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Are We Being Served?

Now, if true, this means that not only have some consumers abandoned real storefronts for the convenience of online (and I count myself among them), but Web-site design and technology have advanced to the point where customers are comfortable exchanging the human interaction you get in a physical store for the support provided by online businesses. That would truly be a milestone.

My head whipped around a bit, though, because frankly, I'm skeptical. While I agree that there has been a definite improvement in online customer service -- especially the immediate online help offered by some consumer sites, particularly ones with roots in mail-order -- it's ironic, and downright frustrating, that many of the pioneering online companies, and even some of the top providers of online services, dispense distinctly unhelpful anti-customer nonsupport.

I'm talking about eBay, PayPal, Yahoo, and Comcast for starters. You can probably think of more. You simply can't reach a human being, and, you know what, sometimes you need to speak to one. In some cases there's no number to call -- certainly a common complaint about eBay. In the case of Yahoo, after hunting for the number, you have to pay to call. After checking the FAQ, and not finding what you're looking for there, the logical alternative is to try to E-mail customer support, right? Well, fahgeddabutit. You can ask a specific question, but in my experience with those companies, what you get back is a templated response. I might as well have been directly linked back to their unhelpful FAQs. I have never had a single question directly answered by any of those companies -- except Comcast. And while it has customer-support numbers you can call, its robotic support policies ensure multiple calls, endless online holds, and a global tour of it's many call centers. It took me two weeks of calling and uselessly walking through the same steps over and over again to get a problem of Comcast's own making addressed.

The dearth, or rather the death, of customer support is by no means limited to online. You will never again call your local post office if the masterminds at the USPS have anything to say about it (thanks goodness for friendly mail carriers), and many banks won't provide numbers for local branches. Why should you be able to call the folks you know at the local branch when you could just as easily call some impersonal call center in Timbuktu?

The lack of access to humans and or real answers is particularly galling in the online realm. You might be able to go down to the post office or bank branch, but you can't just swing by online businesses. You're beholden to their labyrinth of support aids, and the extent to which that business deigns to be responsive.

I am reminded of the quote I grabbed for today's Daily: "To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." Exactly. Which brings me to a quote in the BTN Online story attributed to a senior VP of operations at World Travel BTI: "You could, potentially, automate the heck out of things, and we're trying like heck to take every nickel, dime, and penny out of a transaction."

Well, yes, you could. But you also could end up squeezing the customer out of the transaction, too. Just because you can automate everything doesn't mean you should. We're tired of not being able to get answers to the questions we want answered, as opposed to the ones offered up on the site. We're fed up with not being able to reach a real person, who at least half the time could process our transaction much faster than any automated Web mail system. We are so tired of pressing buttons, clicking dialog boxes, and talking to computerized voices that don't seem able to understand anything we say (411, anyone?) that we're starting to abandon nonnecessary businesses. We're starting to ask ourselves if it's really worth the aggravation.

If automated help services is the way we're going, and of course it is, then the people behind it need to think more creatively when they consider the possible scenarios in which a customer might need help. And they need to update that thinking and the form it takes online, on a regular basis. Issues change, new problems arise, new needs emerge.

The online world has evened the playing field for a lot of players. You don't have to be local, you don't have to be huge, you don't have to deal with apathetic teenage sales clerks, and you don't even have to have anything in stock until an order is placed. Other than price and speed, the primary differentiator that's going to emerge for online businesses, and soon, is going to be service. Real service that supports real needs.

More and more, the gripe you hear about E-companies is how bad it was when something went wrong. Nobody knocks eBbay for its concept. People love the idea, but they hate the company with a passion when they have a problem. EBay may be king of the hill in its niche, but it's not without competition. Tony and I are guessing that the competitor who gets the support issue right is the one that will be able to give eBay a serious run for its money.

Going offshore and going online have helped businesses slash costs and improve profit margins -- for now. Reinvesting some of those savings into real customer service will be key to ensuring continued success.

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