Wake Up Before You Answer the Phone

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I recently purchased a new cell phone. It was with my current provider and rather than upgrading (and renewing my contract), I just bought the phone and exchanged it for the old one. My former phone had an external antenna and it broke off; the new phone has an internal antenna. At least that’s one less thing for my sons to chew on.

I went to Best Buy and they swapped phones for me. I called Sprint to transfer service to my new phone. The rep assisted me and told me it could take 2 hours to have service and 4 hours for my voicemail to transfer. That was at 5:30pm. At 11:00pm I still had no service. I was pretty annoyed because I had already taken the time to manually transfer every single contact into my new phone.

I called Customer Service at 11. After a minute, a man answered the phone with some sort of muddled verbiage that I couldn’t understand. He had to repeat himself several times before I could figure out what he was saying; he sounded as if he had just woken up. That was frustrating because I could tell he was just giving bad service and didn’t give a hoot about me as a customer.

Of course, he said he couldn’t help me; he had to transfer me. When he did, he hung up on me. By now, it was about 11:15pm. I called back only to find that Customer Service closed at 11pm. That made me angry because that man on the phone intentionally offered poor service because it was time for him to clock out.

My sister finally found an alternate number and the office was still open. The associate had my phone on within seconds of the call. What?! You mean to tell me it didn’t really take two hours and the first rep could’ve had my phone on six hours ago?! I was more than unhappy with their service.

Coming from the Quality Assurance side of things, the point that bothered me most was the man I spoke to. He knew before answering the phone that it was time for him to leave. My call must have made it in the queue before closing time. I can just picture him huffing and puffing before he had to answer one last phone call. His annoyance conveyed clearly over the phone. I have half a mind to believe he never intended to transfer me; he only wanted the opportunity to hang up and leave. This was the worst customer service I’ve experienced in a long time.

In order to provide excellent customer service, associates should answer each phone call with a smile, ready to help the customer. It shouldn’t matter if they just started a shift, just got off the phone with an angry customer, just stubbed their toe or have 2 minutes before closing time. When they answer that phone, they represent their business and should be prepared to offer excellent service.

In our self storage call center, our reps are professionals at what they do. A customer would never hear a hint of personal trouble, sleepiness, or anything contrary to a genuine willingness to help in the voice of our reps.

Written by Sarah Little, TQA Account Executive

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.