Angela Recommends

RANT: I’m grinding my teeth over this one. If you have 1ShoppingCart (or 1AutomationWiz, or any of the other sister sites that 1SC supports), you’ve probably seen their new announcements that “premier” customer service is going to cost you an extra 35 bucks a month. What????

I should pay that much every month in order to be first in line when I only call them three or four times a year? No way. I should be put on the back burner and wait ten years for a service rep if I don’t pay it? That sucks.

Now let’s look at Zappos. Ever heard of them? They started out selling shoes. Now they have a full palette of products, and are planning to expand out indefinitely.

Their entire platform is highest-possible quality customer service. That’s it. They absolutely bend over backwards to provide the most outrageously good service that their customers become avid, loyal, lifetime customers. Obviously that includes quality products, else how would their service work, right?

I watched a video the other night where the owner was talking about this. He gave several examples of how customer service agents had gone not the extra mile but the extra 100 for people. He said that, in most companies, the average call-time for a customer service call has to be 3.5 minutes or less–or the service rep can get fired! Fired!!!! For helping the customer? How stupid is that? Hello?

Back to 1Shopping Cart (1SC). It has a pretty good hold on the shopping cart sector. I’ve shopped around and tried to find other services that have as comprehensive sets of functions as they do. Nada.

You can get a mailing list/autoresponder at aWeber (and others), but no shopping cart.

You can get shopping cart functions with Paypal, but no mailing list maintenance, email broadcast capability or affiliate setup.

With Clickbank, you get payment processor (it’s a great way to collect from credit cards if you’re a newbie with no credit card capability), but no mailing list, no way to conntect your affiliates–and a product price cut-off at $200.

Yes, each one has its own value, I certainly won’t refute that, but none of them has the all-in-one that 1SC does. That’s really the only reason I stick with their service.

So, you’re already paying 99 bucks a month for 1SC’s full service, and they plop another 34 on top of that just to be first in line when you call for help? Sucks.

Well, it isn’t really even the amount that bugs me. It’s that they have decided that I am either a lowly non-extra payer, or an elite come-firster. Why don’t they get it that if they treat everyone with great service, everyone will be loyal to them and want more servces? Now all they are doing is raising hackles and resentment.

Those of us who don’t like elitist categories are starting to look elsewhere for other services. Or even to elance.com to see if we can come up with alternate solutions. Big mistake, 1ShoppingCart. You’re going to gain more money per month at the cost of those of us who won’t bow down to the caste system. I’m supposed to jump up and down because, yay, now I can get first-rate, first-on-the-list service by paying more each month–when I only call them maybe three times a year? Are they nuts?

What I wonder is this: let’s see, 1SC has how many customers? At, say, the mid-range of 59 per month? Do I think they could afford to pay more customer service reps to do a better job without adding extra fees? Do I think that that kind of service would make for real customer loyalty?  Ummm–yeah. It’s like a 10/10 on the Duh Factor.

I would think that any business would want rabid, passionate, loyal customers (think Mac users, Zappos buyers, Virgin, etc.), rather than dissatisfied people who look to others for what’s not being delivered–whether it’s products, services or attitude.

How’s your customer service? Do you think of it as “having to handle” customers? Do you view customer service as a burden?

Or do you look at each customer contact, email or phone call as an opportunity to serve? Look at what you do, and how you do it. If you’ve been in Old Style thinking, I invite you to shift your consideration just that one click to the side to include happy, delighted, gracious customer services.

If what they say is true: We are All One, then that isn’t a customer out there. It’s you. Be good to yourself.

What do you think? Comments are open!

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