Customer Service

Make That Customer DISservice!

Problem? Find the number to call for customer service. Enter the number, enable the call, and be prepared with a jar of Xanax and the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, for your journey into the bowels of Hell has just begun!

Your first robotic prompt is whether you'd like English (press 1) or Spanish (pulsar dos). Then you're informed to listen carefully as their menu has changed. You listen, carefully, the vast menu of prompts sweeping by without anything that remotely matches up to the reason you called. So, you press 0, hoping to get the operator. Nice try. The menu prompts begin once again, so you press #. ##. ###############, but the blathering recording continues. You decide to wait until the end, and then you hear " . . . or remain on the line to speak with one of our customer service specialists." You acquiesce, and the horrible music begins. Actually, the music isn't bad, but the degradation of quality from the initial recording, filtered through their system, through your cell phone and into your ear turns it into a CIA torture device. This audible abuse is interrupted by a recording telling you that their agents are all busy helping other customers, but your call is very important, so please wait on the line. After about four or five minutes of this you hear the phone ring, and a person speaks! You've just won the lottery! Or at least it feels that way, you imagine. You hear her voice, but her words are mashed together like Thanksgiving yams, and all you understand is Thankyoufor . . . . . HowcanIhelpyou? She said her name, but you neglected to bring your tape recorder so you could tape it and then listen to it in a slower speed. No matter, you start to tell her your troubles with the company, and she tells you she understands and she's sorry you're experiencing whatever it is you're experiencing and she can imagine how frustrating that must be for you. But, you know she doesn't really get it, she's handling you with what has become the current standard for problem resolution. 

I could keep going, but I think you get the gist. Customer service is anything but. It's become less about servicing the customer and more about overcoming objections and conflicts. Allow me to explain.

Conflict resolution has become big business in the USA. Management Consultant companies have successfully sold corporations on the idea that the best way to remain profitable is to best learn how to handle customer complaints. The operative word is "handle" and this is what we experience. 

Does this sound familiar?

• Repeat the complaint. (Just so I understand, your new non-leather simulated rubber-soled shoes have caused your feet to emit excessive odors?)
• Apologize. (I'm sorry you're offending people with your stinky feet.)
• Empathize. (I understand how having smelly feet can be a problem, especially in social situations.)
• Inquire as to the customer's expectations. (How can we help you with your smelly feet problem?)

 You've been handled, and you keep being handled, for their primary objective is to defuse your anger as opposed to genuinely helping you. So, you ask to speak with a manager. Sometimes you'll be placed on hold again, until a supervisor comes on and handles you some more, only this time with a more authoritative approach. And on and on it goes. You may as well be speaking with the customer service representative in the moon. (See how I tied the graphic in?!)

 

There are exceptions. There are some companies that will go out of their way to ensure your satisfaction, or you may get lucky and connect with someone, in a bad company, with a great attitude and the temerity to push the procedural fundamentalists to step outside of the constraints of the script. That's when you know someone is truly working with your best interests in mind.

 

Businesses have reached a crossroad. The direction they take now will determine their future, for as technology grows exponentially, so does the savvy of the consumer. Keeping customers on hold for five, ten, fifteen minutes, telling us they can't help us, bouncing us from department to department all contribute to customers defecting to other companies. The businesses that hire and properly train ample and capable personnel and maintain a corporate culture of the customers being their strongest assets will realize a loyal and dedicated foundation of satisfied clients.