My Quick Tip for Documenting Customer Service Issues with Companies

The Tip

When involved in an online live chat with a customer service representative, type the rep’s name in one or two of your responses. Their name/pseudonym (that may not always show up in the regular chat format) will be documented for your records.

Oh, the customer service experience. I’ve had a couple of marathon service issues lately with companies: the kind that required writing down names of representatives and keeping records of dates and conversations.

(And it’s summer. Children are present. We all know what it’s like trying to make a long phone call in such an environment.) I like to do live chats, when possible.) It’s not as simple to document and pull up the content of a phone call as it is a live chat (except for the company, of course).

The Why

During these lengthy customer service issues, keeping records of the representative/agents you dealt with is important. Companies have (seemingly on purpose) created such complicated, disconnected service departments that even when you have a case number, a new representative can’t seem to find the person you spoke with before.

That makes it hard to trace any progress (or lack thereof) on your issue.

Some companies will provide an option to save, print, or email the chat for your records (do that). I recently printed out such a transcript during my ongoing service issue, and noticed that the agent’s name was not on the transcript (it was visible during the chat). Odd, if you ask me.

However, everything the agent and I had typed during the chat was present.

During the second (and third) chat, I made sure to use the agent’s name in my response so that it showed up. And if the agent had a number or last initial, I used both.

When I emailed the chat, the representative’s name was present in the body of my responses: just the documentation I needed to have on hand. You know, for the next chat.

What tips can you share about ongoing customer service issues?

“service” image by geralt on pixabay. that documentation is simple.