Marketing Can’t Overcome Bad Customer Service

I have been preaching about this for years. Still, in this day and age, I am appalled at the amount of pathetic customer service that goes on. Google, a company I am a huge fan of, is demonstrating their ineptitude with the recent launch of their NexusOne phone (
http://bit.ly/8F3YhN).

Here’s two additional, personal examples: Prior to the Christmas holiday my wife ordered from a cataloger we’ve purchased from for years, wwwspikevolleyball.com. She ordered spandex shorts for my youngest daughter. We were told they would arrive December 24th. They did not. A package arrived December 26th and it contained a spots bra, not the spandex. She has called or emailed them four times, always getting an answering machine with instructions to leave a message, which she did several times, no callbacks. No response to the emails she sent, either.

She coaches volleyball and has, every year for the past 7 years or more, ordered 12 to 20 pairs of socks for her teams and has also bought for our kids as well. From Spike Volleyball.

Last week she finally did reach someone and their response was “We have one person handling returns and customer calls. She will get back to you as soon as she can.”

What!?!?!?

As of this writing, no resolution or call back. Do you think we’ll buy from them again?

Then there’s CapitalOne.

I have my company credit card with them and have been trying to add 10 additional cards for employee use (they are now issued through our bank). I’d be more productive trying to hoist the goods from Fort Knox. Really. They do NOT get customer service.

I have tried no less than three times to switch TO THEM, and have not had success. Must be nice to have more business than you need. I’m waiting to hear from you CapitalOne!

So, before you invest the big busks on your next marketing campaign, please make sure that your customer service is in order and ready to handle things. At lease have a plan A, B and C for this. Afterall, keeping customers should be everyone’s NUMBER ONE priority, especially when the economy is less than robust.

Besides, it’s easier than ever to share our horror stories. I guess some companies don’t care what’s being said about how they conduct business. I know we all have options. You can bet I’ll be exercising those soon.

What about you, any recent stories?