When you ring Customer Services.....

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Can anyone answer this one???

I have often wondered when I ring Customer Servies....do you think when you contact them that their computer screen says anything about your 'status' eg good customer, regular customer or an infrequent customer????

I just wonder whether there is any 'rating' of what you mean to QVC in terms of customer loyalty when you call and inturn, maybes effects how they deal with you???
 
Great Minds

I've often wondered excatly the same thing :thinking:

Does it trouble anybody else when you ring they first ask can I help you, so you then start to talk about your reason for your call.
Then that conversation gets stopped as they say something along the lines of can I have your name and then your pin number.
Why are they not told to ask to confirm your id and obtain your name before you start to explain the reason for your call ?

:headbang:
 
My goodness, you are suspicious. I am sure that all customers are treated the same. I don't think call centre staff could give a flying fig whether you are a good customer or have sent every item back. They are there to answer calls and deal with them accordingly.
 
My goodness, you are suspicious. I am sure that all customers are treated the same. I don't think call centre staff could give a flying fig whether you are a good customer or have sent every item back. They are there to answer calls and deal with them accordingly.

But they do leave comments on your account when you have spoken with them.

:flower:
 
But they do leave comments on your account when you have spoken with them.

:flower:

That is good customer care IMO, so that if you call again they will know what you are talking about. I'm sure if you had to repeat yourself you would not be happy either.
 
Thats a good question. I bet there must be something on our 'records' in case we phoned up as a T-Caller. They can't just let anyone through, so while you are having 'a quick chat with one of the lovely PA's (as per Claire's annoying advert), I bet you someone else is scanning all your past history to see if you have had any complaints and what your returns rate is.
 
I'm so not naive as to think why there would there not be a staus to your account ?
If only that there surely would have to be in order to calculate what staus you are up to regarding the process of the 'letter.'
 
That is good customer care IMO, so that if you call again they will know what you are talking about. I'm sure if you had to repeat yourself you would not be happy either.

Good customer care can happen but sadly IMO not always, because you do have to repeat everything to a different operator at the start of your call.
Then they repeat what has been wriiten on your account to double check it with you.
 
Good customer care can happen but sadly IMO not always, because you do have to repeat everything to a different operator at the start of your call.
Then they repeat what has been wriiten on your account to double check it with you.

I have always found their CS to be very helpful.
 
I worked in CS for years with a major utility company and we always had to make case notes and even had a special code for aggressive customers which could be written, or spoken if we had to call our headquarters and then they would be would be aware there was a potentially volatile customer with us and could channel their responses accordingly.


I bet there's something written in the case notes on my QVC account. :grin:
 
as per data protectio act, as a customer you can ask to see a copy of anything they hold on file about you so why not just ask them?
 
My goodness, you are suspicious. I am sure that all customers are treated the same. I don't think call centre staff could give a flying fig whether you are a good customer or have sent every item back. They are there to answer calls and deal with them accordingly.
Couldn't agree LESS! I believe you are flagged as to what type of customer you are.
 
I've worked in the call centre industry for the last 15 years, most lately within business development and customer service and in my experience it works like this:

The screen in front of each Agent is part of a CRM system (Customer Relationship Management) which lists details of each customer but mostly has basic details, only activated by name, pin and account number (or whatever QVC needs) when you call.

They follow a sort of process or "script" and more or less say the same thing according to guidelines, ie you can start saying your thing but they will interrupt you to ask for details etc etc and only then will deal with your query/problem. This doesn't mean that they're not trying to be helpful, sometimes people I have spoken to will go out of their way to help.

They have a "notes" section which they will access while they are speaking to you - in which details such as "is a good T-caller", for example, are noted. You may have noticed that if you ring up to order something, this element is highlighted and you are asked if you want to speak to a presenter.

Data Protection - you can ask to see what's on your "file" and they are obliged to send it to you.

They will have access to the items you've bought, what you've sent back and the correspondence that's been sent to you. This isn't sinister, it's just standard in my experience. If someone had bought lots of stuff and sent 90-odd percent or more of it back, that SHOULD be noted, as it would mean that the company was losing money from this particular customer, and even making a loss. The rights or wrongs of this have been discussed already!

You're NOT flagged as to "what type of customer you are" - that would be highly unprofessional, very subjective and subject to auditors' analysis of systems. It wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. How for example, would you define a "troublesome" customer? Under what definitions? It wouldn't make sense, and would also render the company vulnerable to whistleblowers.

As I've said nothing is sinister or Big Brother-like; sometimes Agents don't have ENOUGH information nor do they register it correctly nor even understand it. For example I have Power of Attorney for my Mother, who has dementia and the bliddy Post Office had no idea what this meant. Even when I pointed out to them that this should be in big pink letters on their screen they didn't get it and still merrily took "direction" from an old lady who was mentally ill and thus created a great many problems for a while.
 
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The company I work for rates all their customers and review them depending on their risk rating, it's a different type of business but it's good corporate governance to keep an eye on your client base.
 
I had a stuff up with my printer being collected - I've been waiting for 10 days for the courier company to collect it and when I called CS to find out why they hadn't shown up, I was told there was an error and the job hadn't been passed to the courier company so I have to allow another 10 days for collection. Annoying but CS were very polite and apologetic so I didn't lose my rag. Just hope it gets collected before Christmas though as I want my money refunded!!
 
Please see this link.

It's a bit old but once started very few companies give up customer segmentation as it is profitable to keep running it:

http://www.smartfocus.com/RESOURCES/Case-Studies/Case-Study-Details/smid/1006/ArticleID/28/reftab/89/t/QVC.aspx

I'm sure most of us have got reward cards! (The Boots one is particularly fab, but I digress). All major companies use what they call "market segmentation" and every time you buy something, say from Tesco, they note what you've bought, when you've bought it and how often you shop with them, amongst other things. To use the word "sinister" again - it simply isn't, or if you think it is, don't shop there, or cancel your reward card.

They use information on what you buy to send you targeted marketing, eg QVC in this case always send me information on when Honora has a TSV coming up - I love Honora pearls and don't need reminding - as they know that marketing is horrendously expensive and it's a good way to get your attention!

My Tesco club card thing comes with money-off vouchers for wine :blush:, green vegetables and other highly targeted stuff like fabric conditioner, bizarrely. They've simply noted what I've bought, logged it on my account and sold me more stuff.

There's whole industry devoted to this sort of thing - the Loyalty Market, or something like that. Makes my head spin.
 

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