When I make a purchase, regardless of how small that purchase is, I expect to receive a certain standard of customer service from the brand. I mean, I am a paying customer, after all, so surely I am entitled to that? The issue is that there are some brands – I won’t name names – that think that because they are a large corporation with a customer base of hundreds of thousands of customers, they don’t need to take customer service seriously. (I usually find that it’s smaller companies that tend to offer the best customer service, simply because they truly value their customers.)

 

After having a rather bad customer service experience with a brand that I won’t mention the name of, involving a missing wardrobe part and their inability to send it to me. Instead requesting that I dismantle the whole wardrobe, send it back, and then they will send out an entirely new wardrobe (yes, really). I felt compelled to share my thoughts on what it takes for a brand to be classed as having ‘good customer service’.

 

Being polite

 

Manners don’t cost a penny, and yet so many people are rude. The number of times I’ve called a customer service line to be greeted by a rude team member is unreal. Usually, when this happens, I ask to be transferred to a manager who is normally highly apologetic and hugely helpful.

 

Fixing errors quickly

 

Going back to the whole wardrobe saga again, I personally think that if the said company had simply apologised for the fact a part was missing and sent it to me that week it would have been fine. However, instead, they said they could not give me the missing part as they had no spare parts in stock, only the full wardrobe, so would order some. I said could they not remove a part from another wardrobe but apparently that wasn’t an option.

 

Despite the fact that the error was their fault not mine, it felt like they just couldn’t be bothered to help. Two months on and they have finally told us that they cannot order any spare parts, the wardrobe we have must be taken apart and returned to them, and then they will send us a replacement. This means over four hours of work taking the wardrobe down, followed by at least four hours of work – maybe more – putting the new one up.

 

The fact is that quality customer service is about the brand admitting they have made a mistake and doing everything that they can to fix it, not making life difficult for their “valued” customers. For instance, one time when I ordered a selection of new makeup brushes from Spectrum Collections, the brushes that arrived were damaged. I was devastated because they weren’t cheap and I couldn’t afford to replace them myself. Luckily, as soon as I called the customer service line I was told not to worry and that they would replace the whole set for me – I didn’t even need to worry about sending the broken ones back, and I got sent a 20% discount code as an apology. Now that is good customer service.

 

Calling back when stating that you will do

 

One of my pet hates when dealing with customer service is when you get a phone call from a company to discuss something, you can’t talk when they call so they say not to worry they will call you back at a set time and then never do. This is a real nightmare because naturally, you need to get the issue dealt with as soon as possible.

 

When this happens, I would usually head to https://contactcustomerservicesnumber.co.uk/ – my favourite tool for finding customer service numbers – and find the brand’s number to call the customer service department on. Most of the time when I explain why I am calling back – because my callback never came – the person I am speaking to is highly apologetic, which is great.

 

One of the best experiences I’ve had with getting a callback from customer service was from EE. They asked me when they should call me back and actually called me back at that exact time. I was so appreciative as this was literally the only time I was free that day to chat things through.

Good customer service is not always easy to come by, or at least in my experience, it isn’t. However, there are some brands that really have nailed their customer service. The key to success in this area is simple: know what your customers want and need from you in terms of your customer support – just like these companies do: https://www.telegraph.co.uk.