SmartyCard Blog

As a part of our 2010 product planning and development process, I’ve been sitting on the front line of SmartyCard support.  The exposure is incredibly valuable.  Most requests are fairly simple, and our customers are very sweet and funny.

We’ve been having a number of issues with the delivery of physical rewards, and we’re likely to discontinue offering those rewards in the near future.  But, here is the really interesting thing that I’m noticing — people that call our phone numbers and leave voicemails are generally unaware of how to facilitate their needs by providing relevant information.  Here are some general customer support tips that should work for anyone calling into a customer support service.

When placing a support call, be prepared to leave a voicemail that includes these simple customer verification hints:

1. A phone number is good to include in a voicemail

2. It’s also good to share your name, along with the correct spelling of your name.

3. If you’re contacting a web service, you probably want to be ready to type or say the username-password combination that you provided in the sign-up process.

4. If you can remember, let support know when they might be able to reach you by the phone.

At SmartyCard, we can pretty much solve anything if we have these bits of information.  We can even solve your support issue without giving you a call back.  I know the above information looks like a “no brainer”, but if you’re in a hurry, or you’re not in front of your PC, it’s very easy to forget these basic bits of information.

You may have noticed that most web services are basing their account creation off of email addresses — even if your login is verified by Facebook Connect login.  At signup, SmartyCard creates a username from your email address.  People tend to forget this, or simply don’t know that it’s important to include an email address when calling or email support.  In some cases, I’ve had 2 and 3 voicemails from agitated customers requesting simple actions like, change of address, or reward delivery check or changes to billing information. Sadly, these agitated customers end up apologizing after we’re able to call or email back.

In these instances, the customer did not leave anything that would help SmartyCard look up their account status. Of course, any customer can make simple account changes by simply logging into their account to  edit their child’s account (two clicks) or change their own account info (two clicks).  But, frequently, paying customers simply pick up the phone and dial the number associated with SmartyCard on their credit card statements, which is actually not the fastest method for getting results.  And, in all honesty, I’m pretty surprised at what I hear in voicemails.  Some customers have recited credit card numbers (in part and in full) and social security numbers.

With my recent support experience, I wanted to share a few tips on what kind of information is generally NOT helpful for support of web-based services, thus wastes everyone’s time:

1. Your credit card number.  We don’t actually handle this information.  In fact, very few premium web services actually handle this information — for the most part, web services have ecommerce billing and transaction partnerships.  Most employees of web service companies, including support agents, aren’t allowed access to these partnered systems because of data security and sensitivity of credit card information.  So, calling and sharing this information in part or in whole is not really helpful to a support agent, and it’s probably not the safest thing to do either.

2. Your social security number.  Generally, you want to keep this number private and not repeat it or put it into any kind electronic message.

3. Information about your children.  Your children have created usernames with SmartyCard, and you can review those by logging into SmartyCard or referencing system notifications (emails) from SmartyCard.  We’re happy if you just want to refer to your kid as “username”. That’s really all we need.

4. Email or transaction numbers related to a specific system notifications or transactions just don’t help us.

5. BONUS: Physical addresses are generally useless, unless you’re calling about a delivery.

Final thought on how to get satisfaction quickly: Customers are generally unaware of how a web service information hierarchy is built and the way customer databases are structured, so here’s a quick way to quickly know which bit your personal information is the key piece when initiating a support interaction.  User account information  — usually usernames, or in some rare instances user numbers — are the key to getting service quickly.  The support people on the other end of the phone or email/web form need that information first to look up the rest of your information.

For the customer the way to think about support is to always remember your primary use of the service you’re contacting.  If I call my voice or sms provider, the first thing they ask me to do is verify my phone number and my identity, because they’re a phone service.  When I call my bank, the first thing they ask me for is my bank account number and then they ask for the last four digits of my tax payer ID, because they’re a bank.  If you’re calling or emailing a web service — especially one that communicates via email, be ready to provide your email address.   If you’re calling your insurance company, you’ll need your policy or group number, followed by your social security number to help verify your ID.  I think you get the picture.