USA - Was it the "Year of the Frustrated Customer?" Here are a few highlights: Airline passenger complaints to the US Department of Transportation were up 70%, as last summer saw the worst delays in 13 years of record-keeping; Verizon was ordered to pay US$1 million to customers the company terminated for "excessive use" on a plan that was advertised as "unlimited"; and the state of Minnesota is body slamming Sprint with a lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of its residents who claimed the carrier extended its contracts without their informed consent.
While customers are increasingly irate with call centre agents - some of us spewing combinations of expletives that would make a convict blush - no corporate solution to shut us up has yet registered. Like Sprint, many companies are throwing more warm bodies at the problem. Sure, beefing up staff in call centres across the country may reduce phone wait times, but is this solution really going to restore our faith in industries that continue to fail us?
Emphasizing customer service at the corporate level is working for some companies - such as JetBlue Airways, which has a "Customer Bill of Rights". That type of directive coming down from the boardroom is bound to have positive effect on how a company treats its customers, said Chip Gliedman, a Forrester Research analyst. Considering the praise the relative newcomer has earned lately, it shows.
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