Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Walk the talk

Emblazoned in gold on the ‘Contact us’ webpage of a company’s website which I recently visited were the contact particulars of the company’s General manager, its representatives from the respective sections, down to the company’s receptionist.

The webpage impressed me and I am sure, visitors to the website, who have enquiries pertaining to the company’s products and services. Such a layout of the company’s contact provides visitors a bird eye’s view of the appropriate contact person to forward his enquiries. How customer-oriented the layout is, and many might, say of the company.

I wrote straight to the General Manager of my enquiry to see how the General Manager of this seemingly customer-oriented company would handle my enquiries.

One day passed by without any revert from the company, then two, three and four. In the late evening of the fifth day since my email to the company, I received a call from an operations executive of the company.

To my horror, he did not have the slightest inkling of my enquiry via the email and seemed to be asking me afresh on my enquiry. I felt irritated but glad that he hung up the phone after promising to get back to me on my enquiry.

It was only a week later that the operations executive called me on my enquiry. By then, I have told him it was too late as I have already confirmed the quotation to another company.

I called up the receptionists of the company to see whether there is any saving grace at all of this company with a first-class customer contact webpage. To my horror, but not to my surprise anymore, the receptionist were clueless of their company’s products and services and could only replied with a ‘hmm’, ‘yah’, ‘I don’t think so’ to my enquiries.

Customer service and the way companies handle customers’ enquiries are often the determining factors whether a deal is made with a potential customer or repeated customers will come back again.

I can be sure I will not use the company’s products and services.

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

qtlqweyoh.. it sure sucks for such a pretty gd " contact us " layout.

but one thing which i dont really agree with you is that, you dont really expect all the staffs in the company to know every single thing. Coz in such a case, i dont see a need to have different department as everyone can do the job. U get what i mean? Cheers!!

Singapore Short Stories said...

I get what you mean, thus in the first place, I emailed to the General Manager, who should be able to forward my enquiries to the relevant person in the company, but I was disappointed.

And besides, Steven, the questions I asked of the customer service officers pertaining to other departments were the very basic and fundamental ones which they should know at their finger tips.

Anonymous said...

if thats the case, screwww the person!!! haha

ya i m into customer service as well as a customer too.. i understand the feeling from both end..

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