The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

I was dealing with East Link which is a cable company based out of Atlanta. I was calling to cancel one of the packages on my digital cable because there were a bunch of channels that we weren't really watching.

So I called to do that and the women that I reached on the phone told me that if I added two other packages I would be in a different category and instead of paying ten dollars for this extra package, all three would now cost me seven dollars. So the price would drop and I would receive a bunch of additional channels (some of them were kind of interesting).  I thought it was neat that she had a lot of product knowledge and she turned it around from me wanting to cancel to me wanting to buy. She then started to tell me about their phone service and I had just had a bad experience with the local phone company. When I talked to her I found out that their phone package was about 40% less expensive then the local phone company but had all the features, 24 special calling features plus a whole bunch of other stuff and now my price would drop even further. So I signed up.

She took a really bad experience, with me about to cancel and turned it into me actually buying more products. I probably saved 40% overall in terms of what I saved on my phone service plus what I saved on my cable bill. So it was a great experience and I remember it to this day, and I've recounted it to several people. I told her because I usually tell people if I've had a bad experience and the same if I've had a good experience. I said I don't know who you are but this is the best experience I've had with someone in a call centre on the phone.

Harold Hutchinson - Founder & President, Genticity

The good experience that I had recently was working with Moguls Mountain Travel.

My wife and I, and our 19 year old daughter were going skiing right after Christmas and we weren't sure where we were going to go, and Moguls had been sending me flyers and e-mails. I went to their web-site and found the perfect package.

I went to Tahoe to Squaw Valley and arranged the trip and we were all set.  We got immediate notification back from Moguls and we were all set. We then got a follow up e-mail with things that you need to think about as you go, and things that you need to pack. Then I got an e-mail that said "I know that we said on our web-site that we had a free shuttle from Reno to  Squaw Valley but it turns out that isn't true, if there is any thing that we can do, maybe we can arrange a car for you." I said if there is no free shuttle then I'd rather stay in Tahoe the final night, so through e-mail I sent that back. They said that normally they wouldn't be able to do that because their cancellation policy doesn't allow it but because of this mix-up here's what we've done we've set you up in a hotel the following night and here is a link to one of our travel partners to do shuttle service. This was done all through e-mail and all in a 24 hour period. It was a wonderful experience.

It ended up being a great vacation. It was between two large snowfalls. It was perfect ski in ski out, and now that I've done it I wouldn't do anything else. I referred Moguls actually 2 days after I returned to Terry Murphy (my boss) and he used them and had a great experience as well. Patrick on his trip got hurt and wasn't able to use all of his ski tickets and they said no problem we will take care of it all. They have a great web experience to perchance, and a great e-mail for customer service and finally by phone. I prefer e-mail, and I'm not sure I would have that ability with other companies.

Mike Sheridan - Director, Global Product Marketing & Strategy, Concerto Software

The experience that I am going to describe is a very positive one; it is with a company called Pause (they do the moveable storage facility). This company used a real multi-media approach in staying in contact with me throughout the whole process. It involved not only phone contact but e-mail contact and they were regularly in contact with me the whole process.

They also did something that I thought was really unique; they sent me a survey after every customer interaction. They were really intense in knowing what my reaction was to how I was being treated by the company and by their individual people, in both cases it was a pleasurably experience.

They also did something that I thought was really unique; they sent me a survey after every customer interaction. They were really intense in knowing what my reaction was to how I was being treated by the company and by their individual people, in both cases it was a pleasurable experience. We were getting our house ready to sell and so we needed to move a bunch of stuff out to make it a little bit more paired down and what they have is a mobile storage unit. What they do is drop it in your driveway and you fill it and they come and take it to their central store facility. It is really a great business concept. My first contact with them was over the phone. They have a strong web presence and operationally they are very much on the web, so a lot of the interaction switched over to the web in placing my order and things like that, but the subsequent follow up's were with their customer service people over the phone, and they were fantastic. They sent me e-mails after every stage of the process to insure me that things were going well and to ask me to fill out a survey form to see how things were going.

Overall it was just a really great customer service experience. The biggest thing that stood out as being great was not only asking me for feedback but just asking me in general how things were going. It wasn't just that they dropped off the box and asked did that go okay? Then they came and picked it up and asked the same set of questions. So it wasn't just at one point in time, because this is a process that evolves over a couple of weeks there was a lot of interaction over that period of time. I found out about the company probably from just hearing about it or seeing the trucks drive around, but after that experience I would recommend their services, not only because it worked well but because there was very positive customer interaction experience.

Larry Leikin - Vice President Sales & Founding Partner, VoiceLog, LLC