Companies With the Worst Customer Service – and How They can Fix the Problem

From cable companies to banks, these industries can earn repeat business.

At the beginning of the year, a report on companies with the worst customer service was released. The data is telling of how poor guest experience can lead to poor profits.

A report by Statista Research Department found that the worst customer service complaints for a large company comes from Comcast cable network. Not far behind was fellow cable provider DirectTV and financial service institute Wells Fargo.

“Good customer service is imperative for a company to do well and keep their customers,” the report says. “This indicates that poor customer service is a significant deal-breaker for a large part of consumers.”

The whole mission behind GEM Journal is to provide tried and true advice for giving the best customer service possible.

Set a culture

Some call centers give customers an immediate sense of apathy on the other line. Call center employees may feel undervalued, underpaid, and possibly abused themselves. It’s important for leadership to set the tone that these employees are as important as anyone else in the operation.

The customer service hotline is a major touchpoint for a business. If you want repeat business, those customers need to feel they’re valued at every touchpoint.

“In the customer’s mind, these departments may end up better named as the ‘Customer I-don’t-care department,’ or the ‘Customer Disservice Center,’” says Roberta Nedry, president of GEMJournal. “Clear vision and connectivity are essential to achieving this big picture of excellence.”

This is actually a golden opportunity to shine. Many companies have these customer care and service departments but they don’t emphasize the value of guest experience. This is low-hanging fruit in any organization to corner the market.

This is a free market where any business can compete against another. One often overlooked and major deciding factor when choosing a brand is human connection.

If you can bring hospitality to the call center, you can improve your odds of hanging on to customers and bringing in more, due to guest satisfaction alone.

Here’s a brief breakdown of our Guest Experience Tips to make this happen…

The call center training checklist:

• Empathy: Ask customers to share what’s stressing them out with their experience. Find out if they can relate their own emotions to what might happen with customers or guests. This can help predict behaviors and personalities in the future.
• Focus on real-life experiences: Forget the script. As part of the orientation and training, have the customer service team make a service a call. Take notes on what customers react to: What made them happy? What made them sad?
• Focus on a big picture: Customer situations come in infinite flavors. However, you can analyze a pattern. Document these behaviors in the customer interaction. Note the touchpoints to prevent negative outcomes and preserve positive ones.
• Empower your team:Customer service employees too often need to leave customers on hold while they ask someone higher up the chain for solutions. Here’s the problem: customers want answers. They don’t want to wait on hold. Empower your customers service workers with the solutions upfront and allow them to make decisions without putting a guest on hold.
• Set the vision: Call center and customer service staff should know what the best possible outcomes should look like before hopping on a call. Set a culture that customer appreciation leads to a positive outcome most of the time. Greetings, patient listening, responding and a “thank you” all go far.