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Customer Service When Your Technology Fails You

September 10, 2008 By Joe Rawlinson

Your company’s reliance on technology to process customer orders and requests can lead you to some trouble unless you are prepared.

My wife and I recently got a TxTag (a toll road sticker) for our car to use on the local toll roads. In theory, as we simply drive under a scanner along the highway, we are identified and charged the toll automatically.

After we installed the TxTag, we had our expectations set that we wouldn’t have to worry about stopping to pay tolls and life would be carefree.

So imagine our surprise when we got a bill from the Texas Department of Transportation for usage of the toll roads.

I was a little upset when I called their customer service number. However, the TxTag folks came through with a great customer service experience that you should mimic when your technology fails.

Tell Me Why

The first thing I was told was that sometimes the scanners don’t “see” the toll tag and thus our account couldn’t be charged. If that happens the toll cameras take a picture of the license plate and identify the owner. Since we hadn’t registered our TxTag, they couldn’t match up our account with our car.

Sometimes your technology isn’t perfect. The customer may be the unknowing victim of a shortcoming in your process or equipment. Take the time to explain why something happened. This will help people have confidence that their negative experience shouldn’t be repeated again.

Change History

Once the problem was identified with my TxTag account, the agent essentially rolled back the clock and corrected my account to reflect charges as if everything had worked properly. I got the prepaid discount and my balance was squared away.

If your process or technology has a glitch, your customers shouldn’t have to live with the consequences. Make things right. Or better yet, make things like there was never a problem to begin with.

Prevent a Relapse

In my case, the agent helped me register my tag and linked up my account with my information. Even if there is a glitch again in the future, TxTag’s fallback systems should catch it and process everything smoothly.

Once the problem is identified and the consequences reversed, you need to make sure they don’t happen again.

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