A Reasonable Response

I finally got a reasonable response from PCI. Here is what they did.

They explained how the mistake happened and apologized for it.

They apologized for the way I was treated.

They offered to send us the cable we needed.

They offered to send us a $50 gift card to a restaurant of our choice for our trouble.

If I had gotten this response first, even without the gift card (and there would have been not need to apologize for the way I was treated) I would have been very happy.

I asked them to donate the $50 to a food-shelf or homeless shelter. I do not need to personally benefit for this, that was not the point.

If I can be so bold I would like to offer PCI some customer service advice in case something like this happens again with another client.

1. Take time to look up information if you need to. I know I am not the only client you have. A very appropriate response to my first email would have been something like, "I am sorry you are having a problem. I will pull your file and review the cart we built to find out what happened. I will contact you next week when I have more information."

2. If you are not the appropriate person to address the issue, send me to the right person. I contacted the person at PCI who was our consultant. The only person at PCI I had every dealt with. But if you are not the person to handle my issue, then send me to the right person. Something like, "I am sorry you are having a problem. I will forward your email to _______ so they can help you resolve the issue." You do need to be careful this doesn't turn into a run around. But I, as a client, want to talk to the right person.

3. Don't blame the client. You are not only the cart builder but the consultant. My pastor is not the expert on building carts, you are. Take the time to find out what happened, but don't blame the customer.

4. Don't call people names. I know it's no always easy to be in customer service and I'm not saying that you have to put up with abuse. The customer is contacting you because they have a problem. The are likely frustrated or mad, but what they want is there problem solved. Make sure your responses don't upset them more, make sure you have all the information you need to answer their questions, but don't let it get to the point where you are calling people names.

Part of that is don't take this personally, the client is writing to the company. It may be addressed to you because you are the company representative, but they are writing to the company.