Joel Liu's personal annotations on this page
Joel bookmarked
on 2007-04-14
-
Almost every tech support problem has two solutions. The
superficial and immediate solution is just to solve the customer’s problem. But
when you think a little harder you can usually find a deeper solution: a way to
prevent this particular problem from ever happening again. -
For us, the “fix everything two ways” religion has really
paid off. We were able to increase our sales tenfold while only doubling
the cost of providing tech support. -
Many requests for a customer to check something can be
phrased this way. Instead of telling them to check a setting, tell them to
change the setting and then change it back “just to make sure that the software
writes out its settings.” -
And now I tell this story to everyone who needs swag. In
fact I tell this story every time we’re talking about telephone menu systems.
Or customer service. By providing remarkable customer service, they’ve gotten
me to remark about it.When customers have a problem and you fix it, they’re
actually going to be even more satisfied than if they never had a problem in
the first place. -
Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to actually make
something go wrong, just so we have a chance to demonstrate our superior
customer service. Many customers just won’t call; they’ll fume quietly.But when someone does call, look at it as a great opportunity
to create fanatically devoted customer, one who will prattle on and on
about what a great job you did. -
And, here I was, on this planet for forty years, and I
couldn’t believe how much the three words “it’s my fault” had completely
changed my emotions in a matter of seconds. -
Good for you, I thought. Here’s a 60-something year old man,
owner of a diner, and you won some big moral victory against a little old lady.
Are you proud of yourself? How macho do you have to be? Does the moral victory
make you feel better? Did you really have to lose a repeat customer? -
The bottom line is that this is not good for business, and
it’s not even good for your emotional well-being. When you win a victory with a
customer by firing them, you still end up feeling riled up and angry, they’ll
get their money back from the credit card company anyway, and they’ll tell a
dozen friends. As Patrick McKenzie writes,
“You will never win an argument with your customer.”There is only one way to survive angry customers
emotionally: you have to realize that they’re not angry at you; they’re angry
at your business, and you just happen to be a convenient representative of that
business. -
Here’s what I think. I think that our customers are nice
because they’re not worried. They’re not worried because we have a ridiculously
liberal return policy: “We don’t want your money if you’re not amazingly happy.” -
We
really don’t want your money if you’re not satisfied. I’m pretty sure we’re
running the only job listing service
around that will refund your money just because your ad didn’t work. This
is unheard of, but it means we get a lot more ad listings, because there’s
nothing to lose. -
A tech support person
at Fog Creek can’t get by on canned answers to common questions, because we’ve
eliminated the common questions by fixing the software, so tech support here
has to actually troubleshoot which often means debugging.
This link has been bookmarked by 95 people . It was first bookmarked on 20 Feb 2007, by Marc Derome.
-
-
Seven steps to remarkable customer service
-
ne: it’s crucial that tech support have access to the
development team. This means that you can’t outsource tech support: they have
to be right there at the same street address as the developers, with a way to
get things fixed. Many software companies still think that it’s “economical” to
run tech support in Bangalore or the Philippines, or to outsource it to another
company altogether. Yes, the cost of a single incident might be $10 instead of
$50, but you’re going to have to pay $10 again and again.
-
-
-
Almost every tech support problem has two solutions. The
superficial and immediate solution is just to solve the customer’s problem. But
when you think a little harder you can usually find a deeper solution: a way to
prevent this particular problem from ever happening again. -
One: it’s crucial that tech support have access to the
development team. This means that you can’t outsource tech support: they have
to be right there at the same street address as the developers, with a way to
get things fixed. - 8 more annotations...
-
-
-
Fix everything two ways
Almost every tech support problem has two solutions. The
superficial and immediate solution is just to solve the customer’s problem. But
when you think a little harder you can usually find a deeper solution: a way to
prevent this particular problem from ever happening again. -
Every time a plane crashes, they send out investigators, figure out
what happened, and then figure out a new policy to prevent that particular
problem from ever happening again. - 6 more annotations...
-
-
Bob PotterHere are seven things we learned about providing remarkable customer service. I’m using the word remarkable literally—the goal is to provide customer service so good that people remark.
-
-
Almost every tech support problem has two solutions. The superficial and
immediate solution is just to solve the customer’s problem. But when you think a
little harder you can usually find a deeper solution: a way to prevent this
particular problem from ever happening again.
-
-
-
They outsource their tech support to
the cheapest possible provider and end up paying $10 again and again and again
fixing the same problem again and again and again instead of fixing it once and
for all in the source code. -
. Take the blame
- 4 more annotations...
-
-
-
Almost every tech support problem has two solutions. The
superficial and immediate solution is just to solve the customer’s problem. But
when you think a little harder you can usually find a deeper solution: a way to
prevent this particular problem from ever happening again. -
For us, the “fix everything two ways” religion has really
paid off. We were able to increase our sales tenfold while only doubling
the cost of providing tech support. - 9 more annotations...
-
-
rampionFix it shortterm, AND fix it longtterm.
-
Alan Levineeven things we learned about providing remarkable customer service. Not the business angle stuff, but some great stories about working with people
-
Anders GrohnWTM
-
-
Seven steps to remarkable customer service
-
-
Daniel AndrlikThis is just a great guide to customer service for any company. Hopefully more organizations will start to understand the value of this approach soon.
-
Marc HarrisonAs a bootstrapped software company, Fog Creek couldn’t afford to hire customer service people for the first couple of years, so Michael and I did it ourselves. The time we spent helping customers took away from improving our software, but we learned a lot and now we have a much better customer service operation.
Here are seven things we learned about providing remarkable customer service. I’m using the word remarkable literally—the goal is to provide customer service so good that people remark. -
-
“Instead,†Chen suggests, “say ‘Okay, sometimes the connection gets a little dusty and the connection gets weak. Could you unplug the connector, blow into it to get the dust out, then plug it back in?’
“They will then crawl under the desk, find that they forgot to plug it in (or plugged it into the wrong port), blow out the dust, plug it in, and reply, ‘Um, yeah, that fixed it, thanks.’†...
They said, “Don’t worry. You can return those for a full credit, and we’ll redo the shirts with a different color thread.â€
I said, “The trade show is in two days.â€
They said they would Fedex me a new box of shirts and I’d have it tomorrow. I could return the old shirts at my convenience.
They paid shipping both ways. I wasn’t out a cent. Even though they had no possible use for a bunch of Fog Creek logo shirts with an illegible logo, they ate the cost.
And now I tell this story to everyone who needs swag. In fact I tell this story every time we’re talking about telephone menu systems. Or customer service. By providing remarkable customer service, they’ve gotten me to remark about it. ...
I was sputtering, trying to figure out how best to express my rage at being forced to spend the morning going back and forth.
“Ah. It’s my fault,†he said.
And suddenly, I wasn’t mad at all.
Mysteriously, the words “it’s my fault†completely defused me. That was all it took.
He made the key a third time. I wasn’t mad any more. The key worked.
And, here I was, on this planet for forty years, and I couldn’t believe how much the three words “it’s my fault†had completely changed my emotions in a matter of seconds. -
“Instead,” Chen suggests, “say ‘Okay, sometimes the connection gets a little dusty and the connection gets weak. Could you unplug the connector, blow into it to get the dust out, then plug it back in?’
“They will then crawl under the desk, find that they forgot to plug it in (or plugged it into the wrong port), blow out the dust, plug it in, and reply, ‘Um, yeah, that fixed it, thanks.’” ...
They said, “Don’t worry. You can return those for a full credit, and we’ll redo the shirts with a different color thread.”
I said, “The trade show is in two days.”
They said they would Fedex me a new box of shirts and I’d have it tomorrow. I could return the old shirts at my convenience.
They paid shipping both ways. I wasn’t out a cent. Even though they had no possible use for a bunch of Fog Creek logo shirts with an illegible logo, they ate the cost.
And now I tell this story to everyone who needs swag. In fact I tell this story every time we’re talking about telephone menu systems. Or customer service. By providing remarkable customer service, they’ve gotten me to remark about it. ...
I was sputtering, trying to figure out how best to express my rage at being forced to spend the morning going back and forth.
“Ah. It’s my fault,” he said.
And suddenly, I wasn’t mad at all.
Mysteriously, the words “it’s my fault” completely defused me. That was all it took.
He made the key a third time. I wasn’t mad any more. The key worked.
And, here I was, on this planet for forty years, and I couldn’t believe how much the three words “it’s my fault” had completely changed my emotions in a matter of seconds.
-
-
Neli Maria MengalliBy Joel Spolsky
Monday, February 19, 2007
Page Comments
Here are seven things we learned about providing remarkable customer service. I’m using the word remarkable literally—the goal is to provide customer service so good that people remark.
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.