Complaining to Life Science Companies

Go figure. Get screamed at, blamed, cursed out and hung up on, and you may just be one of the lucky people whose job has been dubbed the “2nd happiest profession in America.” (I’ll get to #1 in a minute. You’ll love this.)

According to a recent survey from job site CareerBliss.com, customer service reps rank extremely high in their satisfaction with their jobs. Number two, to be exact. Why? They get to talk to people and they tend to value their co-workers.

I guess it helps when you can tell your side of the story to the person sitting next to you, and you can count on your co-worker to take your side, even though the customer’s always right.

But in an ideal situation, customer service and technical support staff are trained to diffuse tension and solve problems so that both parties win. And mastering the art of making the customer happy—without compromising a fair outcome—is a skill that top companies are willing to invest in.

Our upcoming market report, Customer Service and Technical Support for Life Science Products: Customer Preferences, provides guidance for life science suppliers who want to develop a culture of brand advocacy within their service departments.

How do scientists want to be treated when they have a problem with your product or service? What bugs them the most? Makes their life easier? We asked over 1,000 researchers to tell us how they expect suppliers to respond to calls, emails, IM’s and tweets for help.

Reflect on your own experiences with customer service (in any industry), and it’s probably your last experience with a given company that you remember most. (You know—it’s the one you’ve told all your friends about.) That’s why we’ve included a section where we asked respondents to give us the rundown on their most recent service event so that we can draw conclusions about what’s circulating now about major suppliers.

Scheduled to be released at the end of April, this report will provide insight as to which suppliers are performing well and which ones might want to make some changes. Suppliers will be able to use this research to identify best practices and maximize preferred channels.

Now. Guess who ranked #1 in the happiest professions survey? Biotechnology employees. So scientists can’t be too hard to please. Right?

Here’s a key finding from the report: