06-14-2015, 07:50 AM
I work in finance in a university, but I work in the student/parent facing side of finance so customer service is huge for us. I am always complaining about some of the crap that goes on around us. Calls get bounced around from department to department simply because someone didn't listen. I could not tell you the number of calls I have had transferred to our office from the department that is responsible for their question. It makes the student/parent on the line frustrated and angry with us.
As far as crap customer service I have had to deal with it has been a long time in store. I don't put up with it much. I will hunt someone down, preferably with a supervisor sounding title, to help out if people are being bad at their job. Call center customer care almost always sucks, so any number of those situations just are what they are. I do have one exception, a vendor our university deals with. The representative assigned to our university is always on top of things, friendly, and easy to work with. When I was in Dallas at the company's user group conference I sought out her supervisor's supervisor and told him as much. I draw attention to both poor, and good, customer service. I feel we need to make people aware of when someone is doing a great job in that regard because so often when you do that sort of thing all you hear is negative.
I tell people all the time that I may be an accountant, but my first priority is customer service. It really is for everyone, no matter what job you do. You provide a service for someone. Your supervisor, your co-workers, shareholders, taxpayers, student body, doesn't matter. What we do, wherever you are, is a service for someone else and that is a customer. Treating everyone as a customer, and that is to say as you should treat a customer, is a very important thing that I think has become lost on many people.
As far as crap customer service I have had to deal with it has been a long time in store. I don't put up with it much. I will hunt someone down, preferably with a supervisor sounding title, to help out if people are being bad at their job. Call center customer care almost always sucks, so any number of those situations just are what they are. I do have one exception, a vendor our university deals with. The representative assigned to our university is always on top of things, friendly, and easy to work with. When I was in Dallas at the company's user group conference I sought out her supervisor's supervisor and told him as much. I draw attention to both poor, and good, customer service. I feel we need to make people aware of when someone is doing a great job in that regard because so often when you do that sort of thing all you hear is negative.
I tell people all the time that I may be an accountant, but my first priority is customer service. It really is for everyone, no matter what job you do. You provide a service for someone. Your supervisor, your co-workers, shareholders, taxpayers, student body, doesn't matter. What we do, wherever you are, is a service for someone else and that is a customer. Treating everyone as a customer, and that is to say as you should treat a customer, is a very important thing that I think has become lost on many people.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
