Good Service

Well it’s been awhile since I’ve posted a Blog.  I keep telling myself I must do this more often, but life tends to get in the way; kids party’s, family dos, work, cycling event, cars, and other stuff…  Not really much of an excuse really.  I should just make time and write a quick blog post.  Doesn’t need to be much and besides it’s life that generates the stories in the first place.

So speaking of life what things have been happening?

Well, all the normal stuff.  My eldest son, Mitch, had his 9th Birthday.  We had a Medieval theme (he loves the TV show Merlin) and everyone had a blast.  I even helped out in the kitchen and delegated Marnie (well most things were done, so I kicked her out) to be Party Game Director.  She loved it.  Been assessed by CSA (Child Support Agency) to ensure I’m paying the right amount of child support.  Finally sorted out my insurance claim from my recent accident.  Oh, and my mobile phone nearly got cut off due to missed payments.

So all of this stuff has been going on, but what does it have to do with Good Service?  I’m glad you asked.

I’m sure everyone has experienced bad service for one or another company.  Either via an online shop, local business, utilities company, or just trying to grab some fast food.  Well over the last few weeks I have experienced good service.  It’s like a breath of fresh air, but I don’t expect it to last for long.

This post is primarily about the fantastic after sales service I’ve received from Chain Reaction Cycles (CRC).  These guys are based in the UK and I’ve only purchased on item from them; my Reynolds Assault Wheels.  No as you may already know (well you should if you clicked the previous link ), I’ve had issues with the rear wheel of these wheels ever since I purchased them.  They’ve already gone back for warranty repairs once.  Well since I got them back I’ve had to true (straighten) them after every second ride.  Not what you’d expect from a good set of wheels that are designed and known to be very strong.

Now if these wheels were you typical alloy design, truing them would be an easy task.  Just grab the spoke spanner and tweak a few spoke nipples (above the belt ppl!) until the wheel is back in alignment.  Not so with these wheels as the spoke nipples are inside the rim and only accessible via the tire bed.  So to true these wheels you have to remove them from the bike, remove the tire and tube, and then lift out the rim tape.  An all together annoying exercise.

So after tweaking and truing these wheels for the umpteen time (either me or my LBS), I cracked it.  These wheels shouldn’t be like this.  And the original flat-spot fault was back.  So I sent an email to CRC…

It actually took a little while for them to get back to me, but as I found out that was because they had been speaking with their supplier and/or Reynolds to work out what was to be done.  I’d explained my previous experience and that I couldn’t really afford to keep sending the wheel back every time there was a fault with it.  This was their first response:

Thanks for your e-mail, I appreciate your concerns with this wheel and I hope that I can persuade the UK distributor to rethink this issue and replace the wheel in good faith without the need for you to send it back here.

If they agree I will need a few photos of the wheel being destroyed ie: put beyond use.

I cannot promise they will agree but we will certainly try our best. I will be in touch as soon as possible.

So I had just managed to true the wheel again.  This time I think I’d got it spot on, but there was still the flat-spot issue.  I was still waiting to see what CRC (or more likely their supplier) was going to say; the thought of having to destroy the wheel, even if it was to be replaced didn’t feel right.  I wasn’t sure I could actually bring myself to “put the wheel beyond use”.

So a few days later I get this email:

A new wheel will be dispatched to you from here once we receive clear photos of the wheel being put beyond use. I will have your wheel examined in the workshop prior to dispatch to ensure there are no further complications. This has been done as goodwill in light of the fact you have experienced problems beforehand.

I trust this helps and I look forward to your reply.

WOW!  These guys are on the other side of the world and actually give a shit about a customer who bought a set of mid-range carbon wheels!  I was speechless, now all I had to do was actually “put the wheel beyond use”.  It took me 3 days to work up the courage. and this was the result.

I’d say that wheel is “beyond use”.  I must say I now have a renewed respect for the strength of carbon fibre; bugger me that stuff is hard to break.  I originally thought I could break the rim by simply leaning it on a step and jumping on it.  Nope, that did nothing other than flex and try to throw me on my arse.  In the end I had to resort to hitting it with an axe!  And I mean HITTING it!  I had to belt the shite out of it to get the darn thing to crack and allow me to fold the wheel in half!  This stuff is strong!

So after sending these photos back to CRC late on Thursday evening, I received an email a few hours later informing me my new wheel was on its way!  W00t, now that’s customer service!

After this experience would I recommend doing business with CRC?  Hell yeah.  These guys not only offer great prices, but their after sales service is excellent; even if you are half way around the world.

Well that wasn’t the only experience of good customer service I had that week.  The other was with Optus.  Yes, you read that right, I experienced good customer service from a Telco!  Hell just froze over didn’t it??  Well not quite, the customer service experience didn’t start out that well, but fortunately when I did get through to a customer service person they were one of the rare gems; someone is a call centre that was both competent and gave a shit!  Ok, NOW hell has frozen over!

So my experience started with Optus when I received a larger than normal bill.  Now I’m on a $99 unlimited plan, so to be hit with a larger bill was somewhat of a shock.  WTF? was my first thought.  As I receive eBills I had to logon to the Optus self service site.  What a pain in the arse that was.  The site was so slow as to be unusable.  Before calling Optus, which is usually a long and difficult process, I wanted to check out what the bill said first.  However, Murphy was in play so the website was dead.

About 20 minutes later I get an SMS from Optus saying that if I didn’t pay my bill, my service would be cut off.  WTF!  Not happy.  This time I try calling them.  I get shunted through an automated process that drops me into the payment system.  *sigh*.  OK I’ll pay the friggin’ bill.  I get through all of that, pressing a multitude of buttons and finally the system says: “Payment has been declined, Goodbye”.  WTF?  I don’t even get a chance to re-key my card numbers??  I’d miss typed the CCV number.

So now I try calling again.  Bugger I took the wrong path on the phone menu and got put through to an automated system telling me my account was due to be deactivated and I needed to pay the account.  Really helpful, I knew that already and just wanted to speak to someone so I could get this sorted out and get on with my day.

So I hang up and try again.  This time I wait through ALL the stupid announcements and finally after mashing the numbers on my phone get put through to a customer service line with a human on the end of it.  To my surprise the wait was less than 2 minutes.  That’s NEVER happened with Optus or ANY Telco before. Hell’s getting cold…

So a very polite lass with an American accent answers: “Hello my name is ***** and welcome to Optus.  How can I help you today?”  I didn’t catch the name.

I responded very calmly my issue and that I needed to firstly pay the bill for last month with had been missed and that I needed to find out why I was charged so much this month ($160).  First off we went through the process and found out that even though I’d changed my credit card information via the online self-service portal many months ago, Optus had failed to actually update their billing records.  This explained two issues; one, why the bill wasn’t paid (my card had expired); two, why my bill was higher this month (non-payment fee).

So very quickly my bill was payed and the non-payment charge was reversed.  But, my call-centre agent wasn’t done yet.  She was analysing my bill and noticed that I made a number 13 and 1300 calls.  These call, she noted, were not included in my plan and explains why get charged extra each month.  Also, my Voice Mail calls were also not included.  So she offered to switch my plan to one of the new iPhone 4 based plans.  Same $99 plan, but 13, 1300, and Voice Mail calls are included.  Oh and my data allowance would jump from 1.5GB to 5GB and include tethering for free!!  W00T!  Of course I agreed and thanked her very much for her time and resolving my issues.

Now you’d think that the service I received is what you should get from a call-centre and I’d agree.  It is what you should expect.  However, sadly, this is not always the case.  Many call-centre agents/operators treat customers as pains in the arse and must ALWAYS be wrong.  Given how much abuse they often cope in a typical day, I can’t say I blame them.  Also, many companies fail to provide the adequate level of training and authority to allow them to actually help their customers.  In this case, everything worked just how it should.

It’s not often I receive truly bad service from a call-centre, but it’s often poor or unhelpful.  However, I believe it’s because I actually understand how there centres work and the pressures these people are put under.  I used to build the systems used by call-centres and would work closely with the agents to understand how they work.  I can tell you one thing, there is no way I could do what some of these people do.  It’s tough and you have to be accountable for every single second of your day.  Even toilet breaks are timed and scheduled!

So next time you do speak to a call-centre, try and be calm.  If possible engage with the agent and try to treat them like a human.  Not always possible if there is a language issue (ie, from one of those call-centres), but if you can break down their barriers a little you might get a little better service than you were expecting.  It generally works for me, but it does help if the person on the other end knows what they are doing, speaks you language well, and actually gives a shit about you, the customer.