Total Customer Experience – A Utility Company
Total Customer Experience – A Utility Company
I have to say, that I had an unexpected pleasant customer experience with a utility company today.
I called because we were having an issue here at Huff Insurance. And you know how it is to get to get to a live person these days, you have to go through a maze of automated prompts and/or verbal answers, which in itself starts to set my expectations at a lower level.
So after a combination of pressing 1’s and 2’ and answering some yes’s and no’s, I get through to a service rep, who was obviously using a scripted greeting in a robotic manner, further lessening my expectations. I understand using scripts to make sure everyone is being consistent, but the delivery of that script is also important in setting expectation levels.
After explaining the issue and running a remote test, he came to the same conclusion that I had already expected, that we need a service rep to come out to fix the problem.
But it was this part that was the pleasant surprise. It was about 10am and he said he could have a technician out today between 1pm and 5pm. That’s right, same day service…..and he said was as surprised as I was that there was availability today. So we scheduled the appointment to get the problem fixed.
After I hung up the phone, I got me thinking about customer expectations of businesses. My expectations were that I would try to get someone out here tomorrow, but really expected nothing earlier than Wednesday (with today being Monday). Should it really be a surprise that I am able to get same ay service from a company that I pay thousands of dollars to each year? It really shouldn’t be, but that is what it has come down to, based on my prior experiences and stories that I have heard.
So basically over the years, they have delivered their service in such a manner, that I did not expect to have a great experience. My expectations when I picked up the phone was that it would take a while to get to a rep and when I did, they would not be able to come out for two or 3 days and I would have to fight to try to get someone out the next day.
In essence, my expectations, as a customer was that I was going to have a terrible experience. And after thinking about it, there are too many businesses and government agencies that we deal with on a regular basis that we dread having to call because we “know” that we are going to have a terrible experience when dealing with them.
As a business owner, that is a frightening thought. I could not imagine running a business knowing that the customers expect a bad experience every time they have to communicate with us. By the nature of our business at Huff Insurance, we cannot guarantee that every experience a great experience. But we want you to expect a great experience every time you dial our number or walk through our doors.
Huff Insurance is a full service Independent Insurance Agent We have been dedicated to Protecting Lifestyles™ since 1960. We offer a full array of Personal Insurance, Commercial Insurance and Life Insurance & Health Insurance products. Call us at 410-647-111
