It should go without saying that customer service is a major factor in the IT consulting business and in fact one might think it’s a major factor in, well, any business. Not many surprises here you say? And I would argue that companies are literally “betting the farm, or more precisely the company, on the long-term quality of their customer support. Given the experiences I have had of late in this area apparently quite a few rather well known US firms aren’t convinced of this. One can only ask “what are they thinking?”
Maybe that is the right question. What ARE they thinking? I would surmise it’s a case of cost cutting and not long term investment in the only entity that keeps a business, in business, that being the satisfied customer.
Let me clarify up front that I have had the pleasure of working with quite a few excellent customer service reps (CSRs) over the years who did a great job. But there in lies the problem, doesn’t it. I didn’t say almost all or over 95% but said “quite a few.” The fact is in the high tech area it is my experience that the greater percentage of first level technical, and non-technical, customer support is poor and getting worse. But guess where the customer has their first experience with the company and creates their mental image. Yup, with the level 1 CSRs and techs. Does anyone else see a problem here?
Audible Strikes Out
Case in point, though not specifically in the tech area, is my recent departure from Audible.com who for those not familiar with the company market audio books via their website at the same address. I was an Audible customer since about 2003 or so and probably spent about $2000 USD there over the past 5+ years. Not a huge amount but those “$23/month auto-pay from the bank account” customers are likely the backbone that keeps the business going.
The problem is I decided to convert over to entirely running the Linux operating system on my network and work stations for a number of reasons but a primary factor being enhanced security for my IT consulting customers. And Audible doesn’t offer a Linux version of their audio book manager, nor do they make it convenient to export the book to an mp3 format so I could play it on my Ubuntu Linux work station or …. well it’s called run Microsoft Windows and our manager or tough luck my friend. So I decide to cancel my subscription until, if possible, I find an answer. I go to the website assuming this will take a minute or two…or three…
After about 10 minutes of getting increasingly ticked off I call Audible customer support and explain the problem. I mention that I can’t find how to cancel my subscription and perhaps the website is, uh, in need of a fix or two? Seems it should be something people do now and then, yes?
If you think the CSR responded cheerfully, or ok I’ll even go with politely, it isn’t what happened. I was promptly informed (as if this was absolutely obvious) that since I had cancelled my subscription about two years earlier for a short period that the company only allows you to do that one time. Good gosh how could I have not known this or perhaps forgotten!? After all it is my life’s purpose to study every vendors website diligently to make sure I understand perfectly every quirky nuance of their business. I was quite ashamed I had missed this I assure you. OK maybe not.
Suffice to say things devolved from there. In sum what I had planned on being a short hiatus until I found a working solution became a permanent case of I’ll not return to Audible as customer anytime soon and most likely never. Thank you Mr. Arrogant CSR. That $23/month is now being invested elsewhere.
And Inexperience Strikes Again
I can almost understand that Audible is selling a somewhat commoditized service so they view the business as numbers and those numbers probably don’t budget for the having all the CSRs there being the best in the business. On the other hand I want to personally choke all the high end product vendors in the IT / computer services and software world that somehow think it’s OK to have a completely inexperienced rep talking with usually very experienced system admins and consultants about typically rather expensive products.
I’m currently in the process of evaluating a data storage and backup solution for a customer whose annual business is well into the mid-eight figures of sales and who has the daily operation running on what is a less-than-adequate but mission critical server. That’s mostly because of a bad decision made a while back by a person who is no longer making those decisions (surprised aren’t you?) but something we’re still living with at the present. The drives are aging and I need solutions for dealing with some poorly supported hardware so I can backup and replicate the drives onto new replacements.
I had an established relationship with a major vendor in this area and given the project was approved I started into evaluating solutions. Well I thought I had a relationship as my rep either left or was assigned another territory and the replacement is brandy-new to the IT world. Good job management! You’re selling a product priced close to a $1000 a license to rather experienced users and consultants, dealing with both Linux and Windows platforms and the CSR doesn’t know the basics. And it’s not the CSR’s fault. Someone in management should be promptly garroted for putting the person in that position without a reasonable degree of training.
To make a decision on moving forward with testing the product I requested someone who can quickly answer the several technical questions I had. Response from CSR? I need to search the knowledge base or watch the online demo videos to see if they answer my questions. Really? Not happening, baby! 
And yes I first tried to RTFM (that’s “read the fine manual”) which in all too typical fashion isn’t all that well done (hey I know tech writing is a bear to do really well) and I had quickly filled my “questions sheet” I had prepared for the tech-support chat. That’s the one that never happened that is. I wasn’t allowed. I hadn’t qualified by jumping through the mandated hoops apparently. Would the product have worked. We’ll never know most likely, will we?
Upshot
The upshot is I’m looking at other solutions to this matter and probably won’t even bother with testing the major software vendor’s product. And this is about very rational, good business thinking and here’s why.
The customer is willing to make a reasonable investment to resolve this problem (it has to be addressed stat!) and buying several licenses from “A” big backup software vendor was given the OK a bit back if it quickly solved the problem. I agreed as I don’t work for free either and the longer I have to research and test solutions the more the tab is run up for someone which is either I “eat” (don’t bill) the time or the customer pays the freight. The CSR at the aforementioned vendor turned what was to be a quick test of the software into a problem that I couldn’t get done in the time slot I had for it. And no test – no sale.
I would surmise from experience that most of my customers don’t really care where the invested dollars go, that is to me or some other company, as long as they get a solution that works for a reasonable investment. It makes perfect business sense for me to find an alternative solution that will resolve this problem and one which puts the invested dollars into my bank account instead of the big software vendor’s. The vendor’s solution was the quick fix to get this “off my plate” and done. Since it wasn’t happening quick I need to go the approach that pays me for my time and expertise.
Moreover assuming I find solid open source software or other alternative solutions that test out in the lab and work well I can replicate that solution many times to other customers instead of buying the big software vendor’s “canned” answer at $800 a clip. What should have been an easy $1700 sale for the software vendor left me aggravated and pushed me into “investment” mode which means I’ll spend (invest) the time needed to find a good alternative solution for my clients that resolves their backup needs and pays me.
Why does of any of this matter?
1. Lost revenue: Two major companies allowed two CSRs, one due to inexperience and the other due to poor interpersonal skills, to kill several thousands of dollars, or more, of business.
2. Foreign Competition: Foreign competitors like tech support facilities in such areas as Bangalore, India are working diligently to improve the quality of their support people. What ever short-comings Indian tech support facilities have had in my experience arrogance wasn’t one of them. In fact they tend to be very polite people over all. Their English skills are as good or better than the average American’s and they will in time over come any issues of “accents”. In their current economy $3-5 USD/hour is very good money. That’s about half the cost of a minimum wage worker in the US.
Around 2002 there was an ongoing joke asking “What’s the difference between Boston and Bangalore?” Forty-three milliseconds was the answer. About how long a signal takes to travel the fiber optic cables. In other words, “there is no difference” is the real answer.
Moreover given the plethora of laws and taxation in the US in regards to employees there’s a “hidden” factor driving companies to outsource such support to entities outside the US. In short the issues of labor relations, taxation and related all are removed and the outsourced services become a simple expense item on the income statement.
3. Market Differentiation: Many businesses in the IT arena are clearly treating the support side as a cost center seen as a necessary evil instead of as a competitive factor. In the process they are commoditizing their own product because if they can’t differentiate their products by support that leaves innovation and cost as factors. If end users have to spend a lot of time (which most won’t) trying to get to a useful level with the product then innovation isn’t as valuable and the differentiating factor becomes cost.
When market pricing is your differentiating factor you’ve just entered, as the business world calls it, “commodity hell.” Profits are low and you are bumped from leadership as soon as the other competitor finds a way to undercut your pricing. It’s a pricing dance-to-destruction leaving the “Walmart” of the niche as the last-man-standing.
It’s like too many managers have modified Nicholas Carr’s 2003 book title to “Does IT [Support] Matter”. Maybe IT, and IT (Customer) support, matter a lot!
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