Prof IDs Types of Ticked-Off Customers

...which kind of customer are you when a company does you wrong? KSL had an article about a professor that identified three different kinds of ticked-off customers.

Utilitarian: just wants the problem fixed. Don't bother saying "Sorry," that might even be construed as trying to buy off the customer with emotion.

Oppositionals: aggressive, see the interaction as a battle. Give them options, let them feel victorious.

Relationals: all about the relationship. They want the "I'm sorry," save the compensation for after the apology.

Thinking back to three (more or less) recent experiences with big-name companies (T-Mobile, Comcast, and USAA Insurance), I think I fall into the Utilitarian category. Each time, I simply wanted them to refund me a incorrect charge, a month's payment for the month I was without service, and an incorrect late fee (respectively). I measure how sorry a company is by how willing they are to correct their mistake.

Utah Community Credit Union and Customer Service

Even more important than the number of problems a particular company gives you is the speed and convenience with which they solve those problems. Think about it--if you had a company that you only had one problem with, but it took two months, a dozen phone calls, and the sacrifice of a goat to fix the problem, how would that compare with a company that gave you five problems but solved each one with a two-minute phone call?

Let's consider three companies:

Comcast, T-Mobile, and Utah Community Credit Union (UCCU)

Comcast: caused me lots of problems trying to get installed (do they want my money or not?!). Each time, I had to call and spend 15 minutes on the phone trying to explain the problem, then having to hear that the earliest they can schedule help is a week away. Three weeks later, the problem is fixed, but I have to make another serious of incredibly frustrating phone calls to get the billing fixed now. Customer satisfaction: non-existent.

T-Mobile: charged me a $30 fee, apparently a legitimate fee that the service rep forget to tell me about. Took one phone call, required a transfer to a supervisor, who then promised to call the service rep to double-check I was telling the truth. Supervisor couldn't contact the service rep, so went ahead and refunded the money. Great, but had the potential to turn nasty if the supervisor had actually contacted the service rep, and the service rep got scared he'd get in trouble and claimed he had told me about it. Anyway, problem solved. Customer satisfaction: good.

UCCU: charged us a late fee on a car-loan payment because the teller deposited the money in our checking account instead of loan account. Required a couple phone calls, and we had to do some digging in our transactions to find the day and error, but there was no need to transfer us to a supervisor, the first guy on the phone we talked to accepted our explanation and refunded the service food. Customer satisfaction: very good.