Customer Service pet peeve...

[Common Sense Party]

So...you walk into a store, or a hotel and go to the person at the counter or front desk. The "customer service specialist" begins to help you. Then the phone rings. The customer service specialist answers the phone and leaves you standing there, waiting, while they deal with the customer on the phone.

What's wrong with this picture?

Am I right to be ticked off when I'm forced to wait like that? Honestly, I don't know what these businesses teach in their customer service training these days.

[DarkTirade]

1. Nowadays phones have a nifty little featured

called 'Hold'. :P

[Common Sense Party]

2. I thought so. Maybe that feature hasn't yet made it to Wyoming.

I had to check a couple of times to make sure I was still standing there.

I was.

[flvegan]

3. Here's what's proper.

To you:

"Excuse me, sorry."

To caller:

"Greetings! Thanks for calling us at x, can you hold please? Thank you."

To you:

"I apologize for interrupting our conversation."

[Common Sense Party]

4. That's what I was expecting, but, nooooooooooooo.

I wondered to myself if she would leave me there if her phone call lasted 10 or 15 minutes.

Or, what if she finished with that call, started helping me check in again, and the phone rang again? Would she ignore me again?

Priority Club, my ass.

[madeline_con]

5. Email corporate. It usually works.

You might also get coupons. :P

[Common Sense Party]

6. Does that still work with a franchise?

Most of these hotels are "independently owned and operated." I guess it can't hurt to complain to corporate anyway.

[madeline_con]

10. Franchises have to meet certain standards in customer service.

[CreekDog]

7. not if she said:

"no you may not take the cat for a swim in the toilet..."

[mwooldri]

8. It was a rule when I worked retail.

If you're helping a customer, you help them one at a time. The phone is just indicative of another customer. Then again I was assistant manager and I'd let those supposedly lower down on the totem pole go answer the phone - if they are not helping out someone else out already.

And yes, there have been times I have know just to let the phone ring because there's only two of us in the store and we're both tied up with helping other earlier customers. If it's corporate or another branch, they'll ring back.

Nowadays I don't have physical encounters with my external customers anymore. I just loook up at ana electronic board and I see what the status is - e.g. 5 people waiting on hold to speak with XYZ specialist, 1 person available to take a supervisor call...

[Chan790]

9. Oddly as a retail/sales specialist I have the same peeve.

If it were up to me...I'd let the phone ring (if there is nobody available to answer it) as I'm already disposed to a customer. My DM refers to phone customers as "limited-timeframe sales opportunities". Thus, I'm to ignore the customer I have to answer the phone and help the caller before you because Alan (my district manager) thinks you're more likely to wait than the phone customer is to call-back or hold.

I've explained repeatedly that anybody who ever does that to me...loses my business forever; I've had customers leave because of this in the middle of a $1000 equipment sale because I have to prioritize the person who wants to have a 10 minute conversation to know if we sell Senseo or Keurig pods. (That would still be a no the 20th time I said it.)

Thus, as you can see...the problem is not just the failure to teach good CSR technique, it's also the fact that some people (Alan!) teach bad CSR.

[Crabby Appleton]

11. You have described me..

"I've explained repeatedly that anybody who ever does that to me...loses my business forever"

I am that ex-customer that walks out and you will never see ever again.

A read an article by Stanley Marcus (of Neiman Marcus, he knew quite a bit about customer service) where he stated his amazement in this breach of customer service etiquette; choosing to to rudely ignore the customer right there with cash in their hand in favor of someone on the phone.

Your DM is an idiot.

[Common Sense Party]

12. Alan, you suck.

What a maroon he is. If it weren't for a cancellation fee I would have walked out and gone to another hotel...although there was only one other motel in the little town and it didn't look too nice.

In a retail situation, I would have told them they're rude and left.