Has T-Mobile Customer Service Taken A Turn For The Worse?

After T-Mobile’s loss of the JD Power Customer Care award and a continuously growing stream of emails regarding unusually long wait times we begin to wonder just what exactly is going on with T-Mobile’s award winning customer service department. Well someone’s ears were ringing as two sources answered our question with a confidential look at what could be to blame. We’ve received two pieces of information that give us at least some form of an answer as to why T-Mobile’s customer service seems to have dropped from the top spot.

The first is related to the above image as T-Mobile has removed the ability to bypass the automated calling systempass Go and collect $200 instead requiring the customer to input a phone number to properly route the person to the correct place. T-Mobile says it’s taking this step in order to properly route customers and better answer of questions. I say its just another step in ensuring longer wait times by placing customers into a longer queue.

The second is a little more detailed and something we have to be a little more selective on our word choices as we were asked only to post certain things. The short version of the story is that in the past 12 months T-Mobile call centers have seen, in some cases a drastic reduction in staffing, outsourcing and as of late a drop in morale as almost every center believes they are closing when the AT&T deal finalizes. While call volume remains steady, reductions in staffing have lead to very high hold times and a whole lot of customer unhappiness. Our inbox speaks to that. Some call centers have seen reductions in staffing by the hundreds since early this year with some centers looking to further cut staffing as 2011 continues. In fact, some employees responsible for training new employees in the United States call centers are now being sent overseas to handle increases in staffing abroad.

So is T-Mobile looking to downsize ahead of the merger or are they looking to cut costs with outsourced service centers? Either way there is a clear indication that something is going on and there is something behind the recent spat of disappointed loyal T-Mobile customer complaints about lengthy hold times. We’ve begun to really hear a large number of complaints from our readers about call wait times including one reader, Anthony who has tried over the last 5 days just to get someone on the phone and has waited at least 45 minutes each time being unable to do so. Anthony has called from his T-Mobile phone and a desk phone without including his own number.

We’ve been unable to confirm all of the specifics contained within our ninja info but we have no reason to suspect it is incorrect based on the information we are hearing from everyday T-Mobile subscribers who are finding more and more calls being handled by overseas agents. For the moment we are growing increasingly concerned about the direction T-Mobile is headed as we begin the countdown to the AT&T takeover decision. Slowly but surely it looks like the T-Mobile we know and love is becoming the AT&T Death Star, even if the deal doesn’t go through we wonder what a post AT&T takeover talk T-Mobile would look like.

Via: http://www.tmonews.com/2011/07/has-t-mobile-customer-service-taken-a-turn-for-the-worse/

Allgood Appraisal Group

Rich Allgood of Allgood Appraisal Group visited MedCom at our office to say thanks for all the great service we have provide him and his company.

"I have been a customer of MedCom's since 1994. They have always given me excellent service."

"The best part is their professionalism. It makes me look more professional."

Blackwell Memorial Home discusses their long relationship with MedCom

Betty Davis from Blackwell Memorial Home, a 10 year customer of MedCom, sits down to talk about some of her wonderful experiences with MedCom. Check out the video below.

"My clients they were very happy with the answering service and the quickness of their reply and getting in touch with me."

"I think they are very friendly and very willing to do anything I ask them to do, sometimes over and above what their requirements are."

Their professional services have been a great help to me."

Harris Comfort speaks to the Quality of MedCom's Service

Check out the video of Harris Comfort speaking to how MedCom has helped their business grow by providing excellent service over many years.

"We've been in business for over 50 years using at least other answering services before MedCom. They're the ones that have been the best of them."

"The experience has been very good, and I can't even remember a customer complaint."

Coming soon: Call centers that don't suck

Just about every consumer who has dealt with a call center has faced the frustration of navigating through an unending sea of menu options or waiting eons to talk to a human being only to wind up with the least helpful employee.

Those annoyances and inefficiencies wear away at customers' satisfaction with the company they're dealing with, and that can ultimately cut into the company's bottom line.

But all is not lost. Real help may be on the way.

A new service developed by IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) and specialty insurance provider Assurant Solutions (AIZ, Fortune 500) plays matchmaker between customers and call center reps. IBM's service, called the Real-time Analytics Matching Platform (RAMP), connects customers with the call center employee best qualified to serve their individual needs.

Currently, most call centers only match an agent's availability and product mix expertise with the customer's particular product, making it an inexact science, to say the least.

"It's a little bit of a crap shoot regarding who you're going to talk to when you call a call center," said Toby Cook, analytics practice leader at IBM Global Business Services. "We combined our expertise in contact centers with our analytics to take it to another level. It's like speed dating for contact centers."

How it works
When a call comes in, RAMP instantly pulls up data about the customer, including past purchases and previous calls. The system then cross-analyzes that data with the skills of each call center agent.

Finally, RAMP uses its so-called "matching engine" to connect the customer with the best-suited agent within an acceptable amount of time.

For example, if a customer were to dial into a wireless company's call center, RAMP would be able to determine what phone the customer has, how much he or she uses it, what features the customer uses, and other identifying factors like the customer's age. The service would process all that information and match up the customer with a representative who has had past success with others who fit that criteria.

Traditional call centers might treat all customers who own the same BlackBerry models the same, but that can fall short when it comes to providing the best help. One BlackBerry user might be a global business traveler, while another user might be on a family plan and like to send a lot of text messages.

IBM's technology daily measures call center reps' success with a number of factors, including the number of customers they convince to stay with the company. RAMP also determines long-term success: some customers may be convinced to stay with the company after speaking to a rep, but then call back later to cancel.

All of RAMP's analytics are done in a matter of seconds. And since the system matches the analytics with data about customers' acceptable wait-time thresholds, IBM says the time customers spend on hold has either stayed the same or, in some cases, improved.
A success story

Though RAMP only became commercially available in the past few weeks, it has been through about six years of testing.

In 2004, Assurant Solutions took note of its call center issues and developed the analytics-based routing technology that underpins RAMP.

"We took data that has been there for a long time, but hasn't been exploited,' said Cameron Hurst, director of Assurant Solutions. "There haven't been a lot of new ideas in call centers in a long time, but we think this is a new angle on an old business."

Though IBM's version of the system is enhanced and portable, Assurant's more rudimentary system still had a drastic impact on the company's sales figures.

The help desk
Assurant determined that matching customers with the best-suited call center agents for their needs not only improved customer satisfaction, but it also boosted the company's sales. After the first year of using its new technology, Assurant's revenue from its call center rose 29%, and sales through customer retention grew 37%.

The system improved Assurant's call-center attrition rate too. As the system matched up call center reps with situations they would succeed in, agent morale improved. Like at many call centers, Assurant's call center reps are paid on commission.

"The more customers they save and the more they sell, the more money they make," said Hurst. "The system has a knack of delivering the right customer to the right rep, giving the reps the highest opportunity for success. They love it, and it has resonated very, very well with our customers."

For the original article, please click here.