In my years in corporate IT I found many things in life more than slightly frustrating. I could go on all day about what I found frustrating but for right now I’ll focus on just one way to make your life and your customers lives just a little easier.
Have you ever called a supplier, vendor, support, etc only to either be connected with someone who has no idea what is going with you and your account or an office that you have never spoken to before.
It is annoying, believe me. You’re greeted with “please hold on while I look through your notes” or you’re asked 20 questions before you can start getting anywhere.
Personally I prefer to deal with companies who give me a dedicated rep. A “Go-to guy” of sorts.I like having a direct number and a first name to reference. I like to make a phone call and say “Hey, Joe! it’s Andy from Tubu – how are you? I need another one of those Dell machines… sure, ship it right to me…”. Sweet and simple.
If I have a problem I like to have just one person to go to to tell them what is happening or not happening and have them take the reigns on their end until the problem is resolved.
Don’t you agree?
As far as Tubu Internet Solutions goes, I have set it up so that I, the CEO, am the public front end. I like to be the guy that people come to. If I can’t fix a problem personally, I can refer it to one of my staff. If a customer is in need of an additional service or product I tend to know them well enough to know what they need and what will work best for them, instead of blindly selling them any old thing.
Yes, there comes a time that your customer base is large and diverse enough that you have to have a number of central points of contact.
Not only does it save your customers a headache or two – it makes life easier on your company end too.
Also, your customers feel special if they have “a guy” to call, email or IM.
Don’t be too specific – don’t have different people for customer service, for support, for sales etc. etc. Have one guy on an administrative (or semi-administrative) level who knows what is going on in all departments and can make decisions. More the point – has the power to make decisions 🙂
Call it a central point of contact. It works in many walks of life, in business, in personal lives and beyond.
What do you think? do you prefer having/being a central point of contact? Do you know of any companies who have great customer service and have one point of contact?
[cb type=”Company”]Tubu Internet Solutions[/cb]
[cb type=”person”]Andrew Quayle[/cb]
