Author Archives: Jeremy Watkin

About Jeremy Watkin

Jeremy Watkin is the Director of Customer Service at Phone.com and co-founder of CommunicateBetterBlog.com (and on Twitter: @commbetterblog ); a blog dedicated to learning about good and bad customer service with the intent of providing awesome customer service for Phone.com.

Phone.com Tips & Tricks

Customers Can Now Block Number Patterns

by Jeremy Watkin

The Phone.com spam caller list is a wonderful feature that allows customers to block calls from specific numbers. This feature just got better! You can now block call patterns, which includes blocking an entire area code. Here’s a step by step guide on how to block a number pattern. For the sake of an example, let’s block all calls from area code 325.

 

Step 1: In your Phone.com control panel navigate to “Call Info” and then to “Manage Spam Callers List”

 

Step 2: Click the “Add A Number To Block” button.

 

Step 3: You will need to check the “Starts With” check box. You can then enter “+1325” which will block all calls from numbers beginning with 325. The note field is for your reference. Once you have completed that, click the “Add” button.

 

I told you it was easy. If you have any questions whatsoever regarding this new feature, our awesome customer service representatives are here to help 24 hours a day and 7 day a week!

New Feature Alert! Call Notifications Are Changing The Way Our Customers Do Business

by Jeremy Watkin

One of my favorite new Phone.com features is call notifications. It allows our customers the ability to receive an email or text message (SMS) notification upon receipt of an inbound phone call to a phone number and/or an extension.

I had the opportunity to speak with one of our awesome customers, John Savidge of Montron LLC. His company specializes in advertising campaigns via electronic media (radio and television) in the education and the medical, legal and automotive industries. They use Phone.com phone numbers in their advertisements and gauge the success of a campaign by the number of calls they receive.

Prior to the release of call notifications, John and his team would send a weekly report to their clients listing the calls that were received in response to a particular ad campaign. Clients would then call anyone back that they may have missed. The problem with this model is that any missed calls are missed leads and when addressed on a weekly basis, are likely very cold.

With call notifications, John’s clients now receive an instant notification of a call and have the ability to call that lead back while it’s still hot. John’s clients are happy, John is happy and Phone.com is happy. I call that a win-win-win!

Please check out our new call notification feature in your telephone number and extension settings. I saved the best part for last. It’s totally FREE! ALL of our customers can take advantage of it today.

You Can Now Tweet Phone.com Customer Service @PhoneComSupport

by Jeremy Watkin

If you are a Phone.com customer, are thinking about becoming a Phone.com customer or are simply looking for more Twitter accounts to follow, we have the perfect solution for you. Phone.com now has a Twitter account dedicated to serving our customers. Our new Twitter handle is @PhoneComSupport and you are welcome to follow us and tweet at us any time you have a question for Phone.com customer service or sales.

There are a few things that you can expect when you tweet at us:

1. Timely, well thought out responses.

2. Well-trained, fun, US-based customer service representatives.

3. An AWESOME customer service experience.

If we don’t meet or exceed your expectations I want to hear about. Actually, I love to hear any time we DO exceed your expectations as well. Email me at Jeremy@phone.com and I will respond to you. Finally, while we’re on the topic of Twitter, if you’re into following great accounts, also take a moment and check out our corporate account @PhoneDotCom and our customer service blog account @CommBetterBlog. We are committed delivering AWESOME customer service and this is another step toward achieving that goal.

Customer Service Matters

by Jeremy Watkin

I am currently reading the book “Start Something That Matters” by Blake Mycoskie, founder and Chief Shoe Giver for TOMS shoes. If you haven’t heard the TOMS story, very simply, for every pair of shoes they sell, they give a pair away to someone in need. It is truly an inspiring story and business model.

In the book, Mycoskie talks about how he takes every opportunity to share the TOMS story with anyone and everyone who will listen. He goes on to challenge the reader to first find what they are passionate about and says “If you organize your life around your passion, you can turn your passion into your story and then turn your story into something bigger—something that matters.” (pp 36-37)

As I reflect on this in my own work in customer service at Phone.com, I realize that I truly am passionate about customer service. You can talk to anyone around the world about customer service and they can rattle off three to five instances where they have received terrible customer service. I guarantee it. Terrible customer service is running rampant in our world but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Several months ago, we started CommunicateBetterBlog.com with two purposes in mind. First of all, to talk about ways we’re improving the customer service at Phone.com. The second purpose is to provide a meaningful and positive contribution to a world of customer service that so desperately needs it. Since starting the blog, we have had no shortage of ideas to write about and we can’t help but talk about what we’re learning to anyone that will listen. We are passionate about customer service and truly determined to raise the bar in customer service around the world.

May Your Experience Be Magical

by Jeremy Watkin

Close your eyes for a moment and think about a time where you have called a support line only to get lost in a sea of menus and voice prompts, leaving you to rapid fire zeros until you get to a human being.  Now think about a time you have spoken with said human being and they were either completely unhelpful or even worse, had a terrible attitude.  Undoubtedly you can think of countless instances where this has occurred.

In his book “Moments of Magic”, Shep Hyken (Twitter: @Hyken) teaches us that each encounter a customer has with our product, website and customer service is a moment of truth.  In that moment they will either experience a “Moment of Misery” or a “Moment of Magic.”  As customer service professionals, it is so easy to overlook the fact that the way we treat our customers can have a lasting impact on them both good and bad.

Since starting CommunicateBetterBlog a few months ago, I have become aware of the work of people like Shep Hyken and companies like Zappos and The Ritz Carlton who differentiate themselves from their competition with legendary customer service.  I thought it only appropriate to list some of the things we are doing at Phone.com to make your experience better.  From a customer service standpoint, one thing that excites me most is that our entire company is concerned about the customer experience.

  • Customer Appreciation: We realize our customers are the life blood of our business so we are doing simple things like sending notes of appreciation.
  • Listening To Our Customers: This is nothing new but we are actively listening to our customers.  We love feedback both good and bad.  If you share negative feedback, you WILL get a response and we WILL do something to improve.
  • Helpful Tools Like Fonolo: Did you know we have the Fonolo widget on our support page so you don’t have to listen to our hold music?  Fonolo will do that for you and call you when you are connected with an agent.
  • Better Website: Our new website was designed with simplicity in mind.  We want to make it easier for you to find the plan that’s right for you without the headache of spending hours searching.
  • Commitment To Reliability: Our chief focus in engineering is to build a system you can trust and we are excited at the commitment to continuous improvement.

 We understand that the power to make or break your day is a tremendous responsibility and we do not take that lightly.  We want every encounter with our product, website and customer service to truly be magical!