What Motorola Needs To Do
My public disappointment and struggle with Motorola caught the attention of their corporate offices and ended in a resolution that was, while not what I would have wished for, softened the over all blow of what had occurred. To be honest, I'm not surprised that such an incredible failure occurred.
First, let me say that I have done my stint in customer service supporting technology. I understand some of the pitfalls and policies that make it difficult to help the customer at times, but I also remember that the company I worked for at the time had a chain of command that you could send customers up when it was absolutely necessary. Myself to my manager, my manager to their boss, their boss to customer relations. It was customer relations that would then spend the time trying to restore the relationship with the customer or just provide a refund depending on the situation.
One other important thing to mention here is that the customer service center I worked for was based right here in the united states. About a year after I left, everybody else was let go and the call center was moved overseas. I've actually had to call them in the decade and a half since I've been apart from the company and I've not been impressed with the result.
I'm focusing on Motorola for this post simply because my experience with them recently put a giant magnifying glass on the issues faced by the company in regards to their customer service department.
Let me first say that I had previous dealing with Motorola Customer Service when they were part of Google. It was an experience that I chalked up to some best customer service I've received. I think that's what makes what happened with this most recent experience so terrible.
First, when I called to report the incident, I noted that I most certainly wasn't speaking with a native English speaker. For whatever reason, they are trained to say your name seemingly every other word "Thank you, Micah, now Micah, can you explain please what happened, Micah?"
That needs to stop. I think I can speak on the behalf of most customers, we don't need to hear our name that often in a customer service call. I think once or twice total is enough.
Companies move call centers over seas to help alleviate the costs associated with employment. They can pay these individuals less than half of what an American worker would make and demand longer hours. This doesn't translate to providing a good customer service experience. These are mostly companies that would make a healthy profit regardless of where their call centers were located, but they just want to make a few million dollars more at the expense of the customer experience. I applaud the companies that keep their customer care centers located in North America and spend the extra money to provide a better customer experience.
In every single call I made there was a miscommunication not in the words I'd said, but in the translation of what I'd meant with those words. Every culture has its idiosyncrasies within the language, so I don't think I would do any better were I supporting a customer using their native language. This isn't a failing in the individual helping so much as a failing of cross culture understanding, another reason to have localized call centers.
If a company, as Motorola does, insists on moving their care centers outside of a local environment, then the people who are doing the support need better training and better tools to support the customers. I found out after my second call with Motorola that they used the exact same status update site to check on the status of my Advanced Exchange that I used. It seems to me that the company should have better access to information than the customer, especially when the information is that there is no information to provide the customer.
Second, they need to tell the truth, or at least know the process. From the first call I was told I would have a replacement device in 5 business days. I asked if it would take longer since the device was a custom build, and I was told no. I was told no all the way up to day five at the end of the day when I still didn't have a tracking number. Then, suddenly, I get told that because it's custom, it will take longer. Tell me that at the beginning so I don't have a false sense of hope as to the delivery of a functional device.
Third, have a chain of command that leads to somebody with the power to provide a partial or full refund. Having to post in social media, write blogs, and generally scream at the top of my digital lungs until somebody heard me and listened to me and helped me is not how a company should be doing business. Customer service should be able to send the customer up to a Customer Relations department to help resolve the issue.
Fourth, don't tell have your agents tell your customers customers that they will resolve their problems while not giving the agents the tools with which to resolve said problems.
Finally, and most importantly, listen to your customers and REALLY understand what they're telling you (this goes back to cultural differences in language interpretation in many cases), and have a full understanding of their case. I had a second generation Moto X, 64GB Pure edition. That was the phone I was trying to get a repair on. I was offered, by way of apology, a Nexus 6 "with more gigabytes, 64 gigabytes, and a larger display."
My response? "I HAVE a 64 gigabyte Moto X Pure Edition. If I wanted the 6 inch display I would have bought a Nexus 6 or never sold my iPhone 6+ to begin with. I don't want a bigger display, and you're offering me the same storage capacity I already have. Call me back when you can offer me a refund."
They never called back, but that might be because right after that somebody from corporate started getting in touch with me through this blog.
Motorola, bring back localized care centers to North America. Barring that, give your customer service reps more tools and more pathways to help customers, and provide them with far more training than they're getting.
Until changes are made, I will not purchase another Motorola product.
First, let me say that I have done my stint in customer service supporting technology. I understand some of the pitfalls and policies that make it difficult to help the customer at times, but I also remember that the company I worked for at the time had a chain of command that you could send customers up when it was absolutely necessary. Myself to my manager, my manager to their boss, their boss to customer relations. It was customer relations that would then spend the time trying to restore the relationship with the customer or just provide a refund depending on the situation.
One other important thing to mention here is that the customer service center I worked for was based right here in the united states. About a year after I left, everybody else was let go and the call center was moved overseas. I've actually had to call them in the decade and a half since I've been apart from the company and I've not been impressed with the result.
I'm focusing on Motorola for this post simply because my experience with them recently put a giant magnifying glass on the issues faced by the company in regards to their customer service department.
Let me first say that I had previous dealing with Motorola Customer Service when they were part of Google. It was an experience that I chalked up to some best customer service I've received. I think that's what makes what happened with this most recent experience so terrible.
First, when I called to report the incident, I noted that I most certainly wasn't speaking with a native English speaker. For whatever reason, they are trained to say your name seemingly every other word "Thank you, Micah, now Micah, can you explain please what happened, Micah?"
That needs to stop. I think I can speak on the behalf of most customers, we don't need to hear our name that often in a customer service call. I think once or twice total is enough.
Companies move call centers over seas to help alleviate the costs associated with employment. They can pay these individuals less than half of what an American worker would make and demand longer hours. This doesn't translate to providing a good customer service experience. These are mostly companies that would make a healthy profit regardless of where their call centers were located, but they just want to make a few million dollars more at the expense of the customer experience. I applaud the companies that keep their customer care centers located in North America and spend the extra money to provide a better customer experience.
In every single call I made there was a miscommunication not in the words I'd said, but in the translation of what I'd meant with those words. Every culture has its idiosyncrasies within the language, so I don't think I would do any better were I supporting a customer using their native language. This isn't a failing in the individual helping so much as a failing of cross culture understanding, another reason to have localized call centers.
If a company, as Motorola does, insists on moving their care centers outside of a local environment, then the people who are doing the support need better training and better tools to support the customers. I found out after my second call with Motorola that they used the exact same status update site to check on the status of my Advanced Exchange that I used. It seems to me that the company should have better access to information than the customer, especially when the information is that there is no information to provide the customer.
Second, they need to tell the truth, or at least know the process. From the first call I was told I would have a replacement device in 5 business days. I asked if it would take longer since the device was a custom build, and I was told no. I was told no all the way up to day five at the end of the day when I still didn't have a tracking number. Then, suddenly, I get told that because it's custom, it will take longer. Tell me that at the beginning so I don't have a false sense of hope as to the delivery of a functional device.
Third, have a chain of command that leads to somebody with the power to provide a partial or full refund. Having to post in social media, write blogs, and generally scream at the top of my digital lungs until somebody heard me and listened to me and helped me is not how a company should be doing business. Customer service should be able to send the customer up to a Customer Relations department to help resolve the issue.
Fourth, don't tell have your agents tell your customers customers that they will resolve their problems while not giving the agents the tools with which to resolve said problems.
Finally, and most importantly, listen to your customers and REALLY understand what they're telling you (this goes back to cultural differences in language interpretation in many cases), and have a full understanding of their case. I had a second generation Moto X, 64GB Pure edition. That was the phone I was trying to get a repair on. I was offered, by way of apology, a Nexus 6 "with more gigabytes, 64 gigabytes, and a larger display."
My response? "I HAVE a 64 gigabyte Moto X Pure Edition. If I wanted the 6 inch display I would have bought a Nexus 6 or never sold my iPhone 6+ to begin with. I don't want a bigger display, and you're offering me the same storage capacity I already have. Call me back when you can offer me a refund."
They never called back, but that might be because right after that somebody from corporate started getting in touch with me through this blog.
Motorola, bring back localized care centers to North America. Barring that, give your customer service reps more tools and more pathways to help customers, and provide them with far more training than they're getting.
Until changes are made, I will not purchase another Motorola product.
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