On the Road to Exceptional

Greetings and welcome back for Day 3 of my quest to have phone service restored at our office.  But don't worry, through the wonders of technology we have had our office phone line forwarded to our cell phones–so we are definitely reachable even if we're a bit frustrated.

If you missed the first part of this exciting saga, soon to be a major motion picture, simply click here for Wednesday's post.

When we last left our friends at Verizon they were, no doubt, hard at work trying to solve this problem.  As an outsider it seems that their secret formula for success includes the following core elements:

• A keen lack of communication between their own team members.
• A general unwillingness to believe the customer when he (or she) explains the work, or lack of work, that has been done thusfar to solve the problem.
• A general unwillingness to believe their own technician when he explains that the source of the problem is their central office and not our business location.
• A less than perfect customer information or CRM system which somehow fails to capture the right information from each customer interaction and, as a result, requires each new Verizon representative to ask the very same questions over and over again.  (Note to Verizon:  I might call the CRM system provider and ask for a refund.)
• An overly-enthusiastic text messaging system with the incredible ability to continually send messages that the problem has been fixed even though it hasn't.
• An equally-enthusiatic voice messaging system with the uncanny ability to continually leave messages that said problem has been fixed even though it hasn't.
• Representatives who passionately proclaim that the problem will be fixed by 1:00 p.m. each day–clearly confident that eventually one of them will be right.
• A remarkable ability to continually ask the customer if they would rate their service experience as "exceptional" even when the problem has not been resolved.

Which leaves the customer waiting for Godot while waiting for a dial tone.

And wondering what the heck they're actually doing at Central Office.

And wondering if anyone really needs a land line.

We win in business and in life when we are able to quickly solve basic customer problems.  And not wasting the customer's time while we get our act together.

Have a great weekend!  I'll be in the office talking with my friends at Verizon and taking notes.

Cheers!