Learning From Your Customer's Experience (The Series)

The consumerist.com is an amazing website for people like me who love reading about and tracking what real customers are saying beyond customer satisfaction surveys. In the past years, I loved how the guys and girls behind consumerist.com have concisely presented customers' cases from the strange to down right stupefying. Overall, I'm just entertained by these customer's stories as well as some very clever/funny comments they get from actual readers. We all know that in one case or another, both parties on each end of the phone line think the other one is stupid. In most cases, it is just a matter of common sense. Let me cite you a couple examples of submitted stories to consumerist that had me entertained during the weekend.

Case no. 1: Verizon CSR tells customer "Faster DSL WILL BURN your house down"

I know for a fact that several of our call centers here in the Philippines have Verizon as a client and I was chuckling at the possibility this CSR was a Filipino. I hoped not.

It was a frustrating story about a customer wanting to upgrade his current DSL plan (expired contract BTW) from 3MB to 7MB for just a few more dollars. He/she went through several CSR's from several different centers comfirming and not confirming he would be and he would not be able to do such a thing. All of the CSRs he spoke with could not explain why he couldn't upgrade to 7MB with his existing subscription while new subscribers/customers/accounts in his area CAN avail of this speed. Confusing already? I thought so too.. The last call he made was the time when he was told of the "bad" news. The lady CSR told him his wish to get a faster DSL speed will set his house on fire and burn it to the ground! He ended up not being able to upgrade and eventually canceled.

My verdict:

For the CSR/s: The blame for the inability of these CSRs to inform this customer of an honest answer as to why he can't upgrade to 7MB falls to the people who lead/manage these CSRs. From an neutral standpoint, it does seem absurd that he cannot. He is willing to pay extra and he has been a long-standing customer. Whatever reason there may be, the supervisors/managers must be able to convey and clarify this reason to CSRs. The CSRs on the other hand must be able to tell the customer why he isn't able to do so.

For the customer: I can't believe he went through 7 separate calls to several different CSRs and not be able to think outside the box. Since he was told he can't upgrade to 7MB with his current subscription and while new customers/subscribers CAN avail of the 7MB he wanted, why didn't he just cancel his service (which BTW is not under contract anymore) and just open a new one! How hard could that be? He already lasted 2 years with his current DSL plan with Verizon. Why not start a new one with a better speed? The same also goes for the 7 CSRs who spoke with him. They should have been able to suggest or (if not allowed) imply to the customer about this "out-of-the-box" idea so everybody goes home happy including Verizon.

The biggest loser in this case is Verizon I must say. The series of calls ended up with one less customer instead of 1 happy loyalist. ( Check out the full story at consumerist.com)

Case 2: Chase Executive Customer Service Drops APR From 26% To 9%

 This story is a simple one by a Chase credit card customer who couldn't handle the interest rates on his debt. To cut the story short, "normal" customer service wasn't able to work with him in lowering his APR. He was able to scour online and find the contact details of "Chase Executive Customer Service" and finally work out a deal that was more agreeable to him.

This is a typical disaster waiting to happen in my opinion. Why have a "normal" customer service and another separate "Executive Customer Service." The simple reason why you put people in customer service is that you want them to resolve customer's issues at the first call. If companies don't empower their front-liners to help customers out as much the "Executive Customer Service" people could, what purpose would they serve then? Its not as if customers will pay extra just to be served by "ECS" and sure there are special circumstances that require meticulous attention to certain cases but having an ECS defeats the purpose of actually having a customer service hotline for all people to call. Just imagine if this ECS becomes "popular" and every Chase customer gets to find out about them... there would be no one else calling the "normal" customer service hotline. Furthermore, their Executive Customer Service team would be pulling their hair off because of the long queue of customers waiting for resolution in the trunkline since their contact details are now open to the public online. On a side note, apparently HSBC also has an Executive Customer Service department. :)

My verdict:

For the CSRs: In general, I'm sure some Chase CSRs wouldn't mind difficult cases to be redirected to a ECS but IMHO it really defeats the purpose of just being there. We want our customer service people to be empowered with the same abilities as a ECS department has. If not empowered with the decision-making ability, they at least should be able to quickly reach a decision-maker themselves to resolve the concern and provide better customer experience. I maybe missing something here but in general and based on my years of experience in CS, this is not a good strategy. We have Macky here from Chase and maybe he can shed some light on this. :) ( Check out the full story at consumerist.com)

This is just part one of this Learning From Your Customer's Experience Series and we'll be featuring some more unique albeit entertaining customer service issues in the days to come. Please keep reading and visiting callcenterblogger.com.

Posted in: CallCenter Issues