Answers to Your Trickiest Customer Service Scenarios in the Field: Panel Q&A – Field Force Friday

Gain answers to your most trying customer service scenarios in the field in this in depth Q&A discussion

Working with customers is a natural part of running a business, and being able to respond well to dissatisfied customers can mean the difference between success and failure. This couldn’t be truer for field service, where your mobile technicians are on the front lines interacting with customers on a daily basis. Watch as we dissect some of those tricky customer service scenarios and provide answers that will keep your customers happy and your business ahead.

For your convenience, enjoy the video transcribed below:




ADAM: Hi everyone welcome back to field force Friday, thanks for joining us again today. We’re going to mix things up this time, I’m Adam Bartos and I’m here with Josh Kasombo and Joanna Rotter, and what we’re going to do today is have a little Q&A panel on customer service. It’s a topic that’s been coming up a lot lately, one that’s really important to field service. So we’re going to be discussing customer service as it relates to field service.




What we’re going to do is I’m going to be asking some questions as it relates to unhappy customers, those common scenarios you would find in the field. In some cases I’ll be playing devil’s advocate and maybe challenging them in a couple of cases as a difficult customer, but they’re going to provide their expertise on how to handle those maybe sticky situations in the field.




So first question I have here for you guys is as consumers of everyday products you buys things, it doesn’t have to be field service necessarily, what would you say is the most important factor when you’re looking for superior customer service, what’s something that you really look for?




JOSH: Well I would say what I look for is someone that’s going to stand behind their product 100%. So, I just bought a custom laptop not too long ago, and when I got the product maybe like a week afterwards they sent me an email saying do you enjoy your product, how’s everything going, can we help with anything, let us know. So that’s something I really look for, that they’re ready to be there if something goes wrong, and if something does go wrong id want them to be prompt and thorough and ask what’s the problem, walk me through how it happened, how they’ll fix it, and how here’s how we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen in the future. So just someone that’s behind their product that way is something I would look for.




JOANNA: Yeah I guess I agree kind of the first thing, which isn’t necessarily customer service, but a superior product. So I do my research, I find who has good reviews and that superior product. But then after I find a company that really stands behind what it sells, I do want someone with a designated customer service. So I love when companies have that little chat box in the corner of their website, you know, can we help you? Yes, here’s my question, that sort of thing. This isn’t the chat box example, but Apple has their genius bar, and you know you go to almost any mall, and I’m not an Apple diehard. I have Apple products, but I love that I know I can take my laptop to the genius bar and I can talk to a real person and they have a designated service department.




ADAM: Both great answers, that’s a great start for what we’re going to talk about today. So Josh this next question is for you. Imagine you’re a service tech and you’re responding to a call from a facilities manager at a local hospital. They’re responsible for insuring that the HVAC system is working, the building environment stays comfortable, and that’s their job as a facilities manager. So the system broke down and you were called to fix it and you’re greeted by the facilities manager who’s very unhappy because it reflects poorly on him since the system is broken. So you’re arriving at a jobsite with a broken piece of equipment that you installed, how do you handle that?





JOSH: I’d say the first thing I’d want to do is let that facilities manager know we’re on his side. So I feel like a lot of times when you sell a product to a customer and it breaks they think “Well here we go, they just got their money and now it’s broken. Now they don’t care.” So you want to make sure that they know that you care about what’s happening at their facility. So this is a hospital, obviously this is going to effect a lot of patients, this going to affect their ability to get better. I would want to make sure that they know that we want to fix this so that things get better for their facility and we care. So that’s what I’d want to do first and foremost, try to get him on my side that way. And after that I’d want to walk through everything that went wrong. Show it went wrong because of this or maybe it went wrong because of this, just walk them through it, hold their hand the whole time and say well here’s how it went wrong, here’s how we’re going to fix it, here’s how we’re going to prevent it from happening again. Then just kind of go through that whole process and give a very clear window of time for when it’s going to be fixed. Then after I leave the facility maybe call an hour later and see how everything is going, ask if it’s working how they’re expecting and if it’s not how can we come back and fix it. Then keep on following up, maybe a week later then a month later, just something to let them know that we’re there. So they don’t think we just install our product and then get out of dodge.




ADAM: Sure, that’s a great answer. I’m hearing a lot of full disclosure, a lot of follow up, kind of what you guys were saying in that first question. So Joanna one for you now. You’re a service sales person, so technician/true sales person. You’re responsible for re-upping a preventative maintenance contract with the customer. Your customer is upset and pushing back because during the last contract you had some of their heavy equipment broke down, it broke down twice specifically, and resulted in a loss of productivity. So how would you work with that customer to get that new sale, you know they’re coming back to you saying why would I sign this new contract when the last one I signed still resulted in two breakdowns




JOANNA: Yeah that is a tricky situation. But I guess first show up to the site and being a good listener is probably the most important thing. At least at first. The customer is angry so sit down and listen and figure out why did the equipment break? What actually happened and then you as the service expert figure out why it broke. So they know how it broke, you need to figure out why it broke. And then that can kind of lead you in two different directions. If in fact it broke because of something your preventative maintenance failed to prevent, then you need to own that, and you know say we failed to do this thing and that’s why your equipment broke, and then as a sales person id say in the future in a new service contract we would be sure to add all those new elements onto the contract. So we wouldn’t miss a step. So that would be point 1. The next point would be if you go through the existing service contract, you figure out why the equipment broke and it’s completely unrelated. You know, youre out in the field and a stone gets lodged into the belt and breaks down the equipment. No preventative maintenance visit is going to prevent that, so being able to explain that clearly to a customer. So not blaming it on them, but outlining here’s what we do at the preventative maintenance visit, here’s how your equipment broke, they’re unrelated but let’s work together to prevent the things we can. And then as a salesperson I would say we’re a great service company, we already have this relationship, we would love to be your go to for a break fix. If something like this did happen, you know give them a special deal or something like that, but prove that you can be there go to for all their services.




ADAM: Great answer. I like how you sort of flipped that around into a sales opportunity. I’m hearing a couple themes, ownership, taking ownership and providing all the information, which means you have to come armed with all the right information, walking through what happens, you need to be able to relay that information, which is important.




My next scenario is a common one and either of you can answer this. You’re a service technician responsible for a power generation installation…so a power generator. You’re forced to deal with a customer who is unhappy from their last buying experience, so not with your company but their previous supplier really ticked them off. So you’ve done nothing wrong, but a previous competitor has left them skeptical, how do you build that good will when it starts from day one into a positive relationship going forward?




JOANNA: Yeah that is tricky. I guess first of all I would figure out why the customer was unhappy with the previous supplier. You know there’s a reason they’re talking to you, if they were swearing off all service companies then they wouldn’t be talking to you. So they’re obviously interested in finding someone new. So figuring out where your differences lie and kind of accentuating those. Josh what do you think?




JOSH: I would say that this actually a pretty good scenario. I’d say that this could lead to a win-win. You know exactly what went wrong with the competitor, you kind of see what the competitor is doing, and you can sit down with that customer and say here’s what went wrong, here’s how we’re going to make it different, and we can really customize that package to them. And I would say that’s what superior customer service is, making every experience special for that one customer. So I’d say it’d be good to have some sort of pre-planning meeting so we can layout the structure of how that relationship is going to work and then they’re happy, you’re happy, you’re ahead of your competitor…it’s a great scenario.




ADAM: That’s a good point, kind of having a playbook to work with.




JOANNA: Maybe even giving them a direct access to a customer service, kind of accenting we have this great service department, here’s your representative that you can call directly, here’s access to our customer service portal, so if something goes wrong we’ve got your back no matter what.




ADAM: Great points, those are great answers. So now for a very common one I think we’ve all been familiar with as a service company or consumer. You’ve missed a promised delivery or installation time, so your costumer is fuming because you have not arrived in your promised appointment window. In past videos we’ve discussed how we can avoid these kind of scheduling blunders with tools, but we’re all human, these things happen. So what do you do in that situation?




JOSH: I think the first thing I would do is immediately once I realize im going to be late, I would call that customer and say hey I know we gave you this time window, but this is what came up and we’re going to be a little bit late, but we’ll keep following up with you. Maybe say this is my personally cell number I’ll call you every thirty minutes to let you know what my progress is like. Just keeping them in the loop, because I feel like maybe sometimes I’ve been in the situation where someone is coming to my home to install something and they give me a window and I’m just sitting there waiting not exactly sure when they’re coming, if they’re coming, where are they right now. So it’d be really nice to just have that connection with the customer as you’re trying to get to that location, just let them know where you are. I think that’s the most important thing.




JOANNA: Yeah I agree, it’s all about keeping the customer in the loop. Everyone understands that you hit traffic, you have car trouble, you might be late, but even if you had a system that synched with your GPS and would send an automated text message that said “Billy is going to be 30 minutes late” because he’s in traffic, or something like that. If you happen to show up late with no notice that may be irreparable, but if you, like we said earlier, take ownership of that and apologize and assure them it will never happen again, I’d say that’s really the only way to resolve that sort of situation. But really finding a system that can either send those automated alerts or just calling them up is definitely the best way to go.




ADAM: Great points, I mean just from a consumer’s point of view I think it’s also important to fix it. You know so you’re late, we all understand people make mistakes. I’m late for dinner at times, but I don’t want to be known as the guy that’s always late for dinner. So you fix it while you can on-site, give them some feedback, give them some expectation of you’re going to be late this time is the new window, and then next time you’re on time. Then they can kind of move on from it.




So this is one just kind of off the cuff, as consumers, kind of back to that first question not necessarily as it relates to field service, but can you guys think of a scenario where you were really ticked off, you know where something didn’t go well and service was bad, but they made some steps to fix it and you were please? When was that?




JOSH: I think this is a pretty common scenario, but with my current cable/internet provider, there was a discrepancy in the bill…they charged me like way, way too much, so it was nice to like how Joanna was talking about, they had the little chat box in the corner of their site. So right away I went on the chat and said hey this is wrong, I don’t understand how this is like this, how can we fix it? And the person in the chat said oh well this is why you’re being billed this much this month, and we understand that that’s wrong, we’ll take that off and your bill is going to be what it had been every single month and we’ll make sure it stays like that the whole time. So you know, really mad right away, seeing all that money you know this isn’t right, but you know they fixed it right away. So I’m more inclined to stay with them now. So I’d say that was a pretty good situation.




JOANNA: I guess hearing your example, sort of similarly, probably we could all relate to this, but my dental bill was way too much. And you know they didn’t charge my insurance right and I’d dealt with insurance companies before and it’s always a little tricky, you have to jump through hoops. So I went straight to the dentist and said I think that you charged this wrong, and they handled it so well, and I think it was because they had…and we’ve talked about this before…they had access to all of my information. So they didn’t make me go look up all of my insurance information, they looked it up for me and they found that oh yeah you are actually covered. And it was such a relief to be able to just call them and they were like okay we’ll fix it now, don’t worry about it, we’ll charge the insurance, and it was so great to have them take that extra step and look up what was covered under my insurance instead of telling me to go look up your insurance and then call me back. Just that little effort on their part made the difference.




ADAM: Excellent. Those are great insights you guys, thank you! Well Josh and Joanna gave us some great feedback on those sticky situations that your service technicians very likely experience in the field. One key take away that I’m noticing is that customer service isn’t unique to one business. It’s not unique to service, it’s not unique to cable, and it’s not unique to dentistry. So it’s common and your customers will recognize good customer service when they see it, and even more importantly they’ll recognize it when it’s not good customer service.




So hopefully these guys gave you some good insights on how you can handle some of those situations in the field. Having all the right tools, coming armed with all the right information, helps a lot in those customer service scenarios. But in the end that technician is your face of the company at the customer level and it’s very important. So they need to be a customer service agent as well, one of the hats that they wear.




So again, hope that you got some good insight from this conversation from Josh and Joanna. That’s all we have for this Field Force Friday, so thanks again for being here and feel free to tune in next week.