Live in Light

A lesson in customer service

I've learnt a lot about customer service over the past few months through a broken laptop and very scarce information from the company concerned.

Firstly I sincerely apologise to everyone I have ever been slow in replying to emails. 

Which quite frankly has been probably everyone.  Unless you managed to catch me on one of those rare days where I was at my computer at the exact time your email came in.  In which case I responded promptly.

In the past my perspective was:  if I'm with a client they get my attention - phone calls and emails can wait.  Then came my children.  I didn't want to be one of "those parents" whose children described as always on their phone and not paying attention.  

(My singing teacher described getting 60 children  to act the most common thing their mum did, as they sang a song.  59 of them pretended to look at their mobile phones saying that's what mum did most of the time.  Society has changed quickly in many ways).

Then I often left emails relegated to "after the kids are in bed" pile.  And then I had the audacity to prioritise my husband and sleep.  

Then I had subscribed to a few interesting people.  Somedays I received over 100 emails a day.  In my limited time available some emails simply slipped through my barely adequate system. 

So depending on my caseload, some people waited a long time for a reply. 

Things improved immensely when Kelly came along to work with me.  Oh she illustrated an amazing ability with systems, organising and efficiency.  I still miss her (although am super excited with the way her business is evolving).

So roll around the past several months and I have ben on the receiving end of barely responsive emailing.  

Let me explain.

Mr 15 year old needed a device for school.  He spent ages researching, looking at every possible solution for his perceived needs and settled on a computer that he could buy via an overseas website.  My response - buy local.   What if you need to claim something under warranty.

So he diligently researched again and we bought from a New Zealand company.  It was delivered super efficiently.  Then came the day soon after when said laptop stopped working.  

The auto-responder thank-you-for-your-enquiry email worked super efficiently.   It's just that the next step beyond that was lacking. 

Several months later we are still waiting for a working laptop.  Technically it was delivered today and signed as received by "Sue". Whoever she is.  She certainly doesn't live at my home.  So who knows where the laptop is.

It has highlighted to me the importance of customer service, following through on what you say you will do and is helping me revamp a number of my systems. 

If you have ever waited awhile for a reply from me, rest assured.  I'm looking at how to improve that.