Top 3 Customer Service Fails or Why Large Corporations Provide Poor Customer Service

Customer Service Fails
Customer Service Fails

Customer service is the face of any company today. There is nothing more frustrating for consumers than poor customer service, especially if it is delivered by a large and known brand. Unfortunately not all businesses realize that customer service is more important today than they think and it definitely plays a very significant role in this world of constant competition. But still there is a question unanswered why do consumers stand this and do not seek for an alternative?

Comcast Customer Service Call Mayhem

This call record is fresh on our minds and shows how little attention is paid to customer service quality in this company. A customer support agent insisted on taking the customer who was canceling Comcast service through a circular argument to find out the reason why he was canceling.

But this is not the only problem customers face while interacting with cable TV, Internet and phone service providers. Shep Hyken, a customer satisfaction expert, explained that these companies are often unclear about their service charges. “Customers get shocked when they get their bill,” Hyken said.

Companies like Comcast are too big and are focused on upselling instead of providing proper training to their CSR and monitoring their progress. Why do they still have customers? Just because they are big enough and feel they can get away with poor customer service. But this is not forever.

Bank of America’s Epic Twitter Fail

Forbes ranks Bank of America as the 13th biggest company in the world. However, it is famous for its poor customer service. This article by Digiday describes a curious situation which exposed the unpleasant truth that the bank’s Twitter feed was run by a bot that responded to all tweets where the bank was mentioned.

In today’s era of social media failing to deliver customer support through social media channels can bring too much unrecoverable harm to the brand as word of mouth is one of the most powerful sources of spreading information.

It’s a Real Challenge to Keep Everyone Happy When You are That Large

Wal-Mart is the biggest retail in the U.S. But almost all Americans have faced its poor customer service, rude shop assistants and aggressive prices matching policy. Business Insider  describes a situation about a man who found out that the store wouldn’t match the prices listed on its own website and went through a long process of getting a product with a lower price listed online. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer to find out such a price difference. In addition to this consumeraffairs.com  has thousands of complaints filed against this retailer.

Wal-Mart has been the lowest-rated department or discount store in the nation every year between 2007 through 2012. Worse, it has been the lowest-rated supermarket every year since 2005. Negative experience leaves a bad taste in customers’ mouths for a long time and as long as they have any alternative they will avoid Wal-Mart.

Why do Large Companies Fail to Provide Competitive Customer Service?

Customers have become very Internet savvy and use various communication channels for getting in touch with retailers and service providers. While small businesses are very flexible and adopt new technologies very fast, large businesses remain slow and do not hurry to integrate new communication channels. It’s quite easy to get in touch with a small retailer, by contacting in live chat, messaging in Twitter or just making a phone call, while in large companies you will have to wait or listen to voice menu. In fact, there are hundreds of reasons why consumers face poor customer service today. Let me just name a few which I consider the most important:

  • Low salaries and lack of employees
  • Lack of incentive
  • No clear pricing policy
  • Bad or lack of customer service management and supervision
  • Limited competition
  • No personalized customer service
  • Leaders aren’t focused on serving customers
  • No proper training
  • Lack of proper communication tools

These three brands are not the only large businesses which fail to deliver good customer service. There are other companies  which still think they can get away with poor customer service and continue their policy of ignoring customer service quality. You are welcome to share your experience in our blog or add more facts why large brands provide poor customer service.

Olga
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4 comments

  1. trying to understand my account but no one is asnwer there phone..can someone call me at 5016120733 please

    1. Hello Arthur,

      Please contact us in our support chat with your questions. Our live chat service is available 24/7. Just click the live chat button on the right side of this website page and you will be connected to our customer service chat.

      Thank you

  2. The only competition amongst big businesses is a race to the bottom of the proverbial barrel, for both front line employees and customers, while the CEOs get multi-million dollar payouts. This is what neo-capitalism is all about.

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