How to deal with the evil salesperson

Any customer support representative can testify to the ongoing feud between customer support and the sales team. What I’m trying to say is we don’t like them either. However, it is, for the most part, not their fault that they cause problems in the business/customer relationship.

First, start off by understanding that the vast majority of salespeople are not trying to mislead you intentionally. Salespeople are not typically as well versed in a product as customer support is. Their talent is selling – something not a lot of support people are good at. They are taught by their superiors to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy. The result of the lack of knowledge and the want to please the customer is often what leads to trouble.

What happens is you, the customer, will ask a question that the salesperson does not know the answer to. Rather than appear unknowledgeable, which is a knife in the back of any potential sale, the salesperson will agree to any function of the product that sounds reasonable. They’re going to bend over backwards to make sure that a customer’s wish list is fulfilled, so they automatically assume that support will do the same. When customer support sets more realistic expectations your automatic reaction is betrayal and irritation.

So what can YOU do?

Immeadiately Call Customer Support

As soon as you’re done with the sales person, ask to be transferred to customer support or call them yourself. Find out the real deal, and clarify all the points your salesperson told you. If you’re not getting what you’re comfortable with, cancel then. No hard feelings.

It is highly unlikely that your salesperson will be involved or even interested in your account after the initial sale, so lean on customer support for any promises the salesperson might have made.

Consider the following scenario, which happens all the time at my current place of employment. I work at a company that provides website hosting and a site building program, among other things. Sales people often provide an exorbitant amount of help to the clients initially. If we were to continue to provide support at that same rate, our monthly fee would be much, much higher.

In that scenario, at no point did the sales representative lie. All the services promised can be provided, they just provided it at an expedient rate to enhance customer satisfaction. Remember again that this department has a very different mentality than other departments – so they don’t immediately see why there is, and should be, a difference in service.

Find Out About the Company

The most important factor here is how long they’ve been in business. If the company has been around for a fair number of years, you can bet that they’re doing something right with their product. Mind you, this doesn’t automatically mean that the product is right for you, but at least you should feel assured that the company as a whole is not in the game to deceive their customers.

Read All Contracts, Written Material and E-mails

Remember these things are provided to you for a reason. At least skim them. See if you see any discrepancies from what you understood or if this information raises any additional questions. If either is the case, don’t call your salesperson back, call customer support.

When to Complain

Of course, there are those representatives who are lying outright or at least lying out of ignorance. The sales department, by far, has the biggest turnover of any department no matter what company you’re looking at.  This is partially because it is a breeding ground for dishonesty, which is weeded out as quickly as possible, and partially because the environment is not something most people can enjoy for very long.

When you do hear an outright lie from a salesperson, bring it to the attention of that person’s superior. There’s no need for anger here, as it is usually an honest mistake. Ignorance can and will be corrected over time as the representative grows with the company. If the representative is dishonest, they will soon be unemployed.

Identity Crisis

This is aimed at the innocent identity thieves who casually identify themselves falsely, all in the name of protecting a friend or family member from the aggravation of the customer support call. We, as customer support reps, vow to do everything we can to thwart your foolhardy, if altruistic, attempts.

Identity theft prevention is serious business, both for you, the customer, and for your customer support rep. Like anyone else, I know how frustrating it is to try to take care of a problem for someone else, only to be met with wall after wall, leaving you to cry to the heavens, “I was only trying to help!”

We know, but so are we.

One and One Make Two

Perhaps the most frequent of transgressors in this area of innocent identity theft are the spouses of the customer on file. This is business. All that flowery poetry over being two halves of the same whole only works over a candle-lit dinner or a passionate embrace. You may share an address, a last name, even that nifty toaster oven from Aunt Sue, but one thing a married couple will never share is a single identity.

Of course, there are different levels of security. You can probably get away with getting information from a cell phone plan under your wife’s name, but certain things like credit reports and credit information are an entirely different story.

I once had a woman e-mail me requesting information from her husband’s credit report. Of course, I politely refused, and explained to her that sensitive information like this could only be retrieved by the person. She repeated her request with increased fervor, telling me numerous times that with her marriage, she and her husband were one person in the eyes of God.

Finally I replied, I am not God. I can only give Mr. Bill Smith’s report to Mr. Bill Smith.

She called me a self-righteous bi-.

Okay. I understand that in most relationships, a husband would have no problem with a wife perusing thier personal information. An errant credit card debt is not what I was protecting in this case. Think about it this way. I had received an e-mail from a person identifying herself as Jane Smith. E-mails aren’t exactly difficult to get a hold of. There are countless free services letting you register almost whatever address you could think of. An e-mail baring the same last name as my customer tells me nothing. What if it wasn’t Bill’s wife Jane, but a true identity thief fishing for information. Sitting on the other end of a computer terminal, I have no way of knowing.

“Max … or is it Maxine?”

If you are one of those people with an ambiguously gendered name or voice, I’m truely sorry. Nothing can be more aggravating than someone calling you Mam when you’re a sir, or refusing you access to your own information because you don’t sound like Mr. John Brown.

The fact of the matter is, on a daily basis most customer support reps will get a fair few calls from male voices for a female’s account, or vice-versa. To us, you’re just a voice on the phone. No matter how infuriating it may be, there will be times when your rep will have to deny your request pending more information. Honestly, I would rather risk offending you and protecting your private information, than giving it out with the possibility I’m giving it to someone you wouldn’t want to have it. Annoyance aside,which would you prefer?

Tips For Account Set Up – Protect Yourself Before We Have To

• Don’t let someone else set up your accounts for you. Remember that to a company, the customer on file is who they’re going to protect. So many problems arise when someone who was once just trying to help becomes someone with the perfect tools to harm. A Realtor let her partner set up her website for her. It was his credit card on file, his name on the account. She paid him each month instead of us. When they parted on bad terms he locked her out of her account. Though it was her who put all the work and money into the site, we had no choice but to protect him
• If you know there are people in your life who are willing to make a phone call for you, and who you trust let your company know as well. Most companies have the ability to list authorized contacts for the account, saving you and your helpful partner time and frustration.