15Seconds WebLog

Expectations When E-Mailing Customer Service

My bank's Web site offers both an e-mail option and phone number for contacting them. I decided to send them an e-mail. Three days later I finally received a reply, which I could have received almost immediately over the phone ( I know I could have called in the meantime).

I was annoyed because I figured if customer service is going to offer e-mail as a contact option, then it should be nearly as quick as a phone call. It seems offering an e-mail option and not replying promptly is worse customer service than not offering an e-mail option at all.

I'm sure there are scenarios that are better suited for e-mail exchanges than for phone calls, but the bank should go the extra step and provide customers with expected e-mail response times or idea usuage guidelines.

Were my expecations unreasonable? Was a same day reply too much to ask?

I have sent plenty of customer service e-mails and have received plenty same-day replies (as well as a few no replies), so I figured my expectations were not unreasonable, especially for a (smaller) financial institution.

 

Posted: Aug 26 2004, 02:49 PM by FifteenSeconds | with 7 comment(s)

Comments

Alan Yeung said:

E-mail's like voice mail of phone, it's kept in a "storage space"..

Therefore, you can't expect them to respond quickly unless only one e-mail can be received at one time or there're more than enough customer representatives...

Maybe the implementation of instant messaging designed for customer service will help.... let's wish..
# August 26, 2004 3:25 PM

Andrew said:

Thats nothing, i emailed Acer about my laptop, and it took them 3 weeks! I didnt phone them because i actually forgot about it.

Also, this PC hardware website, i ordered a tv card off it, and wanted to return it. It took me 2 weeks from sending an email because the auto matic system online was broken, to sending the item back. About 10 emails from representitives were exchanged, it was ridiculous.
# August 26, 2004 3:28 PM

mike said:

Dunno, email is inherently asynchronous, so I guess I wouldn't expect immediate response. Same-day response is actually pretty good, I think. My experience has been mostly next-day response at best.
# August 26, 2004 9:15 PM

petal said:

if you get quick feedback from email to any large organisation (other than an autoreply) then I'd say you were lucky. My ISP doesn't have any public email addresses - instead via the web site you log calls in a 'Contact Us' app. At any point you can then check on the status, and updates are automatically emailed to you. This has many benefits for all concerned - no email address to be spammed, user categorisation of the subject via hierarchical selections, easy assignment of tasks to staff, automatic customer updates...

personally I hate email and would rather see everyone implementing this approach.
# August 31, 2004 9:20 PM

15Seconds said:

This weekend I visited a site where it stated responses to e-mail inquiries will take two days.

Simple enough. That's all I ask.
# September 13, 2004 10:44 AM

TrackBack said:

^_^,Pretty Good!
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# March 26, 2010 10:39 AM
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