Are you getting the service you deserve?

 

‘Customer Service’ often conjures up images of disgruntled members of the public being faced with uninterested faceless employees of some firm or another.  However, some people choose to work in Customer Service based jobs, and thus relish the sometimes challenging but often rewarding role.  It may be that they enjoy problem-solving, though they do have to often remain thick-skinned on the occasions that they are not flooded with thanks by the consumer.

Is your Agent, Clerk or anyone else you have employed doing their best for you or are they falling into 1 of the following 3 traps?

 

1.  Passing the buck

If there’s a problem do they blame someone else or take responsibility for their mistake?  Ultimately if they are the customer-facer then it is their company’s responsibility and they should know that you don’t care what goes on behind the scenes, you just want the solution.  Watch out for too much buck-passing, as it’s likely that they don’t have your best interests at heart.

 

2.  Waiting for you to alert them to a problem

This is probably my pet hate, when someone knows or ought to have known that there may be an issue but they still wait for you the consumer to report something.  It is not your responsibility to report everything, you probably don’t have time hence instructing them in the first place, and by them not doing so it looks as though they were just hoping you wouldn’t notice.  They are not being proactive, which is essential to good customer service.

 

3.  Not expediting a resolution

If they’ve made a mistake then they should pull out all of the stops in order to set things right again.  I am amazed when businesses have the nerve to tell customers to wait just as long again for something as they have already done.  If they are not willing to go ‘above and beyond’ even when they are at fault, then you may want to think about looking elsewhere.

London and the property world are both very large and very small at the same time.  It is large enough that Agents should be doing their utmost within reason to keep you happy, else you have plenty of other options out there, and it is small enough that any bad press will be known, and so they should want to do their utmost!

Don’t settle for second best.  Poor Customer Service can cost you clients, tenants, and thus income.

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