Friendly Customer Service Useless Without Action

There's been a lot of discussion over the past few years about horrible customer service. I know I've experienced my share. Well I've seen some improvement in customer service at the companies I do business with, but I've bumped into a disturbing trend.

The customer service reps are super friendly over the phone and assure me they will take action, then nothing happens. That means I have to call back again, and again, and again.

I've experienced this with three different companies in the recent months. I'm thrilled to get a very nice person on the phone -- not the semi snarky ones I used to get -- they make me promises about solving my problem and then...nothing happens.

You need to make sure this isn't happening in your company. Have a quality control / quality assurance plan in place that monitors intermittent customer service calls and then follows the solution to completion. It's that simple.

It makes me more frustrated to get promises with no action from a company than it does to get a crabby customer service rep who follows through.

What are your thought? Is this happening to you too?