Wow, another chance to write a non-ranty blog post! I love it!
With Miss 7 at home on school holidays, I’ve been running some errands with her in tow. Today I had two great examples of customer service from the most unlikely of places – the Family Assistance Office and Westpac bank!
1 – Insider tips from the Family Assistance Office
After submitting a Medicare refund claim in person, I popped across the room to talk to someone about a Family Assistance claim I’d submitted a month ago. The actual submit process was great – it was all done online and, as I’m already a client, they’ve got all of my details on file already. No need to visit a service centre. But while I was in the neighbourhood, I just thought I’d check up on it. Robyn at Strathpine confirmed that it was in the system waiting for someone at their end to action it, and I didn’t need to do anything else. She said if I hadn’t heard within 2 weeks, to phone them. And then she leaned forward and gave me an inside tip “Phone the call centre & leave your mobile number for a callback, don’t sit on hold in the queue. Don’t let your phone leave your side for the next 24-48hrs. When you see a Blocked number calling, answer it. Our number is always blocked & we don’t call back a second time if you miss us. That will save you having to come back in here on the school holidays with your daughter.”
Oh my gosh. I’ve been let in on the secrets of the Family Assistance Office because, wait for it .. it will make my life easier. Are you sure this is a government department? Can someone please promote Robyn, quick?!
2 – Let me help you
Needing a copy of a missing credit card statement that was no longer appearing on internet banking, I phoned Westpac who directed me to the form on their website I’d need to fill out and drop into a branch. Good service right there that met my expectations and enabled me to prefill the thing instead of doing it once I was at the branch. Dropped the form into anyone in a Westpac uniform, not at my home branch, which happened to be Scott at Strathpine. Scott actually said that if I had a minute, he’d check his system to see if he could pull up the statement. No such luck, but bonus points for trying and he assured me he’d get the form faxed to Cards right away.
Now you know what normally happens here, right? You wait three weeks and nothing happens until you phone the branch & they find an envelope that’s been waiting there for you for two weeks that no-one called you about. Ah, not this time. The very next day, Scott phoned me to say that Cards had faxed back my statement directly to the branch, and since he had my email address on the form, was it ok for him to scan and email it to me. Was it ok? Too bloody right it was! He actually put two and two together and thought ‘I can save my customer the inconvenience of having to come back into the branch’. Scott is now my favourite person in the entire banking industry and I’m transferring my massive wealth to be under his management (just as soon as I’ve amassed said massive wealth).
So listen up Telstra, Vodafone and every airline ever. Just because you are a big brand with a shocking reputation doesn’t mean you can’t have fantastic employees who actually act like the customer is worth taking care of. Us customers might actually enjoy that, stay with your brand & recommend you to others! Imagine that!
-SCuffy