutes for my name to be called. When I approached the clerk, she took my debit card, and I was told to have a seat until it was time for me to sign for my debit card payment. Odd. Really strange.

Another 10 or so minutes passed, and I was called up to sign for my debit card. I was then told to have a seat while my information was entered into the computer. Seriously?! About 6 minutes passed, and I was called up to get my registration receipts. AGAIN, I was told to take a seat and to wait. This time I was to wait for my tag stickers. Whatever.

This is the seating area where customers like me were asked to wait.

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