When we grant someone “the benefit of the doubt,” what we usually mean is something like, “Ok. We can’t prove your highly dubious tale is a lie, so we’ll let you slide this time. But don’t do it again!” But from a customer service perspective, what is the benefit of “the doubt” i.e. accepting the […]

One of the first things you can’t help but notice in Colombia are all the vendors sitting in parks or street corners in plastic chairs handing out phones to customers to place a call. They are hard to miss since they sport lime green or orange vests, splattered with the names of the three major cell-phone […]

They say Corporate America has no sense of humor. Are “they” right? Find out by following Write The Company—a consumer humor blog consisting of crazy consumer affairs and customer service letters about everyday products, services and brands … and what the companies behind them had to say about it.   Every Thursday, Zengage brings you […]

When passengers learn that their return flight has been canceled and their plane won’’t be leaving the airport after all, it’’s a little like being diagnosed with a “terminal” condition. Stage 1: Denial. You can’t believe this is happening. Then anger: telling the gate attendant in no uncertain terms that you have to fly out this […]

WeightWatchers members are an obsessive bunch. This Zengage writer (and on-again, off-again WeightWatcher) once heard a woman at a meeting ask the WeightWatchers leader how many Points are in a Communion Host. The woman (who was completely serious) wanted to make sure she counted the Host at Sunday Mass so she wouldn’t go over her […]

“Your call may be recorded to ensure quality customer service.” Pretty much every call to a customer service help desk starts with this greeting—so commonplace these days that it nearly fades into the dial tone. But is your call in fact being recorded, and is that really ensuring quality customer service? According to call center […]

Ok, let’s just go there. There are lots of different ways to think about customer service, but at the end of the day, we all know what people really and truly care about: getting the job done as quickly and painlessly as possible. So, what if customers had the option to pay cold hard cash […]

There’s a funny little dual occurrence that I’ve been witnessing lately. Just the other day I was at the airport, waiting to check-in on a flight. There were half a dozen or so people waiting to use the online check-in kiosks and almost none waiting at the counter with a real person on it. The […]

In the current economic climate, total brand collapse has become a fact of our existence–the last year alone saw the collapse of brands like indie culture mag Paste and beloved design mag Domino, while the mega-green Elephant Pharmacy closed all of its stores in 2009. This list could go on and on. For repeat customers who enjoy the […]

Love your help desk. That’s been the Zendesk tagline since day one. Phrased by my co-founder Alexander, it really nails what Zendesk is all about: After so many years of bad customer support experiences, we wanted to give the world an opportunity to get great service experiences. From the receiving side, from the providing side, […]