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Average Time To Resolve Problems is Three Times Higher Than Customers Want (zdnet.com)
Businesses seem to be setting the bar for "good" customer service too low, according to a recent study, which could have significant business impact as the customer experience becomes even more vital as customers decide to buy. From a report: Boston, Mass.- based identity and access company LogMeIn recently released a study to analyze the business impact and consumer attitudes of today's customers and their journey to a sale. It surveyed over 5,000 respondents consisting of business leaders and consumers around the globe. Its 2018 AI Customer Experience study shows that over one-third of consumers were not impressed with their customer journey. Over four out of five (83 percent) of consumers citied an average or poor experience, saying that they had at least one issue while interacting with a brand. Conversely, 80 percent of businesses believe their customers would give them a favorable review -- even whilst admitting that less than half of customer queries are resolved during the first interaction. Two-thirds (68 percent) of business respondents agree that their agents struggle with the volume of customer enquiries, and 61 percent of consumers feel that it takes too long for an enquiry to be resolved.
Can't tell you how many times I've heard that and thought, hmm why not hire more people to handle a 30+ minute wait time. Or, how about you just tell me when you lowest call volume is and I'll call back then. But, somehow I think your higher than normal is actually your normal call volume.
Last time I was experiencing a problem I called 7 days in a row, with each new person assuring me they would be the one to fix the issue. Finally on the 7th day the last person told me to not call back as it wouldn't help resolve the issue. So I haven't called back. Instead I took it upon myself to resolve the issue and found an alternative solution that didn't involve their services anymore. Now that I have an alternative, they are calling me to ask if I'm still experiencing problem. The last call they made to me was awesome, "are you still experiencing problems", nope I canceled your service about a week ago, "[click]".
This, and the originating service or product likely has "scripts" for the outsourced individual to read. This type of thing is fucking awful for call centers. Scripts don't solve problem, they create more problems due to pissing both the caller and the call-center-staffer off. "customer service" is just that - performing a service. Whether or not the call center staff member says please and thank you, pretty sure nobody gives a fuck. They're not calling for someone to be nice to them they're calling for a real reason - to conduct business perhaps, or to solve a problem they're having. Sure being nice is an added extra bonus, but you know what? It is totally not necessary. Perhaps the nicest thing would be to: 1.) be very brief, yet as transparent as possible under constraint of brevity; 2.) never ask open-ended questions like "is there anything else I can help you with?" - the customer called for the reasons they already mentioned. stick to that. 3.) Launch your required business processes instantly. I don't give a fuck about the problem statement if you're not going to listen and then ask for my XX number or my YY username or some shit. Ask up front, guide the caller through the process, don't let them control the conversation; and 4.) don't apologize that's so fucking annoying and we know you don't care/mean it. Empathy Otter understands us and knows exactly how we feel, you the call center staffer should realize that we're not actually communicating with you and you don't have to care about us. You just have to do the job you were put there for, quickly, quietly, efficiently. Explain your actions before you take them, then take them, then explain the results. No cheery "smile while you talk" no needless empathy statements - wasting my time and your breath. Perhaps the best call center I talk to is the *gasp* state run health benefits exchange. No IVR menus, no robots to talk to, just you call and they answer.
Boston, Mass.- based identity and access company LogMeIn recently released a study to analyze the business impact and consumer attitudes of today's customers and their journey to a sale.
Journey to a sale?
Really?
Whats next, a caravan to a refund?
How about a junket to a recall?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Could it be that rampant, unchecked free market capitalism means that companies are employing less people to do the same amount or more work and customers are noticing?
Capitalism seeks profits. which requires repeat business. Don't confuse that with short-sighted greed. Without bailouts, short-sighted greed is a self-solving problem. You see this all the time with small businesses in the modern world of online reputation, where word gets around quickly if you cut too many corners. It's very much a world of "be as cheap as you can without the customer noticing" these days, for small businesses, as you can no longer get away with "as long as the customer doesn't notice until after I get their money".
Anyhow, it's just freaking stupid to under-staff a call center: increasing queue times pisses off customers and doesn't make it cheaper as all the calls still need to be handled. The only way you save money is if customers abandon the queue, which are usually lost customers.
You want the "depth" of the queue to be one call per rep. That gives you all the cost savings (no idle reps), and an expected wait time equal to the average time it takes to handle a call, which most people are OK with.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.