{"id":2117,"date":"2017-09-25T00:02:41","date_gmt":"2017-09-24T21:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/?p=2117"},"modified":"2017-09-25T09:14:11","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T06:14:11","slug":"the-word-of-the-week-is-online-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/the-word-of-the-week-is-online-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"The word of the week is <i>online customer service<\/i>."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Much customer relations work is currently done through online services. Customers connect with an organization<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>via chat, Twitter, Facebook, and email. These<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>electronic channels are excellent when everything works. This, however, requires skilled\u00a0personnel and effective back-up systems. A recent experience with Finnair<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>inspired me to create this<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>wish list for online customer service:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The mission of customer service is to solve the customer&#8217;s problem.<\/li>\n<li>A quick answer is a plus, but it needs to move the issue toward a solution.<\/li>\n<li>Acknowledging a service error online benefits<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>the company.<\/li>\n<li>If online service has a bug, a customer&#8217;s report should lead to action.<\/li>\n<li>When operational problems occur online, customer service needs tools that can resolve them in real time.<\/li>\n<li>Friendly messages and phrases lose their credibility if the issue doesn&#8217;t get resolved.<\/li>\n<li>You can&#8217;t solve a<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>service problem by offering movie tickets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What&#8217;s behind this list:<\/p>\n<p>I bought a flight on Finnair from Helsinki to Montreal. I wanted a seat next to my travel companion and was prepared to pay for it. However, it turned out that this was a so-called codeshare flight, the kind that two airlines sell as it involved only one carrier rather than each handling only part of the trip.<\/p>\n<p>I learned that on Finnair&#8217;s website I could only reserve seats on Finnair flights. They offered a link to British Airways\u2019 seat selection. I completed the BA forms only to learn \u2013 on the last page \u2013 that they couldn&#8217;t accept my credit card. I redid the forms twice and tried three different cards. No luck.<\/p>\n<p>When I reported the problem to Finnair&#8217;s customer service, the representatives responded kindly but could not<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>take action &#8220;because it&#8217;s a codeshare.&#8221; I sent British Airways an e-mail only to be informed that it wasn&#8217;t the fault of their service. After trying again, I phoned BA&#8217;s customer service, where an agent took the details and promised to take care of the reservation. She ended up telling me that the seat was reserved, but five minutes later I got an email: &#8220;We could not charge your credit card.\u201d Argh.<\/p>\n<p>I gave up, but sent a description of the online service\u2019s snafu to both companies and asked them to fix it. Finnair responded in a self-evident way (&#8220;If the reservation can\u2019t be made in advance, we will assign the seat number at check-in&#8221;). British Airways sent a ten-page questionnaire and only later noted the defect in its system.<\/p>\n<p>The essential point was that neither airline resolved the matter despite numerous contacts. Finnair&#8217;s interest in the problem seemed to evaporate once they got their payment.\u00a0If online services do not work, the airline providing the service should be responsible for handling the issue or informing a passenger in advance that\u00a0certain services\u00a0are not available on codeshare flights.<\/p>\n<p>My return journey started with American Airlines. At check-in, I asked \u2013 without any hope for success \u2013 whether it would be possible to reserve seats for the connecting flights. Surprisingly, I got the seats right away. When I praised the customer-friendly service, the agent replied, &#8220;That&#8217;s what they&#8217;re paying me for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Finnair:\u00a0hint, hint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Much customer relations work is currently done through online services. Customers connect with an organization\u00a0via chat, Twitter, Facebook, and email. These\u00a0electronic channels are excellent when everything works. This, however, requires skilled\u00a0personnel and effective back-up systems. A recent experience with Finnair\u00a0inspired me to create this\u00a0wish list for online customer service: The mission of customer service is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-english-en","category-wordoftheweek-en","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2119,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117\/revisions\/2119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}