The concept is simple: if you want new customers and returning customers you must have excellent customer service.
But in this day and age, even though it may seem to be a given, it doesn’t always work that way. You know what I’m talking about. The waiting on the line, the calls that last forever and nothing gets done.
I’m sure if you take a minute to think about it, you can automatically think of at least one situation that has happened to you with bad customer service. It stays with you. And with social media at our fingertips, it is easy to proclaim your bad experience instantly. As customers, we can make the snap judgement and have that story to tell others if they should mention said brand/business.
I like to give brands the benefit of the doubt. I really do. I try to find the good. Maybe they are having an off day, maybe the person on the other end is new…But sometimes….well, click here to see a video and you will know where I’m going with this.
It may surprise you to know that TELUS actually chose to put this out. The commercial is entitled “Scream”, which is exactly what we sometimes want to do on the other end of bad customer service.
As it stands, TELUS has a 95% customer satisfaction rate with the most loyal customers of any national wireless provider in Canada.
So why bother? Simple, they want the other 5% to know how incredible they are. And not only that, after meeting with the TELUS Team Members, including Simone Lumsden, Vice President, Customer Relationship Marketing and Engagement and Anne-Marie LaBerge, Vice President, Brand & Marketing Communications, what rang very true was that they wanted to set the bar higher than it is for all of telco providers. They sincerely want the whole of telco to change for the benefit of the customer.
They launched the #ExpectMore campaign with the tag “When we expect more from ourselves, you can expect more from us”.
So how are they doing it?
Aside from asking customers to expect more, here are a few things I thought you’d like to know about the TELUS’ call-to-action on expecting more from them:
- Over the summer, TELUS added the Easy Roam feature for Canadians travelling to the US. This is such big news as far as I’m concerned and a feature I was thrilled to see put into place! Now TELUS customers can travel to the US and for an additional $7 a day, they can call, text and use data from their Canadian plan.
I recently used this when I travelled for two nights to the US. I got a notification once I travelled across the border and the addition to my plan was clearly explained in my invoice. This is obviously a bone of contention with a lot of customers in telco because I recently shared a spoof vine on turning off roaming from Eh Bee on my Facebook page that reached almost 12000 in a week. That’s a lot of people that find roaming charges laughable. TELUS was paying attention to this sore subject and Easy Roam was created.
- In-store one-on-one appointments with a TELUS team member. If you have questions you want answered about your plan, your smart phone or even your tablet, TELUS can help you, face to face. You can make an appointment to meet up at the TELUS Learning Center closest to you and all your questions will be answered.
As part of the advocacy program, I had my own appointment at a TELUS learning center with Kaven and it was so helpful I had to share. He took the time to really listen to my concerns and gave me the best tips and tricks for working with my Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Note 8 with efficiency and ease.
- TELUS is available online with @TELUSsupport on Twitter and their Facebook page. And on top of that, TELUS Neighbourhood is a forum for anyone to ask questions about their plan, as well as offer suggestions for future ideas (incidentally, because roaming was a hot topic in the Neighbourhood, that is how Easy Roam came to be).
- TELUS customers now have a My Account app for easy access to customer support.
In all of this information, here is the BIG point for me. It shouldn’t be hard to find the good in a brand. You should not have to search deep for the small nuggets of good quality. Not only is it better to have it front and center as well as throughout, it is imperative. Good customer service has to make a customer feel like a human being and not just another plan.
TELUS is breaking the traditional rules with #ExpectMore, but you know what? So is social media, and being on the mark with social is really what customer service is about now.
To find out more about the #ExpectMore campaign, visit the TELUS website.
Disclaimer: I am a #TeamTELUS advocate and have been compensated for my post. However, all opinions are honest and my own.