There was a time when it was called "after-sales service / support" and the average consumer was happy just to have someone from the vendor's office pick up a phone or answer an email about a query / concern. Now, its just "customer service", and expectations have grown significantly. No longer is the average customer (or pre-purchase potential customer) content with having a toll-free number that's available 24/7.  No longer are email response delays over 24 hours tolerated. Ditto for wait times, hold times and the fluency of the customer service rep with the product / service in question. The bar's been raised, and then some.

 

 

Needless to say, not many are able to do that pole vault without falling flat on their faces. With consumer technology getting increasingly complex and ditto the average consumer literacy with the Internet and all its blessings (comparison shopping, newsgroups for rants and raves, pointed reviews and "hacks" available by the dozen), I imagine that "customer service" has gotten a lot harder. We, the consumers, have fickle loyalties, even shorter attention spans, trust a lot of potentially conflicting anonymous sources on a public medium and continually swim in a sea of media-rich marketing that's been nipped and tucked to fit our specific demographic. We love Cribs and all the bling we see in it, but we also nurture our relationships with those deal-seeking geeks on our buddy list who can send us links to those interesting "secret" deals that will let us flaunt some of that bling value without burning a hole in the proverbial pocketbook.

 

 

 

And then there's that touchy subject of outsourcing customer service that's best left to a quick reference. Everyone's got there little share of stories, and I'd rather let sleeping dogs lie.

 

 

However, with all the business intelligence and money being poured into making customer service a fun and friendly experience that will make for repeat business - I wonder if its working. Its been several months since I've heard anyone mention "great customer service" from any vendor - be it some esoteric online store or one of the good old brick-and-mortar guard. Calling customer service always brings out an involuntary groan from anyone who mentions it, and I see that there's a huge section of people who like to sit on the fence between interacting with an automated system and dealing with a human. They seem to like the quick automated experience, but don't want to forego the "understanding" effect of a real conversation with a real person. As most of us have realized the hard way, those two qualities being available as a cozy twosome isn't exactly as commonplace as smog in the civilized world.

 

 

 

Admittedly, I could be one of those fence-sitters. And as you could imagine what sitting on a fence would do, most of my customer service experiences are a pain in the rear that don't leave me with a smile of good cheer. (Alright, bad rhyme - but it got you out of that "get to the point, will you?" sneer, didn't it?)

 

 

Ergo, I don't call customer service too much. I figure that the hair I'll pull out and the teeth I'll gnash trying to figure out a solution and/or read the manual (my absolute last resort!) would probably be lesser than interacting with a customer service rep who'll try his / her best to adhere to a standard script while tryng to fix my problem - and probably fail miserably at doing both.

 

 

Thanksgiving evening, as it ideally should, brought a wonderful suprise -  in the form of a call to WalMart's Music Downloads customer service. I was having some trouble with moving the licenses for a set of songs I'd recently purchased from one computer to another (WalMart allows three "backups", so it was legit), and after following their FAQ till the time that my Windows Media Player told me in no uncertain terms that I had run out of the number of license-related requests for the day, I decided to call the customer service number that was indicated on the license-approval (or in this case, denial!) screen.

 

 

Fully expecting to wade my way through a plethora of voice menu greeting goodies, I settled in for a long wait and picked up the stress ball just in case. Seven minutes later, I got up and walked around - in awe of the fact that it had taken only that long for me to reach a live person who not only heard my problem but also understood and rectified it.

 

 

That's right - heard, understood and rectified. The big three of technical support. Done by a live person within seven minutes of calling a toll-free number a little after nine on Thanksgiving evening.

 

 

One could understandably argue that it was probably the best time to call customer service since nobody else was probably doing it then and that the lines were probably wide open. True; but, if my ears weren't deceiving me; the call wasn't offshored (that word again!) and even with time zones and everything - it was still Thanksgiving evening and a holiday for almost everyone in the country.

 

 

One would also postulate that I had a very simple question. Fair argument, but very unlikely. Also, license-related "stuff" with protected music files isn't exactly something one can solve at home - unless one is DVD Jon or some braniac like that.

 

 

 

I was impressed with the WalMart Music Downloads service before I called their customer service, and now I'm totally sold. Not only are their prices very competitive (translated - they're cheaper than almost anyone else based in the US, when it comes to legal music downloads), but they also get five stars for their Web interface, their mode(s) of delivery of the purchased content, their help documentation and their music library.  They've got some nebulous text on their website about their content not being iPod-friendly and I'd recommend a careful read if you do carry around one of those little overpriced bits of stringy eye candy. Since the only sentiment I have about the iPod is "iDontCare"; WalMart's unfriendliness towards iPod-friendliness meant nothing to me.  All I care about is that my playlist sounds great on my PC and on a CD, and it does - and that's that.

 

 

For those of you who scoff at WalMart and everything sold under its name; here's some advice from "The Millionaire Next Door.." - Live below your means. I don't read, but I do know that millionaires aren't made by unbridled discretionary spending.

 

 

There's also the painfully obvious fact - digital music is digital music is digital music. Buying it from any other music store isn't really going to get you "a better version". Ergo, the old adage of "you get what you pay for" is beginning to make its foray into the gray blur that we young 'uns call the digital (generation) gap.

 

 

Way to go, WalMart. You've got my vote!