Tuesday, August 01, 2006

A Waste of Time in your Super Busy Life!

Ok, it's time for me to vent about an all too familiar problem faced by many super busy parents. That problem is poor customer service. Who has time to chase after people; sit around for people who don't show-up as scheduled; and, fix other people's careless errors (you know what I mean....wrong codes used to process an insurance claim that is therefore denied and other human errors)?

All this infuriates me and totally wastes my time. I know I'm not alone, because most of my clients bring this up at one time or another and parents I speak to casually usually complain about missed time at work because someone didn't show up or they didn't do the job right the first time, thus causing a second and sometimes a third trip out.

I had a friend last night that told me about a situation when a repairman came to his house and didn't fix something right the first time because he didn't have the right tools with him. When my friend complained, the company said they'd send someone out again the next day between 9-5. He refused! He told them that he wasn't going to take off another day of work to sit around and wait because of their screw up. Then, he told them that they would have to have someone out between 5-8 pm the next evening. After some back and forth, they agreed to his terms. Afterall, it really was there screw up!

Over the last three days I've left a message every day requesting a call back with two different companies for totally different reasons. I've requested another company to confirm receipt of a fax they requested me to send. I haven't received any response from any of these companies. This is a sign of poor customer service! In my business I make a point of responding within 2 business days to phone, fax and email messages. This must be very unique because I've received many projects simply because I was the one to respond in a timely and respectful fashion.

I wonder how often we succumb to this poor customer service and inconvenience. We don't have time to waste in our super busy lives! Honor your time and other's time! Time is a valuable asset!

Best regards,

Coach Natalie