{"id":1252,"date":"2015-08-10T21:03:41","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T01:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/?p=1252"},"modified":"2015-08-10T21:03:41","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T01:03:41","slug":"dealing-with-fishy-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/dealing-with-fishy-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with “Fishy” Customer Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gone-fishing\"<\/a>My friend recently received some strange customer service while dealing with a mid-sized company located in the USA.\u00a0 He had purchased some sport fishing products about a year ago and, to his surprise, when he reached for the pole a couple of weeks ago, it broke in two.\u00a0 He is very familiar with and loyal to this particular brand, and was shocked with the pole snap because it has a good name in the market.\u00a0 Therefore he was convinced this breakage was not normal and must be faulty, and so took pictures to send to the company via email.\u00a0 He also included a photo of the original receipt.<\/p>\n

He emailed the company with the 3 pictures, and their response was so short and to the point it gave him the feeling of rudeness.\u00a0 It read basically \u201cPlease send us the pictures in a standard format, like JPEG.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Now I\u2019m a big fan of making emails short and to the point, but that is ridiculous.\u00a0 Where\u2019s the sugar?\u00a0 Where\u2019s the concern, empathy or reassurance that they will look into this matter?<\/p>\n

This is the point when my friend contacted me as apparently I\u2019m a bit more tech-savvy than he, and so I helped covert the 3 original photos to .jpg and we emailed the company again, referencing the new file number they had also provided him.<\/p>\n

He got an email the next day basically saying the same thing \u2013 that they could not see the pictures and to please send them in standard format.\u00a0 I double-checked our email and assured him that we did indeed send the photos as jpeg, but also suggested we send a new, fresh email with the jpegs attached, so that they do not get them confused with the old pictures that are sure to be on the thread.\u00a0 That is what I assume might have happened.<\/p>\n

The response to that email was basically \u201cSend us a picture showing the date of purchase.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 What?\u00a0 We wondered who was on the other end of this computer.
\nRegardless we took a new picture of the receipt that showed the date of purchase and jpeg\u2019d it and emailed it to them with the reference file number.\u00a0 Their response the next day was \u201cPlease pay a processing fee of $9.95.\u201d\u00a0<\/em> I kid you not.<\/p>\n

This morning my friend had reached his limit in patience and wrote an email complaining about the time wasted in these emails, noting his confusion over the mysterious processing fee, and swearing that he would never use nor recommend their products again.\u00a0 He luckily called me before he pressed SEND.<\/p>\n

He read it to me over the phone and asked for feedback.\u00a0 I asked him \u201cWhat is your goal?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 He replied to tell them how he feels.\u00a0 I suggested that the chance of resolving the original issue is very low if you share your feelings and then sever ties.\u00a0 I advised him to use the 1-800 number and call the company and speak to someone about this issue instead of firing off the \u2018burning-bridges\u2019 letter.\u00a0 I told him we both understand that the person on the other end of the computer is customer-service handicapped, so more emails, including the letter, will get no response or at best a one-liner.\u00a0 I told him to keep calm and call them, and just \u2018follow up\u2019 on the previous emails, and \u2018inquire\u2019 about the processing fee.\u00a0 He agreed.
\nHe called me back swiftly and told me that the company will be sending him a new fishing pole \u2013 but they just require a small processing fee.\u00a0 My friend should receive the new product in a week. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

By keeping his cool and not resorting to threats and ultimatums, and by not allowing the truly terrible customer service emails to interfere with his right to seek answers and possibly get reparation for his broken pole, my friend was able to find the true meaning behind the cryptic and stunted emails.\u00a0 By \u2018upgrading\u2019 the communication from computer to phone, he found out the company\u2019s true intentions to replace his product, and will now get it in short order.<\/p>\n

The main lessons here I think are:<\/strong>
\n1 \u2013<\/strong> don\u2019t lose your cool not matter how frustrating the communication is
\n2 \u2013<\/strong> if you don\u2019t understand emails, pick up the phone
\n3 \u2013<\/strong> never close the door on a brand you actually like and want to keep using
\n4 \u2013<\/strong> don\u2019t assume you know what the other party is thinking.\u00a0 Get a clear answer.
\n5 \u2013<\/strong> Jpegs are a common format for sharing photos
\n6 \u2013<\/strong> It\u2019s okay to use friends who are tech-savvy and\/or knowledgeable about professional communication strategies. \u263a<\/p>\n

Your Communication Coach,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend recently received some strange customer service while dealing with a mid-sized company located in the USA.\u00a0 He had purchased some sport fishing products about a year ago and, to his surprise, when he reached for the pole a couple of weeks ago, it broke in two.\u00a0 He is very familiar with and loyal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[536,534],"tags":[709,542,816,532,638],"class_list":["post-1252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-customer-service","category-professional-communications","tag-conflict-resolution","tag-email","tag-fishing","tag-professional-communications","tag-telephone-skills"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1254,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions\/1254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}