Telephone Excellence by Mike Mitchell

Focus on Excellence in Telecom: Part 1
by Mike Mitchell

Have you ever walked into a business and had a bad experience? I mean so bad that you swore never to return to that place. Perhaps a restaurant where the service was so poor that you complained to the manager! What was your experience like when you called for help from your cable TV provider, the electric company, the telephone company, the gas company, or almost any government department or agency?

Things are certainly changing in customer service for one company I recently called. Cellular telephone carrier T-Mobile provided the most excellent service experience I’ve had in quite some time and I’ve had to call for customer service several times in the last seven years (I was a customer of Power Tel before it was bought by T-Mobile). My perception is that they are constantly improving their staff by hiring people who have excellent attitudes. Those new hires are then trained to be knowledgeable CSRs. My perception of the whole company has improved since their customer service has improved.

Think like a customer for a moment. If you were to call or visit your company as a customer, what would be your perception of your customer service? Would you sense an excellent attitude or an average attitude? What would be your perception of your company based on your customer service experience?

My experience and observation puts employees into one of three categories; A, B and C. The T-Mobile CSRs with whom I spoken certainly fit into the A employee category. More about the A, B and C employees in “Focus on Excellence in Telecom: Part 2”.

Mike