Why Does Customer Service Have to Be so Hard?

Lets just say that you are a tourist, and you want to simply find information concerning your recent trip to Greece, Athens, Salonika, or maybe an island in the Ionian sea. You type down the URL and you are redirected to a website responding to some ministry. There you try to find your way through a clutter of information, or an overabundance of links and other information, that are not relevant. And all this, simply for wanting to find some info on where you are going to spend the rest of your holidays!

If you are a tourist, I am sorry for you! If you are a student, I'm sorry too! But if you are a Greek, well....it serves you right!

What I am trying to say is this: We are solely responsible for the quality of a service or a product we enjoy.
OK, let's take it from the top.

The year is 1997. Internet was introduced to the Greek market and households. It was amazing! Now all of us nerds, headbangers, movie freaks, comic enthusiasts, could find a way to retrieve more info on something we were interested in. It was a great time! But that was it. The rest of the Greeks had no idea regarding Internet solely because 60% of the population is consisted of old people.

Although the rest of the world was advancing in the particular field exponentially, Greece took one step at a time. Some official agencies, like the ministries, the IRS, airline companies made the first step into shifting part of their business onto the Web. And slowly but steadily others followed.

One of my instructors in the university once said to me:

"There are three categories of people in this world. First, there are the ones who initiate change. Then there are those who observe change and embrace it, and strive to support it. And then there are those who remain ignorant to change and continue living a parasitic life."

At this point, I have to say that I agree 100%. There are leaders, followers and ignorance in this world. But it doesn't have to be this way. We make the parameters of our day to day living, of what we will do once we wake up, what we'll eat, drink, spend our lives with and so on and so forth. This has to be applied to the services and products presented to us.

There are things in this life beyond our control, mainly life & death, but there are things we can change or better so as to make our lives more meaningful and not to be suckered every other day.

Take for example something that happened in Germany during the so called 'economic crisis'. The price of milk went sky high for some time, resulting in lowered milk consumption by the Germans. What they did though was simply boycotting the super-market chains in order for them to cut down on the price milk. I mean imagine having to pay 1.50 euro for a litre of milk!!!

What they did was unprecedented, yet it sent a powerful message to corporations. Yes, they might be the ones in control, but their fate sets upon the hands of the consumers. Germans are an example of people who are informed and willing to take the risk to improve their lives, and not be 'used' by companies.

Having the above in mind, consider this: Since the emergence of the WWW in the greek market a number of companies dealing with Internet services (hosts) appeared and started battling with each other on which has the fastest connection, better service, better hardware etc. The result? A clutter of radio/magazine/tv ads every single day regarding a poor service. When I mean poor service, its simply because they don't live up to the consumer's expectations.

Ok, consider this: I have a contract with a certain company that claims 24Mbps 24-7. At first everything seems fine. But once you have a problem with the connection, or the modem, then your real problems begin. As an ordinary person, one would call the Customer Service department. Funny thing though, there is no such thing!
Customer Service department is non existent in Greece. Not just in Internet services, everywhere.

I mean you call them in order to present you with a solution and instead you are on the verge of a mental breakdown, simply because you are redirected to some poor employee who is just doing his job, but has no clue about networking or internet. You get asked the same questions over and over again, only to find out that you are simply tracing your steps back to when you have installed the thing in the first place.

What does one have to do in order to receive his money worth in service? Is that so hard? There are claims of people all over PC magazines regarding the poor service they receive from companies and Internet websites!
I'll present two different examples.

I once wanted to start swimming again, and I was looking for some public pool in the beginning, and then for a private one. Public pools are owned by the state and everyone can go, but are of lesser quality than the private ones. So I started looking for private ones. I found this one close to my home, which had a website. As always in Internet websites there is a contact field, to which you post a query or a comment. I simply asked if the pool is available to old athletes in need for a work out. I am still waiting for a reply, and its been 3 years.

The second example deals with a foreign website dealing with automotive parts. I simply asked whether it was possible to have a catalogue being send to my home address, since the website did not offer and online one. Not only I received a reply within working hours, I got also a link to which I could find an online parts catalogue!
Now THAT IS CUSTOMER SERVICE!

What I have written above about leaders, followers and ignorants, deals a lot with customer service. On the company side, there are companies who value consumers and their clientele, and strive to perfect the procedure by adding value to every day transactions the company has with its customers. These companies are being 'followed' by competitors who wish to achieve that level of commitment. And then there are those who do it simply for the sake of "good business practice".

On the consumer side, there are people who want and seek the best possible service to meet their needs. There are those who learn from peers about a website and the services it provides, and then there are those who just don't care because they do not trust the Internet and prefer do things in writing.

Regarding companies, we are the ones in power! When we feel that we do not get our money's worth we should make a statement. I mean, if you are not getting what you paid for, stop paying for it! Don't be a sheep! If a company is not able to fulfill your needs why are you still paying for it?

Why do we always have people insulting our intelligence?

In Greece in this time and era, there are some people who really try hard to meet the overseas competition, by providing better service, better products and overall having satisfied customers. But there is a lot more to deal with. In order to achieve optimal customer service on the Internet, the fundamentals of e-business, especially in Greece, have to be broken down, and built once more from the beginning. People must search for what is best for them and their "pockets". Being ignorant and accepting the way of things is not the solution, its the beginning of all wrongs in this world.....