I’ve previously ranted about the Lufthansa website. Trying to help out a blind friend obtain some assistance from Miles & More, the Lufthansa frequent flyer programme, I can confidently say that the two companies have a common origin and probably read the same customer service guidelines, which must be somewhat along the following lines:
- require your customers to fill out a web form by not providing any alternate contact information;
- make your website inaccessible to screen readers, so that visually disabled people cannot get in touch with you;
- require full contact data to be filled in before the contact form can be submitted, even if the customer is logged in and the system thus has access to all the data;
- auto-reply to ever form submitted with a mail that assigns a case number to your request, but provide no information on how to use that number: no link where I can inquire about the status of a case, and no means to post follow-up information;
- send this email from
do-not-reply@miles-and-more.comto emphasise how customer-oriented your company is and how well you have understood the potential of email; - when (if) you eventually send a real reply, send it from
service@miles-and-more.com, which gives the impression of a real email address, and quote the case number in the subject, along with the first line of the customer’s original request, like this: “Re: To Whom It May Concern (#17 (#1729700) / (#M1449889)”. For extra bonus points, use non-matching parentheses; - try to ensure not to take into account any of the data provided with the original request and prefer stock replies to useful content;
- do not give the name of a person, but sign the email with something like “Miles & More Service Team”;
- refuse all mails sent to
service@miles-and-more.comwith a note telling people to use the web form to provide feedback (with a cryptic link) and that your email is not being forwarded or read; - when the customer uses the cryptic link to provide follow-up to the open case, possibly under the impression that the reply will be associated with the original case, assign a new case number and ensure that another team member answers the email with pretty much exactly the same information as the last reply you sent. Under no circumstances assume that the customer has already asked a given question before and couldn’t make sense of or wasn’t satisfied with the answer provided in the last round.
- should a customer enquire about alternative means of contact, tell them they can send regular mail via the post office, and that you are sorry that “at the moment”, you cannot reach the company by email.
If you follow the above guidelines carefully and possibly add a twist here or there, you can rest assured that you’ll fit in quite perfectly with most of your competitors and companies in many other fields. You’ll understand that the customer is evil and you have to protect your company and your customer service staff from them, by making it extraordinarily difficult and inconvenient to reach them, and ensuring that they won’t get any further than the computerised guard at the front door. It’s not like they are your most important asset.
Interestingly, neither Swiss, SAS, nor Thai have read these guidelines. I hope they will never find them.
NP: Porcupine Tree: The Sky Moves Sideways
