One In a Million Crazy

I'm a big fan of giving good customer service. If a company is going to do it, they need to do it right.  That said, there are some serious crazies out there.  Let me be perfectly clear, I'm not talking about individuals who have mental illness. My heart goes out to them, and as a community we need to provide support.   Also, I'm not referring to customers who have had a bad experience and are angry and irritated by a failure.

Now, if in a given night lets say a company handles 5,000 orders.  You would have 5 people who have had a one in a thousand difficult to work through situation.  Those 5 people. Not crazy. In fact, this is where customer service really shines. working through these one in thousand bad circumstances. Great opportunity. Embrace it.  Even a one in ten thousand bad situation.  Try to give the benefit of the doubt.  Its sort of the tipping point between going as far as possible to rectify a situation and tossing your hands up and saying: "nothing to be done, that sucks". 

One in one hundred thousand. Now this is crazy.  The odds are against you now. If you find yourself in a situation where somebody could help 99,999 people, but not you, its probably because you are crazy.  Now, if its a one in a million kind of experience. That means that there are at most 349 other people in the country with a chance of being crazier than you. No need for hyperbole here.  Once a company passes one million transactions. There is exactly one that fits this distinction. 

If you are worried this may be you. Let me illustrate some warning signals:

1. If you engage in sexually explicit conversations with customer service, the problem may be on your end.

2. If you threaten to call your friend in the states attorney's office. Your understanding of the American legal process and definition of the word friend may be called into question.

3. If you claim to have deep understanding of the inner workings of the company you are talking to, you might need to challenge some assumptions.

4. If you call a customer service agent a liar, you may have a misunderstanding of the point of all this.

5. If your goal of a phone call is to make somebody cry, you may need to think more about your moral value system.

6. If the person on the other end of the phone can put you on mute and you don't notice, its not really a helpful conversation.

7. If you are *always* angrier after talking to any company's customer service, you may have problems with rage. 

Comments

[Rachel]

Is this in response to your experiences with Dell?

[Knowist]

No, its from the other side of working with customers to get through issues and provide great service.