Yahoo! email users appear to be the unwitting victims of a scammer posing as Yahoo Customer Service. Paradoxically, Yahoo customers' inaccessibility to Yahoo's customer service is contributing to the problem.
Users receive an email saying that they have to "verify your free yahoo account" or lose their mail box in two weeks. The sender asks for the customer's user name, password, date of birth and country of origin. I received one of these messages this morning. My suspicions were raised when I found two grammatical errors in the sender's email.
The irony is that users can't report the problem to Yahoo customer service. There is no way to easily contact customer service on Yahoo's website. I Googled "yahoo customer service" but didn't find contact information for Yahoo customer service there either. Instead, I found numerous posts from frustrated users venting about their inability to contact Yahoo customer service!
I don't mean to bash Yahoo. I've used their email services for years. There is, however, an opportunity to reflect on what "customer service efficiency" means. In the case of Yahoo, it means easy navigation of their websites, answers to frequently asked questions and host of other resources...but not the ability to talk with them live.
Is your customer service efficient?...for you or for your customers? Most companies' understanding of the customer experience is mistakenly limited to touchpoints. But, the customer experience doesn't begin and end with touchpoints. In fact, some of the most influential customer experiences happen when the customer isn't in touch with company, or can't be in touch. Yahoo is learning that the hard way.
We'll see how this potential scam plays out. In the meantime, if your company is focused exclusively on managing touchpoints with customers, watch out. The only way to understand the customer experience and make it better is by living in the shoes of your customers.
Jason Sherman is president of Whyze Group
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