Dear Verizon:
Your auto attendant is a nightmare and needs to be fixed!
So, out of curiosity, I have 2 questions for you:
- When people call your business office do you really care about the quality of customer service you provide to them?
- If you do care, then how can you possibly justify the nightmare that makes up the auto attendant people reach when calling any of your toll free, non mobile division service numbers?
Some thoughts on question #1
If you don’t care about service to your FIOS and other business customers, and you want to not only drive them away but encourage other prospective customers not to do business with you, I recommend you keep your current set up! You know – the one that makes it nearly impossible to get to a LIVE person quickly… Don’t let it bother you that your auto attendant is the poster child for exactly how NOT to set one up. In fact if I were to advise a client on how to avoid setting up their auto attendant in the worst way possible, I would simply direct them to call any of your toll free customer service numbers…
On to question #2
If you really do care about your customers, first accept that when calling your company a good deal of the time callers are going to want to get to speak to a live person and do so quickly. Then secondly, accept that if they can’t reach a live person quickly they are going to perceive your company as deliberately providing terrible customer service — and they will be 100% right!
I “get” that you are trying to cut costs by minimizing the number of folks you have actually talking to people when they call you. What you need to “get” moreso is that on many different levels it’s simply not the right way to treat folks, and is a business model for what is unacceptable no matter what the cost. Simply put, if you do the right thing by adding more people and making it easier for your customers to speak to those people, you’d lose less customers and gain more new ones! This simple act would more than pay for itself.
One last thing: If you do decide to accept my suggestion and add more people to answer your phones, hire folks right here in the USA and not overseas! That too is doing the right thing and believe me your American customers will greatly appreciate it!
John Benincasa
President, JHB Telephony Services Inc.