A simple operation
We all know that little thrill at the end of a web project, when the site switches to the client’s domain name, and it can finally fulfill its mission on the web: spread the good word. In 90% of cases, the operation takes 30 seconds flat for the best of us: you log into your management interface, enter the server IP in the appropriate DNS zone, and that’s it: all that’s left is to wait for DNS propagation.
Shameless incompetence
And then, from time to time, you hit a snag. The latest case: a client whose domain name is managed by a tiny telecom operator. After 10 days of waiting for these gentlemen to kindly carry out the operation (no management interface, no ticketing system…), with no reply and concerned by the lack of action, we write to the broker, who replies:
“It’s only from your point of view that it takes just a few minutes !
But when an operator has 50,000 clients it doesn’t take the same amount of time ……………
I hope your company gets there one day and you’ll remember what I said !!”
Service is first and foremost an attitude
As it happens, I was Head of Service/After-Sales in an international group whose number of employees is 10 times greater than the number of clients of this small operator, and at Eureos, we apply as much as possible the same principles when it comes to customer complaints:
- Always acknowledge receipt of a request, and give the client a timeframe (nothing is worse for them than having no idea how long the operation will take).
- Show genuine empathy: the client is not complaining for pleasure, they have an issue to solve.
- Never, under any circumstances, for any reason, in any situation, at any latitude, in any country, never, never, never try to foolishly justify your incompetence in writing.
I’m not even talking about applying zero contempt (the famous 6th zero in industry), which, when ignored, has catastrophic effects. We do not (yet) have 50,000 clients, but if one of our employees answered a complaint like that, what he would remember most, and for a long time, is that he must never do it again.
This good fellow, who behaves like a Mercedes dealer from the 1980s, cannot even imagine how well a simple email such as: “sorry, on this occasion, it’s going to take us a little longer, it will be done within 2 weeks” can be received.
Good customer service is neither a question of size nor a question of time: just organization and, above all, a mindset.
The OVH case
Let’s take an example: OVH. You know, the pros of “Low-Cost”. The ones who supposedly slash prices at the expense of quality. Recently, we moved our telephony over to them.
- Time to get a technician to come and install a new line: 5 days
- Time to send the modem after line validation: 24h
- Response to a ticket one week later regarding a question about adding a line: 24h
- Time to point a domain name to a server: 30 seconds with the interface
But then again, they only have a few million clients.
