Customer Service Case Histories

We followed up on some stories from our readers to illustrate what typically goes horribly wrong and to show how easy it can be to get service really right

by Douglas MacMillan

As helpful as sales data, consumer surveys, focus groups, and other indicators may be in judging how well a company treats its customers, the complete picture never really emerges until the firsthand experiences of the buying public are told. But one problem persists: Few businesses take the time to actively seek out these stories.

In advance of BusinessWeek's second annual Customer Service Champs ranking, we asked readers to share their most recent stories—good and bad—in an online forum. If you walked away from the checkout counter or hung up with the tech support line with all your problems resolved and a new feeling of trust in that company, we wanted to know how they pulled it off. On the other hand, if a company treated your issue like an annoyance, wasted your time, didn't fix your problem, and drove you to seek out business with one of their competitors—we wanted to know where you think the chain of support broke down, and what you did to find a solution.

It's no surprise that most readers used the opportunity to vent. Of 108 reader responses covering more than 60 different companies, 75 of the posts were negative and only 33 were positive. While most of the companies nominated for title of "best customer service" impressed readers for different and highly individual reasons, some common themes echoed through the tales of poor customer service: poorly trained call center workers, airline-induced limbo, and surprise charges on cell-phone contracts.

Four Exemplary Stories

The good news for most of the companies panned by our readers is that many of the problems appear easy to fix. At Charter Communications (CHTR) (BusinessWeek.com, 2/21/08), for example, the problem seems to be poor hiring standards: One reader caught the cable guy digging through the refrigerator. Another reader suggests Linksys gives its employees insufficient training: After two different tech support people couldn't figure out how to switch a customer's setup menu from Spanish to English, a third simply checked a manual and fixed the problem right away. And at AT&T (T), stricter privacy measures could have prevented a customer's new landline number from being distributed to telemarketers.

We decided to give four anecdotes in particular a closer look: a Sharp (SHCAY) success story, a disappointment with PayPal (EBAY), a tale of American Express (AXP) picking up the slack left by Delta Air Lines (DAL), and a blown sale at Brookstone. Customer service managers, take note: These instances exemplify the most common ways companies get service seriously wrong, and the surprisingly easy ways they can leave a lasting positive impression on the customer.

Tech support lines have such a poor record of providing friendly, knowledgeable help that customers often dial them with few or no expectations. That's what M3 Sweatt of Seattle was expecting when he called a Sharp support number to remedy a problem with a brand new, 37-inch Aquos HDTV. Eager to experience hi-def on his new $600 set, Sweatt set it up on a Saturday, only to find that it had sound, but no picture. He called the toll-free number "expecting to get a message saying 'call back as we're off for the weekend.'"