Who are the Stars of Customer Service?

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Nightwyrm

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#22257 22-May-2008 09:16

We tend to see quite a lot of rants and complaints on Geekzone about poor customer service. However, I did see a brief comment the other day praising the service provided by one of the brands in my organisation (National Bank), and I got a little curious to know what other "stars" of customer service have provided you with good service lately. So, please enrich our day and give us a tale of service excellence.

For me, it'd be the Telecom shop in Lambton Quay (across from Cable Car Lane). They helped me switch from VFNZ without pain, even though there were some difficult aspects of my VFNZ account, and took the time to resolve some messaging issues I was having with my Treo. Definitely the most helpful out of all telecommunication provider stores I've been in.

Post-geek, opinionated mediaphile, and natural born cynic. Jack of all genres, master of none.

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#132479 22-May-2008 09:32

I personally have had no problems with CSR from the communications companies that I regularly deal with. As a person who had been a CSR in the past, I would say one has good days and bad. I deal with Telstra Clear and Vodafone, and both have been good in my experience.

It all really depends on the day, and how the CSR's day is going, in my opinion, and I believe that a good CSR should not get their personal live involved in the way they complete their task. It IS easier said then done.

Andy Ghozali Geekzone Member	E: andy@ghozali.ru M: +64 21 395 458 A: Andy's Business Services, 231 High St, Christchurch 8011, NZ
www.andy.mobi

freitasm

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#132480 22-May-2008 09:36

The good ones:

- Telecom store Johnsonville (helpful people, overall good work and great help)
- BNZ Johsonville and phone help desk
- Genesys Energy (called me one day to tell me my next bill would be over the $1200 and offered ways to pay it - very nice proactive work folks - I just decided to pay it off because it involved setting up multiple automatic payments and that would be confusing)
- Telecom 123
- WorldxChange

The not so good ones:

- Telecom Roaming Help Desk (not really bad, just need a bit more training to understand a SIM card works on any unlocked GSM phone, and no there isn't a number on the phone if it doesn't have a SIM card but all worked out at the end)

The bad ones:

- MacDonald's (yes use our contact form online but please don't expect a reply. If you want a reply call us)
- TelstraCear (never know if there are other similar problems in my area, too long waiting on the phone)

allan

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#132504 22-May-2008 10:52

Just had great experience with Breville. Got given fancy four slice auto toaster by son at Christmas 2006. A few weeks ago it stopped holding the toast down although everything else worked fine if you were prepared to stand there and hold the lever down yourself. Only had 12 month warranty and we had no proof of purchase, but I phoned local Noel Leeming Wellington City store (was purchased NL in Dunedin) to find if there was a local repair agent. Got most unhelpful person who told me if it was out of warranty, there was nothing they could do. When pressed they suggested LT Campbell, who I dropped in to see. They said Breville don't make parts available, so couldn't help either.

I then sent a grumpy email off to the Breville Service Centre, saying that while I realised the toaster was out of warranty, it surely wasn't reasonable to expect a 15 month old toaster to be unrepairable. End result - phone call from Breville, they are sending new toaster. Excellent!

allstarnz

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#132508 22-May-2008 10:59

Good:
Sky - they almost always reply to my e-mails, even if it is a template one. Once you get hold of their CS people, they generally can fix your problem.

Not sure who else at the moment.

gehenna

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#132509 22-May-2008 10:59

not to sound like a fanboy or anything, and for what it's worth:

Apple - I've had consistently excellent service from their helpdesk operators when troubleshooting hardware faults and organising servicing.

However - I've had consistently bad service from the service providers they send me to, in NZ that is. When livng in Oz I had much more choice of service providers that I could use to it wasn't a big deal if I had bad service from one company as I could easily choose another next time. We're slightly limited in NZ, particularly Wellington....there's a big name out there that everyone who know's Apple probably knows about....you know who you are.....and you suck the big one.

(it's Magnum Mac ..... shhhhhhhhhhh)

mobygeek

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#132515 22-May-2008 11:16

HP... Whilst we had to deal off-shore they replaced our printer promptly. (Obviously warrenty...)

billgates

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#132546 22-May-2008 14:38

bad - Telstra Clear, Wait times are through the roof for technical support and common sense is somewhat missing from TC's call centre supervisor's.

good - everyone else

Do whatever you want to do man.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

tonyhughes

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#132564 22-May-2008 16:05

Star: Duo (Computer memory wholesalers). The best customer service ever. Full stop.

Always pleasant, forward replacement lifetime warranty on PC/server memory, never question a fault - its always "No worries, we will despatch a replacement today".

Every staff member rocks, so much so that I once commented to them that one day I got "really good service" and was concerned because that was a so much lower standard than usual from them.

brentbart

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#132645 22-May-2008 22:17

I had some dealings with a great bloke the last few days from Mobilefone Repair who went so many extra miles to help me I'm afraid he'll never find his way back. Plus dealt with some random person in Vodacom (which is pretty much Vodafone, sort of, in South Africa) who also helped me out so much I was almost embaressed by how good the service was.

As someone pretty much in the service industry, I think its always a good idea to let those guys know they made the extra effort - which I make sure I always do. And then secretly hope they don't get promoted so that you can contact them again Just kidding

rb85

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#132975 24-May-2008 11:48

Great service:
I define great service as common sense and finding a solution for a customer and going that extra mile.

Property management- Tommys
Telco - Telecom/Vodafone - General good service and infomation from all channels.
Gaming - Gamesman! - Always Knowledgable & keen to help.
Sky - Always informative and quick to help customers.

Poor service:
I define poor service as unsatisfactory with no attempt to resolve issues and just plain old bad customer service.

Telco - Telstra Clear - For some reason no two people can tell me the same infomation
Fastfood - Burgerking - Long story short: Me "Theres a foreign object in my burger" BK Manager "I dont know how that got there" *Blank Stare... ...

Painful:
I put this in here as the service is not poor, not good, but I get a sinking feeling when I realise there is no other way and I have to contact his company.

Property management- Quinovic
IT - EDS (The reason I created this Painful section)

:)

BrentR

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#133249 26-May-2008 09:38

I've dealt with Quinovic as both a property owner and renter. They are absolutely terrible!!!!

Pluses would be

Belkin
Vodafone
Telecom
Dell

Simonm

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#133375 26-May-2008 20:05

I find duo to be OK at best, they are quick with finding prices but often get confused.

Dlink's tech support is pretty good, Very quick at knowing what to escalate on, and the level 2+ support is technicaly very good.

Worst customer service is HP.

Wait on hold for 30 mins, just to be told to run through XYZ procedures, which generaly have no relevance. Unfortunatly the do not have a seperate line for resellers etc to short cut any of these processes

rb85

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#133535 27-May-2008 12:00

Simonm:
I find duo to be OK at best, they are quick with finding prices but often get confused.

Dlink's tech support is pretty good, Very quick at knowing what to escalate on, and the level 2+ support is technicaly very good.

Worst customer service is HP.

Wait on hold for 30 mins, just to be told to run through XYZ procedures, which generaly have no relevance. Unfortunatly the do not have a seperate line for resellers etc to short cut any of these processes

They just aquired EDS too.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo......

kinetic

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#135764 5-Jun-2008 20:11

I found World xchange very helpful (espically the senior guys, they really know thier stuff!)
But I had a bit of mare with a fella on the helpdesk, although when I mentioned it to the powers that be, he was given a warning and moved to a different shift and I never had to deal with him again. YAAA (so go to know you get listened to!)

Telecom are a bit random, sometimes long hold times, sometimes good.
A while back I was put through to someone "techie" to help me with fixing a screwed up domain record, only to find they didn't actually know what they were talking about, - i.e. the difference between "A" records and "MX records" argghhhh.

I have always found IBM warranty staff good to deal with, (espically the techs.)

But top of list would be the staff at Toasted Expresso in Takapuna, boy o boy do they rock! the coffee is second to NO ONE. (they even won aucklands "best flat white blend" recently.)

AllNightNerding

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#135795 5-Jun-2008 22:02

Good -

WorldXChange - While there wait times can at times be a bit long, they are always helpful, and go the extra mile for you. Today I called them to check on how my VFX line was going being transfered to the asterisk platform, was told it would be an extra day because a staff member was away on anual leave, (I actually got a reason for somthing being a day late Yuss!)

Telecom - Recently had my phone connected to onebill, and when I said that it was a smartphone they gave me a "really?" I always like it when Sales Reps start actually talking to you in a bit of a friendly way, (and still getting the job done) rather than them just looking up my details on the computer and going yup, yup, yup. Right.

IBM - I was ordering some RAM a while ago, and got put through to a person in christchurch, she told me the price, but it was a bit weird so she put me through to a person in another department, they clarrified the price, and then I got put through to the same person, it was great not having to go over things again with a differant person.

BAD

Netgear - 6 weeks to get a router replaced.... didnt leave me happy being on dial-up for that time.

HP - Just allround useless and not helping you at all, there online support can be quite good I find.

Family - They always want there computers running perfecty, and somehow manage to pin all viruses downloaded onto me, "no, the file was created by you... You got the virus"

Thats my 2cents :D

-- Divett Enterprises -- The Power Of Tomorrow --

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