Is Customer Service Dead?

Instead of worrying about this blogging business I have decided to just start!   So here I start with something I know about well.   Today I phoned a Real Estate Agent (to save them the embarrasment I won’t mention any names), to help a friend who needs to rent a new house. For 3 years they have been perfect tennants, rent paid in advance, cleaned up the property, have the gardens and house in immaculate condition – a feat considering what it was like when they moved in. The current agent says they are the best tenants they have had in 20 years. But, alas, the house has been sold and they will need to move. They saw a property they liked, through another agent – the agent I called.   Call went like this (in short): phone well answered, person I was transferred to answered quickly and politely, asked about inspecting the property of interest, man on the phone says “hang on…” puts me on hold without asking, comes back and says “inspection tomorrow at 9.30″, so I asked if we could see it earlier, response “no” followed by dead silence. I asked if we could do anything to increase our chances of successfully renting the property, he sighed – YES HE SIGHED!!!  - and said, “well you could fill out the form from our website www.blah blah, first in best dressed” with an exasperated tone, as if I was a moron.  To be honest I was gobsmacked.  Is their business so flush they can afford to treat potential customers with disdain?   Later today the agent my friend is currently with rang and thanked my friend for their business, stated they wanted to keep them and would to anything to be of service whilst they are looking for a new property.  My friend stated she felt like they really cared!  She has decided to stay with the same agent, even if it means not getting the property she really wants.  She said she would prefer to feel like someone is interested and cares for her.   Note Important Point here: my friend FELT cared for.  Feelings are powerful emotions and no matter what we need or want; we buy, consume and gravitate to the feeling - not the item or service.   Tomorrow I am taking my friend to the inspection for the “rude agency’s property”. I will be curious to see if their rudeness is justified by an oversupply of customers wanting their product.  We are going to tell them we want the property, but they will have to deal with our real estate agent if they want the best tenants in 20 years!  (I know – we won’t be very successful here, but I am interested in the response!).   I will also be asking how good their closure rate is for sales and rentals (considering their comparatively small pool of properties); and recommend they invest in Stellar Strategies Phone Techniques Training Program, before they go out of business!

Tags: customer service is dead, customer service; rude; phone manner; unhelpful;, felt cared for; buying reasons linked with feelings, is customer service dead

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 at 1:41 am and is filed under Sales and Customer Service Teams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.