Keith wrote an interesting article on Usable Consulting and the Customer Experience, which I found was quite timely in a loosely related way to a customer experience I have been struggling through for the past year or so.

It all started with a desire to upgrade two cellphones to newer models. At the time, I was told that my phone was too new (being two years old) to upgrade, but they could upgrade the older one. At the time I decided to forego the process because it would've meant switching phone numbers which seemed like too much bother when we could just wait a year and upgrade both. Well two years went by as we researched plan options and different carriers etc. and we finally decided to do the deal with our current provider on Saturday.

Now I'm the kind of person that needs to process what I'm being told (sold) just because I want to be sure I understand everything before signing off on a contract. So, of course, it seems that every salesperson we come across is one who subscribes to the Fast Talkin' Hard Sell school of sales. Yikes! Add to the fact that it was Saturday, the store was crammed full of people and literally screaming kids and I quickly felt unable to process anything other than the need to get out of there pronto. It didn't help that when the salesguy checked our phone status to be sure we were allowed to upgrade, mine came back permission denied - but no reason given. And when I asked why it was denied he just shrugged. Fixing a smile on my face I grabbed at D's arm and started backing away when the salesguy then started rattling off full price for various phones - no way! We were off to talk to competitors.

I really don't get what is the big deal about this whole process. It seems like the providers just want to get your business, but once they have you you're not treated very well. There doesn't seem to be any loyalty acknowledgements for long-term clients. A very little in that regard would really go a long way.

We found that Competitor #1 was very helpful, but the comparable plan would be double what we were paying now. yikes! And Competitor #2 was even more helpful, and offered to waive our system access fees for a year - but - their service was spotty in some rural areas, which was a concern to me as I drive through those areas very regularly for work and would hate to have car trouble and no service...yikes again.

What to do, what to do. We decided to let things float for a while before making a decision.

Then on Monday I think we must have done enough penance with the cellular phone gods because on a whim we decided to check out phones from a third party store and we finally got service from an ace customer service rep. This fellow took the time to go over various options with us and work out which option/s would be the most beneficial. He took the time to check with our current provider if there would be any issues with following the options, checked on if we could in fact upgrade both phones (it turned out we could - the other phone was denied in error) and made sure we were all in agreement every step of the way. He took the time to clarify what he was going to do, confirm each step with us and made sure we were in agreement with the direction we were going. In short - good customer service. What made the service superlative was when he decided to give us in-store rebates on our phones rather than the mail-in rebates because they either couldn't find or had run out of the forms.
We left, 2 happy campers with our brand new phones.

So what did this guy do that the others didn't?
1. Talked slowly and clearly
2. Listened to us
3. Made sure he understood our requirements
4. Offered some creative solutions
5. Made sure we felt like we in control of the process
6. Threw in a bonus to be accommodating (after all doesn't everybody hate mail-in rebates?)

And if you compare these things with the list at the end of Keith's article, not surprisingly, they match up. How lucky were we - to finally cross paths with a usable sales consultant. He's earned any word-of-mouth recommendations he gets.