This month the eNews is proud to launch a new feature – “Ask Charlie,” in which customers like you ask business-solution related questions of Charlie Kemmerer, MCG’s Vice-President of Front Office Solutions.

Question: My customer’s order was wrong – again! How can we keep track of who spoke to whom and what they really wanted?

Your Good Customer Joe got his shipment last Monday for that new project they just landed. The problem is, he ordered blue and you shipped pink. He called in when he opened the box and spoke to someone who promised to ship the correct color on Tuesday of last week. On Friday, when the new shipment hadn’t arrived, he called in again, talked with someone who wasn’t even aware that there was a problem who promised again to ship the replacement, overnight, that day. Well, it’s Tuesday and guess what? You’re still pink and Joe is seeing red.

Answer: So maybe Customer Service Sally took Joe’s first call, asked Ken in the warehouse to ship the replacement product. Ken called in sick and didn’t get the shipment out. On Friday, Freida took the call, but she handed in her resignation at noon and really didn’t care if Joe was stuck with Pink

What’s missing from this scenario are procedures for handling customer complaints. When the call came in, Sally needs to be able to record the complaint and an updated list of open complaints should always be available to the entire office staff so that anyone can follow-up or so that you, as company owner or manager, know who has called in and why. It would also be helpful to have an online customer journal that has notes from all contacts with the customer.

Just imagine that if you had these two simple systems. John’s problem probably wouldn’t have reached a crisis stage and you would have at least been able to go to one place to see who talked to him and what was promised. Or maybe Jim in Sales could have pro-actively called John before John called you, because Jim has access to John’s purchase history information and knows its time for another big order.

This system can be set up using readily available forms from your office supply center, or, there are several computer solutions that can be easily adapted for your industry.

Got a question for Charlie? Let us know