I know I sound like a broken record, but if companies would care about their customer service, I wouldn’t need to complain.
On Saturday I saw a product I want to buy, but I know competitive products had problems with the handle so I wanted to know if they keep spares. This company’s website had a ‘Chat on Whatsapp’ option, so I eagerly tried it. It had a pre-formatted message as follows:
“Hi, *Spare Parts*. Please can you assist me with:
(share as much detail as you can about your query so we can assist you in the best way possible. If you’ve reached out after hours or over the weekend, there might be a slight delay in our reply – but we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.)”
I waited until Monday morning because the was no point in sending the WhatsApp on Saturday when they say there will be a delay.
I’m supposed to delete the message and substitute my own so I typed
“Hi, Spare Parts. Please can you assist me with: Do you keep spares of the <product name>?”
Two and a half hours later I received this message:
“Good day. Kindly note that we only Supply spare parts for <brand name>”
I replied and said
“<product name> is a <brand name> product. R499.95 on your website.”
An hour and a half later I received this WhatsApp:
“Good day May you please confirm which spare part to want to replace on the <product name>”
I replied:
“The handle please”
Today is Wednesday and I have not yet received a reply.
This is a very large company, with a good brand name.
My usual thought is why would they not want to spend between R2000 and R4000 per month answering 95% of all customer and product queries saving staff time and giving hundreds and potentially thousands of customers an instant and 100% correct answer, even on weekends.
What am I missing?
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