Blondie Knows Customer Service

"Call me on the line
 Call me call me any anytime
 Call me my love you can call me any day or night
 Call me. "
 -Blondie

Answering the phone matters.  It matters a lot.

But in today's Web 2.0 world, where the typical Web 2.0 office is "phoneless" - customers flounder in "email hell" - the very problem they were hoping to resolve with the vendor's software.

In typical fashion, one of our friendly competitors recently wrote a blog post extolling that "It's time to stop thinking that phone support is so essential."

The author continues to lament that "Phone calls require you to stop what you're doing, go to a quiet place, and concentrate."

What?  You mean, we actually have to stop what we are doing and focus on our customers?!

Offering an opposing, more refreshing view on the topic, our friends over at Freshbooks (a very customer service centric company that we admire and like a lot) responded via their blog why they DO ANSWER THE PHONE:

"I'll tell you the secret of why we answer the phone. Sarah is completely right: people don't expect it. When we answer the phone right away, we have proved we're a different kind of company. We demonstrate we put a priority on customer service."

Freshbooks is absolutely correct!

Small companies like Freshbooks and Central Desktop compete with large companies like Intuit, Microsoft, and Google on a daily basis.  For many of us, it's not our global brand that stands out, nor is it our billion dollar infrastructure, nor is it our super-star CEOs (well....) - what stands out is our passionate dedication to serving our customers the way THEY want to be serviced and supported.

Whether the customer wants to engage in a conversation via email, a forum, live chat, Skype or the telephone - we will accommodate them.  Customers and prospects can call us directly at 866-900-7646 and they will speak with a knowledgeable employee that uses Central Desktop on a daily basis - not an outsourced call center.

The success of our company and our product HINGES on what our customers want and need - and if they want/need to speak to someone on the phone to resolve their problem, then we are there to help them. There are countless times that a 2 minute phone call is a thousand times more efficient than playing email ping-ping back and forth just trying to determine what version of browser the client is using.  Harkening back to Freshbooks, it is a small company's desire to provide an Extraordinary Customer Experience that separates them (and Central Desktop) from the Web 2.0 noise.

For many companies like Freshbooks and Central Desktop - it's our desire to speak to our customers that sets us apart. We WANT to speak to our customers - not avoid them.

It's easy to ignore your customers desire to talk to you.  It's easy to hide behind an email.  It's easy to only work four days a week (nevermind that your clients work 7 days a week).

But that is exactly why we answer the phone - not only because people don't expect it - but because it's the right thing to do and it's not always easy to service customers with good customer support.  It is difficult to drop what you are doing and concentrate on helping your customer on the phone.  It's not easy to do - but it's the right thing to do - and people don't expect it.

So, the next time your Gmail is down, try calling Google; or try calling Intuit about your Quickbooks installation; or just try to call 37Signals when Basecamp goes down.

Good luck.  Let us know how it goes.  You can even call us directly to tell us via the phone.  We'll be here.