The 5 worst companies for customer service

May 19, 2009 | Edited by Ken Beaulieu
Permalink: http://www.fuelnet.com/?p=2209

They are the all-too-frequent subjects of profanity-laced customer reviews splashed across the Internet for all the world to see: “Lame service at this bank has been a tradition for over 20 years.” “They are there to waste your time!” “They just don’t get it!” Day after day, these large companies make their customers’ lives unnecessarily difficult, whether through inflexible policies, egregious fees, long wait times, surly staff, inaccessible help, or a litany of other service sins.

Today, FuelNet presents its list of the five worst companies for customer service, as determined by a survey of Web forum users and interviews with a range of experts. We call out these companies because, for owners of growing businesses who are looking for an edge in a tough economy, they provide striking lessons in what not to do.

“There’s a real opportunity for small businesses to fill a niche for delivering great service,” asserts Emily Yellin, author of the new book Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us: Customer Service and What It Reveals About Our World and Our Lives (Free Press). “There has to be a culture of customer service that permeates — it has to be baked into the organization. A lot of companies think they can sprinkle it on at the end, but it just doesn’t work.”

In other words, excellent customer service standards come not from scripts read off a page, or elaborate automated phone systems, but from a genuine sense of caring that starts at the top and filters throughout a company, influencing every customer interaction. It’s what happens when an organization’s leaders inspire and train employees at all levels to proactively listen and quickly respond to everything their customers ask of them.

“You can dramatically grow your business if you are awesome at customer service,” says John Tschohl, president of the Service Quality Institute in Minneapolis. “A small business doesn’t always have the money for marketing or inventory, so the only way to compete is by having much higher customer service standards.”

Here, in no particular order, are the five companies that have consistently failed to deliver quality customer service — along with examples of smaller businesses that do it right.