After some discussion with work colleagues, I have now realized that Kamado Joe, Akorn, and Masterbuilt have effectively ended phone support and all use the same crappy email system and forms for customer support. I mean, I knew all three companies were owned by the same company (Middleby) so this is somewhat expected. MB customer support wasn’t the greatest and I am a bit more annoyed that $1k-plus smokers are now being handled under the same subpar system.
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Last edited by STEbbq; June 10, 2023, 08:31 AM. -
I agree that a tiered support system based on product line makes sense, but their bean counters must have decided this path was worth the risk... with the rapid expansion of AI products at the corporate level I suspect many industries will be going to chat only or at least chat first customer support
I was bummed when Amazon did that, but after a rough start I've been very pleased with 90% of my chat help interactions. Hopefully the chat function those grills use will evolve to something beneficial and not a burden, though I do wonder...
The hardest interaction I had with the Amazon chat was I got a mini fridge and the door was all dented to heck. The fridge still works, I just wanted to know if I could get JUST a replacement door.... (after contacting the manufacturer first who said Amazon handles their stuff unless I wanted to purchase and extended warranty LOL) we went round and round and multiple different tech support folks... I was just trying to save them money and me time from a full refund and reorder... eventually I got a phone number and the person understood what I was trying to ask for and I got a significant refund in lieu of a new door. The chat folks wanted me to rebox and take this fridge to a shipping company that we do not have here in my area (so 3 hour round trip) so I was satisfied with the eventual result but it was frustrating.
The worst chat/email support I've ever used is RockAuto, there is no way to get ahold of them for anything other than a return. I needed an oil filter for my car, they were significantly hard to find at that point and going for over 300 bucks on ebay for a 20 dollar filter at one point. RA got some in, picture showed an O ring, filters came without an O ring... there was zero way that I found to explain this to anyone at RA with their archaic system (that particular item, missing parts option in their automated system wasn't cooperating) and my only option was return or exchange, neither of which was an option for me as the item was sold out by the time it was delivered... all I wanted was the O ring kit sent to me for free or at very least at a discount.
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I agree Amazon support is excellent but 90% of the time I am asking for a return or exchange which is easily done.
Typically, at least for my smokers, I am trying to troubleshoot and work through an issue or figure out what part to order. So the back and forth is much more suited to phone and the chat people always take 5 minutes to reply, presumably because they are talking to 20 people at once. It bugs me a little.Comment
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And now I just realized PK Grills was primarily emails too. Ugh. I guess my expectations for phone support is too high. At least Primo has a clear phone number.Last edited by STEbbq; June 10, 2023, 09:53 AM.Comment
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Disposable society=cheap as possible. I run the business to business inside sales LOB for a very large national company. I own the inbound, and outbound calling teams, e-commerce, and BPO (outsourced stuff). I have intentionally kept the e-comm and BPO departments very small, and focused on the human to human voice transactions. Get ridiculed by my peers about operating cost all the time. I also whip their ass in sales and profitability. We remained not only profitable, but also above budget since I took the position mid 2018; than includes during the pandemic. Only department that has been. Something to be said about human interaction, and actually building a business relationship with your customers instead of a one night stand, and never supporting them again. Oh and I also run it with the lowest marketing bill in company history. Don't get me wrong, it's my people and not me that make it what it is, so not tooting my own horn. I'm just a glorified facilitator.Last edited by texastweeter; June 10, 2023, 10:46 AM.Comment
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Do I get extra points for being the only person sitting in a room full of Italian suits in jeans, pearl snaps, Justin boots? They all have 2 cell phones, a laptop, and ipand on the table in front of the. Me, a stetson, chief tablet, and #2 pencil. They say redneck like it's a bad thing, lol. -
texastweeter It’s the way real success looks in Texas. I wore ironed Levis, an ironed Wrangler shirt, usually white, Anderson Bean boots, a Nocona belt, and a black camel hair sport coat to work all spring and winter. I put the jacket away for summer. I didn’t wear a hat. I’m too tall, it’s made getting in and out of the pickup a hassle. Granted my area was from Wyoming to south Texas, this form of dress is very common there.
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They can all learn from Apple. I just switched to an iPhone. Their customer service is fantastic. As a matter of fact, they give free classes on how to use their devices. Amazing.
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The flip side of this is to have a product that doesn't need a lot of support esp because the basics are F'ed up.Originally posted by texastweeter View Post
When i started my career in software it was in tech support and as part of prepping for the next release, I and another senior support person looked at the calls we got. Fully 25% were install related so we went to the dev lead for the next release, got all of the install error text and wrote new ones for with directions on what to do if you saw an error. For example, instead of something like "Not enough space to install" we showed that and below it "Please clear at least X space on your hard disk."
Support calls related to installs dropped a lot and we saved $1m in support costs in the next year.
The problem is that phone support doesn't scale - if you get a certain number of calls and the average time per call is X, you can figure out how many people you need. Get more calls? Need more people (or you make people wait longer). BUT... if you just look at what people are calling about and then fix that in the product you can provide phone support without needing a ton of staff because they're not answering calls about problems that shouldn't exist in the first place.Last edited by rickgregory; June 11, 2023, 06:41 PM.Comment
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Agree 100%. While we don't handle support, we bust our ass and I start fires on people's desk until issues get resolved. I will say this, I'm in an industry where at least 50% is operator or end use error, plus we get blamed for everything. I find that taking the time pre-delivery and explaining what is in and what is out of our scope helps, also we ask that when an issue arises they contact their sales partner prior to tech, many times customer education fixes it before they have to talk to tec -
"I'm in an industry where at least 50% is operator or end use error, plus we get blamed for everything"
That was some of what caused the install issues for us way back when - telling people "Not enough space" would mean to US (software folks) that we needed to clear some space. But for normal folks esp way back when, that wasn't intuitive. Just telling them what to do helped. And the clearer messages helped support if the customer did call in.
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Very few companies are doing pure AI chat support right now (and those that are have Giant Buckets of Money to throw at it).Originally posted by ItsAllGoneToTheDogs View Postwith the rapid expansion of AI products at the corporate level I suspect many industries will be going to chat only or at least chat first customer support
The vast, vast majority of chat support sessions are pre-populated with very specific questions/answers before sending a user to a human agent for better assistance (assuming that the company has a chat product that integrates with a human-operated system). They may also have fantastic back-end integrations that take the place of a Human Agent looking at an account and determining what actions need to take place. It's not AI, just really really good coders and systems behind the scenes.
A good pre-populated chat system will have enough variations on what it recognizes/responds with/backend integrations to be helpful enough to avoid sending a customer to a person.
While AI is going to be a part of various Support systems in the future, it's too early in its lifecycle to throw AI into the current conversation.
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understood, just hate answering the questions to get to a live rep. Have you tried our website? Or when none of the questions fit your question. I guess it’s quicker done on chat then on the phone. On the phone you have to listen to long winded questions that don’t apply. I’ve had reasonable success with chat.
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Well, this move away from phone support is not isolated to the big guys.
I *know* I spoke with SNS Grills when they were still Adrenaline BBQ Company, about my SNS Deluxe Kamado, at some point in 2021, because I was having trouble with the top vent, and they sent me a replacement. Their phone number was on the website, and on the cover of my printed manual for the kamado. I was interacting last week with someone either here or in the SNS Facebook group, who was having trouble with their new grill, and had not gotten response from an email to SNS Grills for several days, and I started to throw out a recommendation to just give them a call. Then I looked and sure enough, the website support options have been scrubbed of phone numbers. Email is the only support path now with SNSGrills.Comment
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Honestly, as a first line of support, email is OK coupled with a very clear and up to date FAQ on the website. "Hey, the [PART] I got was bent." - that doesn't really need a live call. But...
1) the email turn around needs to be very timely
2) If it's something that does need live intervention, the company should email back ASAP and say "This sounds like something we need to talk about, call us at (or "we'll call you...)"
3) They need to track common, easy to fix issues and work to eliminate those. If people are emailing that [PART X] is broken a lot, they the company should chase down why that's happening and fix it.
Sadly, too many places view support as a cost center, not as a potential sales and marketing vehicle. I still tell people about Thermoworks just sending me a new Smoke when mine started acting up because it likely got moisture inside of it. Even though that was likely user error, they shipped out a new $80 product. I posted about it here at the time and recommend them elsewhere (and I'm talking about it here again). I'm betting they covered that $80 several times over by now.Comment
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