 |
 Feature Article: Maintaining Superior Service |
| A
Complaint Is a Gift Why not take complaints from everyone? The only likely complaints that Coca Cola receives about its soft drink products is when customers order a Coke in a restaurant and get a flat Coke from a fountain. It's certainly happened to me dozens of times. And I always wondered how one would complain to Coca Cola. I've always just complained to the restuarant where I was eating. Turns out there is a way. You can call a 800 phone hotline in Dunwoody, Georgia. That operation fields about 10 million calls annually both from restaurants themselves and from people drinking Coca Cola products (mostly fountain Coke). Coke uses a sophisticated computer network staffed by 500 people in Dunwoody. When a restaurant calls about a fizzyless Coke, live call center representatives are normally able to get immediate assistance out to the restaurants with malfunctioning fountain spigots. This is undoubtedly one of the ways that contribute to Coca Cola keeping its Customer Service Satisfaction Index customer service numbers at extremely high levels. Now, the restaurants that serve Coca Cola products have noted the effectiveness with which Coke handles its complaints. They are beginning to ask Coca Cola to do the same complaint handling for them. It's a matter of scale and experience, which Coke has and many of its restaurant customers simply don't have. Coke representatives answer the restaurant hot lines lines with the name of the restaurant the customer is calling about, so customers never know they are talking to a Coca Cola representative. Coke software provides the call center representative with information about the specific restaurant the customer is calling from, and also gives suggestions as to how to answer specific complaints. Finally, Coke generates reports for its restaurant customers, so the specific restaurant can implement quality improvements. It's a
nice partnership, and will also more likely keep these
restaurant chains stocking Coca Cola products! It's just
another reason why it never hurts to be proactive with
complaints. Janelle
Barlow, Coauthor
Note: We have been getting e-mail from our readers asking us to list the names of the companies who get complaints. Our policy is to never list names. The reason for this is because every company fails from time to time, and we wouldn't want to tar some company's name just because of one bad example. Furthermore, we are dependant upon the writer's side of the story. We don't know for sure what happened, and in the name of fairness, we will not post names. Furthermore, the purpose of this corner is not to pass complaints along to corporations. This Complaint Is a Gift corner is designed to look at examples of good and bad complaint handling so we can learn from these experiences. Please, if you have a direct complaint you want a company to learn about, contact them directly. In many cases, we have never heard of the company in question and have no idea how to reach them. Janelle Barlow |
||
      |
TMI US tel: 702 939-1800
Copyright © 2005, TMI US |
Previous
"Complaint Is A Gift Corner" pages: