Customer Happiness Show

The hidden taxes of customer service

Bob Furniss talks customer service on this week's podcast. He discusses the taxes for cheap postage, long wait time and other hidden taxes of cs. Furniss: There's always a line in the sand that we're willing to abide by. - Bob Furniss: There's like two Americas in customer service. He says there's two Americas with people that don't have the ability to live in the one America. The only way to get good service is to pay up for it. Furniss: How do we solve that? - There are still some basic promises you have to keep. It's uniquely american to expect service as a part of what I'm getting right. Research and compare, then secondarily, take advantages of discounts and promotions. Know what your consumer rights are. - Bob Furniss: 150 million plus people will vote for the same candidates in 2020. He says if you make a little noise by spending your money elsewhere, the economic forces will get people and the companies we deal with to do better for us. Furniss: The best way to support our show is like, subscribe, share, leave us comments.

Press 2 for sales, press 3 for pain

We've been in the customer service industry for more than 65 years combined. Amas and I created this podcast to share our thoughts on how you can navigate customer service. While we don't always agree, we hope that you will be the winner based on our experiences. - Amas  says he cannot call 1800 numbers in front of young children. He says 50% of the time, he has to talk to a machine. Why don't we ditch the entire press one, press two, talking to a robot deal? Greene: Let's just get rid of it. - A survey found 78% of consumers are forced to connect with a human being after failing to resolve their needs on an automated channel. "I just want to try to explain to the consumer how we got into this mess," he says. The industry has always been inwardly focused on taking better care of customers. - Bob : Want tips? What can they do? He says press the button that chooses the option for sales. Many times more than they want to talk to their current customers.  - Bob: Sometimes one can become lost in a big company and lose sight of how one does truly help or impact a customer. Greene: What companies need to do is build better ones. What consumers should do is to demand better.

Highlighting positive stories in Customer Service

Bob: Today, we talk about what is actually going well in the world of customer service. He talks about a drive through coffee place in Memphis called Seven Brew. Greene: Every bite of the food tastes like getting a warm hug from your grandma. - If I ever go back to a small town, it's the only place I'll stay. I remember working without my book bag. By the time they finally getting around to call me, it was already in front of my door. I can't imagine doing business with anyone else. - Amazon's self service and how well they think ahead of know if I buy something and it's the wrong size or it's not what I expected. If you as a customer have good experience, and you reward that brand, that's how we drive change.

The Doctor will see you eventually

Amas and I created this podcast to share our thoughts on how you can navigate customer service. While we don't always agree, and I often have to explain to Amas why he's wrong, we hope that you will be the winner. - Bob: You make an appointment with your doctor, the doctor picks the time. Greene: If you are late or no show, I would charge you for it. He says the only thing he can come up with is some kind of fairness. Greene says make your appointments early in the morning. - The bigger the doctor organization, the more likely that they have somebody who's reading that data. If you go to someone who allows you to, either they send you a survey or you can also personally go to somewhere like Ratemd and tell the public what your experience was. I think those are fantastic tips. - Be nice when you complain, complain from a place of data. Winston Churchill quote of criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Bob : We used to be patients. Patients because they cared about us. And they used to let me pay them with a chicken. But we are now customers. And the sooner we embrace that, the better. It's important we call it the customer happiness year.

Lessons from Taylor Swift on customer service

Bob It's  Bob Furnace and I've got with me today amas tanuma. And we are back and with our next session. We are glad that you've joined us. Today we're going to jump into something that's a little bit different today. We're going to talk about the biggest thing going on in the world today. Amas, is that good with course, of course. Amas Taylor. Global warming? Bob No, Taylor Swift. I read an article recently entitled I asked Chat GPT the top 20 lessons I can learn from Taylor Swift. And he gave the whole detail about how he asked the question. But the author asked the question, top 20 inspiring, surprising and underrated lessons we can learn from Taylor Swift, make it viral worthy and mind blowing examples. And there were 20 of them and we could probably do 20 different sessions, but we won't do that. We'll do this one, maybe one more at some point if they end up back in the Super bowl in a week. But if you watch the documentaries about Taylor, you definitely find out that she's involved in just about every aspect of her career, right? Absolutely. Seen that and heard. Amas Absolutely. She really is. Bob And she's involved in the small stuff. Like she's created this legion of, they call them swifties. I actually identify as a swifty because I like her music. Okay. I'm not going to blame that on my wife, who most men blame it. Oh, I'm listening to Taylor Swift because my girlfriend listens to it. But her swifties are loyal to her brand. So it got me to wonder if there was something that I could learn from her that had relevance to the service and the consumer aspects of our show. So what say you, amas? Are you a swiftie? Amas Well, I did spend an exorbitant amount of money. A young lady in my life made me do it. Well, listen, I might never financially recover from it, but it was a great show. My response though, is, if you are not a swiftie, you should really look in the mirror and say, I'm the problem. It's me. Oh my gosh. Bob Okay, so it's going to be one of those shows. All right, well, the challenge has been laid. Let's see what else we can work in. So there were 20 items on the list, like I said, so I want to pick one and talk about it today. So here's the first one. Embrace change, even when it's uncomfortable. So the focus is on being different to reinvent. And I remember when Taylor Swift reinvented herself to become from a country star to a pop star. She actually debuted in 2006. And she's tried a lot of different sounds, a lot of different fashion styles and sort of personas. But I remember when she released the album, 1989, and she announced that she was leaving country music. At the time, she was one of the most widely followed, widely downloaded country stars that had ever been in the female genre. And yet she said, I'm going somewhere else because I think that other place is better. And that was a surprise, man. Talking about taking a change, making a. Amas Change in your life, that was dramatic. That was dramatic and took a lot of guts and it panned out. It could have gone the other way. Bob Yeah, it really could. And it made me think, remember the book? Now I'm going to date myself. Remember the book? Good to great. I still have it on my shelf. They looked at about 1400 companies and chose 18 companies they were going to talk about. And it reminded me that one of the key focuses of that book was that you've got to be able to change. You've got to be willing to change. And it reminded me of the story of Circuit City. For those of you who are not old enough to remember Circuit City, they were the biggest competitor of Best Buy. And you would go out to the store and you would look at the tv at Circuit City and you look at the tv at Best Buy and you would make a decision and you would bring home one or the other, depending on which price was better. And Circuit City, when the Internet happened, didn't really change. They faltered. And the biggest thing that they faltered on was because they refused to change. Meanwhile, Best Buy flourished. If you think about Best Buy today, Best Buy is as much a showroom, which you then go home and order online. The items that you were looking at as it is a store that you walk in to buy. So they made their brick and mortar. They adapted their store to become different than it had been in the past. And I just saw new numbers from February, 35% of their consumer sales is an online channel, 35%. And yet they have only one less store in Memphis, Tennessee, than they had when circuit City closed. So they have adapted. And the other big thing that they did was the Geek squad. I don't know if you've ever. Amas I remember that. Yeah, I used that. Bob Well, I can't imagine buying an appliance today without buying it at Best Buy. And it's really because of Geek squad, because I can buy an extended warranty and I'm not messing with some warranty company. I'm not messing with Samsung or General Electric. I have all my eggs in one basket. Hey, Geek squad, I have a problem. Come fix it. They were just out this week to fix something on my refrigerator. So much like much the opposite of what circuit City did. I can imagine that they wish that the road not taken looks real good. Amas Oh, here we go. All right, my turn. Look, I guess I started this one quick note item. You guys notice how Bob calls the great Taylor Swift Taylor? They're both from Tennessee. Maybe they have lunch and dinners. We might be breaking news. Bob Favorite. I hear she's currently attached. Amas Let's start some rumors. I have my ods on how long that's going to last, but I fell in love with Taylor Swift as a Persona, as a force in that documentary. And there is this moment where she is arguing with her father about speaking out about issues like domestic violence. Right. About abortion. Really, really thorny. You know, Taylor Swift is a business as much as she is a person. And so I'll tell you that the risk she took, I think the companies we choose to do business with, many of them have done the same thing I'm thinking about in my personal life. I have friends and family in my life who are fiercely loyal to Ben and Jerry's ice cream on one hand, and it's because of the causes those guys support. Bob Right? Amas They go out and they support it, and they're a for profit business. I have, in a different way, chick fil a. And there's intersection between all of who are people are fiercely supportive of chick fil A. And whatever you might think of both of these brands and their values, they live it, and it shows up in the way they serve their customers. And the most important thing, like Taylor Swift, their fans reward them for it. Their fans reward them, and their fans say, you know what? I might not agree 100% with everything you do, but I like that you take a stand. I like that you're putting your voice out to support causes and people that you don't have to. Ben and Jerry give seven and a half percent of all their profits to all kinds of causes. And again, they really live their brand, and they take huge risk. So I think if you are a customer and a consumer listening to the show, I think continuing to support the brands that we feel are authentic to us is a good thing. Bob Yeah. And I remember in the documentary that she was getting pushback from her manager, from her father. Basically, everybody in the room who were her helpers were saying, don't do this. And I remember the comment was, if I don't use my voice for what I believe in, then why do I have the voice? And so I think companies like Ben and Jerry and Chick fil A and others have done the same thing. Amas Yeah, for sure. Bob So we didn't really have a debate because we're both swifty. Amas I won if there was. Bob So you won if there was no debate. I get that. But we're obviously intrigued by Taylor. And if you look up on the Internet, you can probably find that same article. It was an interesting article about taking the concepts of who she is as an entertainer, but also the concepts of who she is as a business and applying them to today's world in business and applying them to how we live our lives as consumers. Amas Sure. I think, look, if you're listening to this and if you cannot admire this woman, whether you're a swifty or not, and all I have to say to you is you need to calm down. Bob Oh, my gosh. Do you have one more for me? Do you have one more for me? Well, on my way out, we are. Amas Here to give you advice on how to navigate service. And we say this, we've said this before, but I can't tell you enough that. Take this opportunity, and you need to take a bold stand in your customer choices. Bob Right. Amas Cancel that bad service provider. Reward the ones that are giving you good service, because it sounds like he only tolerates you, but you should be celebrated. Okay, I'm going to see myself out now. Bob I love it. I've been amused. My amusement of the day has been the amusement about her and Travis Kelsey. Amas Oh, gosh. Bob I mean, the romance and everything about it. It's on the tv every day, every moment, every show. And what really makes me laugh is the conspiracy theorists that believe that it's all part of a bigger plan by the NFL to put more eyes on the NFL and by the Democrats to get more voters to vote blue in 2024. And now, if she's capable of doing that kind of power, then that's pretty impressive. But the story is over. If the story is over, why am I still writing pages? Amas Okay, well, this is. Bob Enough. It hopefully will come out as well in our voice as it did in our heads when we were planning this. I doubt that we may just delete the whole show and move on. So if you've been listening to us today, we appreciate you being here. We hope that you enjoyed this silly episode. Today we started this podcast with the idea that he and I were going, that Amas and I were going to have fun doing it. And over the last three years, we've had more fun in this 30, 45 minutes time frame than any other time of my week. So thank you, Amas, for that. And thank you for listening. And follow us and leave us. Well, maybe you don't want to leave a comment about this show, but leave positive comments, and we look forward to seeing you again in a week.