Case Study: Is Technology a Scapegoat for Poor Customer Service?

I recently wrote an article about technology, electronic signatures in particular, being used as a scapegoat for poor customer service. Just days after publishing the article, I spoke to a consumer who had recently completed a real estate transaction (as a buyer) and was a perfect case study for this very topic! I'm going to share his story here.

Here's how it all began.

Buyer (indicating a thick stack of papers on his desk): Well, there's the paperwork for buying those properties I mentioned.

Me: Wait, what?

Buyer: The agent sent me the contract as an email attachment. She told me to print it out, sign it, and drive it over to her office.

Now, as you can imagine, I had quite a bit to say at this point.

One of my first questions was whether or not the agent had offered him the option of electronic signature. He said that she had, but that he was worried that if she wasn't present during the signing process, he wouldn't get any explanation about the document he was signing. He assumed an electronic signature meant that she wouldn't be present and a pen-to-paper signature meant that she would.

The irony is that, it didn't matter what signing method he chose, this agent was going to deliver absolutely ZERO customer service.

I asked him, "If you had known that, no matter what you chose, the agent wouldn't be present during the signing, what would you have chosen?"

He said, "I would absolutely have chosen electronic signatures. I hate that I just wasted a bunch of paper and I still have to get in my car and drive 15 minutes to and from the agent's office."

I love being right.

Read the original article here: "Is Technology a Scapegoat for Poor Customer Service?"