I try not to pull material too often from any one site but this story was too good (or rather, too bad) to pass up. Coming to us again from The Consumerist, today’s story is another example of spectacularly poor customer service, this time from Comcast cable. Apparently they charged the customer, a recent hurricane victim who called to inquire as to why techs had not showed up for appointments two weeks in a row while he was still being billed, a $24.95 “Customertroublecall” fee for the information! When he called to complain the service reps told him that they will “try” to fix the issue, “no promises.”
We have published articles on the importance of reputation management in the Crisis Manager newsletter before and I remain of the opinion that it is one of the most important and most overlooked aspects of business today. Often businesses will wait until their problem has become a crisis to attempt any sort of damage control. With the speed information flows at now that is FAR too late. If your company does not already have a strategic reputation management plan in effect then you are asking to lose customers, respect, and money.
JB
Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com