FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK WALL

When you need to deal with Customer Service, in many companies, the brick wall response is too often the norm. While I’ve almost always managed to get where I need to be within a company to resolve a problem, it’s getting more difficult. There are more barriers to resolution than in the past. But, walls can be penetrated if you use the right approach.

Howard uses Open Table to make restaurant reservations. We’ve now accumulated over 20,000 points from our reservations. We should be able to use those points to obtain restaurant gift cards. In the past, it was easy. There was an online or customer service path to simply obtain a general gift card to use at any restaurant in the program. No more—now, you have to specify a restaurant and the company doesn’t make the redemption process easy. Last week, Howard decided to redeem points. He went on the Open Table website and couldn’t find any way to do that. He called Customer Service. The number rang with no ability to connect to an agent. 

What can you do when you hit a brick wall? You can go rogue and work the internet to find a way in. I started by looking for information about the company. I found that Open Table is owned by Booking Holdings. So now I could Google to locate executive headquarters for Open Table or for Booking Holdings. I also Googled executive staff for both companies to find specific executive names. Searching a little more, I found email addresses for executives at Open Table. Because it’s difficult to know who ultimately has responsibility for dealing with customer problems such as ours, and it’s sometimes unclear whether the executives listed are still with the company, I used the shotgun approach and sent an email to several executives at Open Table. I thought that with multiple names, I had a higher likelihood of reaching someone who would respond. In my email, I briefly explained the issue. I asked that someone pass the information on to a staff person who could address the problem. Within 10 minutes, Howard received a call from a knowledgeable agent who resolved the issue. Great! A hole in the brick wall!

I’m not sure why customer service seems to be getting worse. Part of it may be COVID related—people have gotten used to virtual connections and working from home, so that real customers and real service become more remote. Staffing patterns have changed, as has staff training. Finding ways to increase company revenue often means decrease in customer service. And civility is often out the window. Whatever the reason, while it may be more difficult than in the past, there are usually ways to penetrate the brick wall and resolve service problems.

FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK WALL—THEN BREAK THROUGH IT

OR BETTER YET:

MR. CORPORATE—TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!