Yesterday, I had a disastrous experience with a plumbing company that promotes itself as, “The Punctual Plumber”. They were selected because of an appealing brand promise—a promise that was not kept. I’m sure that this company’s inbound marketing program, the script used by its out of state call center, a well practiced and obviously mandatory up-sell pitch (promoting a service contract in spite of my being apoplectic at their having just missed two appointments), followed a set of well intentioned rules; EXCEPT for the most important factor–human empathy and understanding.
By LSI publisher Art McNeil
I decided to discuss this tragedy of errors with the plumbing company’s owner—thinking my input might alert him to what I considered a soft underbelly. Unfortunately, my call was answered by the same out of state call center that had triggered the faux pas by initially recording a wrong telephone number. I eventually had to force the representative off script by demanding to speak to the owner. I eventually did get a call, but not from the owner. Rather, the contribution of their local representative was to emphatically state, we do not guarantee punctuality after hours.
5 Lessons in supporting the brand promise
- Don’t promote a brand promise if you aren’t prepared to keep it
- Extenuating circumstances often require off-script responses
- External resources (such as call centers) impact your customer’s perception of value
- Never attempt to up-sell an irate customer
- Service representatives should use—not be used by corporate systems, rules, and scripts.
