You may remember a year ago I had a serious problem with my Telco [telecommunications company], Telstra. [Read the full story here].
I had had a mobile phone plan with Telstra and been a loyal customer with them for thirty-five years.
My issue with them a year ago came about because I had started to receive SMS notifications on my mobile phone about having exceeded my monthly data usage on my plan.
The SMS messages were to tell me that they were going to be adding an extra 1GB of data at a $10.00 fee.
As I said, I had received a few of these notifications in previous months from time to time, but not so many as to be alarmed.
But on this occasion last year I received no less than nineteen of these notifications in about 160 minutes.
So I rang them, Telstra, and they informed me that the plan that I’d been on for thirty-four months was a little out dated….and also insufficient in supply….
They, Telstra, also told me that they were providing a better plan now, but they had never called me about it to let me know of its availability.
“That’s your responsibility as a consumer to do your research”
the lady on the phone said.
So I said:
“Here’s what I want you to do.
I want you to move me to this newer plan, and not charge me the extra fees for this month’s over-usage and for last month as well.”
She said:
“We can’t do that sir.”
Long story short, after much to-ing and fro-ing and a little argy-bargy on that call, I left Telstra and moved my phone and data to their competitor, Optus. [You can read all about that experience here.]
Fast forward to last week.
Last week I received an SMS from Optus informing me that my collective [shared] data plan had exceeded its monthly limit, [with fourteen days of the month still remaining], and that extra 1GB lots of data would be added as needed for a fee of $10.00 each.
Does this story sound familiar?
So the first morning, I receive three such notifications that an extra 1GB of data was being added to my account…..
I thought to myself that this next fourteen days could become a little expensive.
So I phoned Optus to see what I could do.
I thought I might need to upgrade to a larger plan.
Here’s what happened
After explaining my situation I was placed on hold for a few short minutes before my agent returned saying:
“I have good news and good news.”
She said:
“Firstly David, for being a long term loyal customer, we are going to GIVE you an extra 25GB of data this month and next month too, just in case you run over, which will take you to the end of your current contract.”
She then said:
“Also, because you are a loyal customer, we are going to remove the charge for the extra 3GB we have provided for you so far this month.”
I asked her:
“What sort of contracts do you have that I could upgrade to now?”
And she replied:
“Our contracts are continually evolving, so there’s no real point in looking at what we have now, as a better arrangement could well be available when it is time for you to renew in two months time.”
I diarised to check the Optus website close to the time of my renewal being due.
What a breath of fresh air.
I could not believe how seamless and pain free this phone call to Optus had been.
My agent was flexible and solution oriented, as opposed to my calls to Telstra a year ago which were aggressively uncompromising and penalty focused.
I felt as if I had died and gone to heaven.
Ask yourself this question.
In your dental practice, are you solution focused?
Do you look for a resolution that will leave your patients and customers in awe, by providing them with outcomes that they never expected was possible?
Why not have your team look at all of the things that could possibly go wrong during your patients’ visits to your dental practice [called Service Defects], and then have them collectively brainstorm all of the best possible outcomes and solutions [called Service Recovery] that they could initiate seamlessly to WOW and amaze your patients.
When your patients and customers are left feeling nothing less than special, and are in awe of your processes, then you can truly congratulate yourselves on creating World Class Customer Service Experiences.
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Linda Miles is coming to Australia in August.
Don’t miss this once in a life-time opportunity to see and hear Linda speak first hand…
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Make sure you subscribe to my monthly Dental Water Cooler Podcast Series…. “The Ultimate Patient Experience”
Click on this link for all details
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Have you read my book , How To Build The Dental Practice of Your Dreams [Without Killing Yourself!] In Less Than Sixty Days.
You can order your copy here: Click Link To Order
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The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me at david@theupe.com
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