Case Study: Poor Customer Feedback

Poor communication and misunderstandings are the number one reason people will leave your service and seek another company. It is rarely about price. Face it, not everyone on your team is as good at customer service as you are. That is why it is so important to gain regular, and consistent customer feedback. Long gone are the days of email surveys, and “rate us from 1-5”. Your clients’ crave sincere communication.

Here is a story from one of Iconnectu’s valued customer retention clients.

We made our customer feedback call to a woman in Florida for one of our air conditioning repair clients. She shared that in her opinion the technician was inept and not trained to fix the problem. She said that her son had to convince the technician to actually order the part they needed and come back and fix it. According to her, the technician was saying that it was too old and that there was nothing that he could do. She claimed the technician was rude to her son and since he was a home inspector by trade he would likely share negative feedback to others about our client’s firm. This was all her heartfelt truth. The Customer Experience Representative from iconnectu was shocked and while she did not defend our client, she did point out all the awesome positive things most people say to her daily about their service. She remained on the line with this customer for over 15 minutes listening to her “truth” and giving sincere empathy and an apology. The woman agreed to allow our client to try to make it right and iconnectu turned it over to them immediately and with a sense of keen urgency.

Our esteemed client contacted their technician first and learned that from his perspective everything was fine. The AC unit was older, but parts are on order to repair it and all went well while he was there. The leadership then contacted the customer’s son to get his perspective. He was super happy. He stated that the technician was courteous about how old the unit was. The two of them discussed all of the options and he was very satisfied to get the part in for a temporary fix while they plan to buy a new unit in the future. The technician went over the risk factors involved, and the son of the woman said he would recommend this client’s business to everyone he meets.

Iconnectu will, of course, be following up after the new part is installed, and this time we will try to talk to the son first. This is a great example of one person’s truth of what happened, versus another person’s actual experience. Everyday these perceptions are tested. How does your company know exactly how your customers see your business? Your service? Your technicians?