Surviving Customer Support
Hello – This is Customer Service. How May I Help You?
When the product is fine, customer support is not needed and the customer support base gets reduced. When the product has issues the customer support base becomes stretched and the agents come under pressure.
Customer Support Expenditure Is Always Low Priority
No organisation spends more than it has to on customer support so the agents are often relatively low paid and overworked. This means that customer support agent is a job that few do willingly, or for very long, and staff turnover is high. Yet these are the very people in the front line, representing the company image to disgruntled customers.
The Agent Is Often a Blameless Pawn
Even when the customer gets through to an agent who is polite, helpful and full of sunshine, it is worth remembering that he or she is being timed on the call and judged on its resolution. On top of that it will likely be a statistical, rather than a human judgement. The customer service agent response really does depend on the calls that went before.
An agent on a customer support line is regulated throughout the day. Even calls of nature are counted and timed. The only power such an agent has is over the way he or she facilitates the calls and, for the most part, that is also regulated.
Managing the Interaction for Best Advantage
It’s not always easy for a disgruntled customer to remain detached, but it is the way to ensure the best possible result.
- If impatience starts to build while in the call queue it’s best to hang up and try again later. Calm detachment pays dividends in the long run and one statistic that call centres do take note of is the number of lost calls.
- Once connected, the call queue waiting time should not be mentioned. The agent has no control over this and it’s a waste of his or her time having to explain the fact over and over to irate customers.
- While the product or service may have faults the agent cannot be held responsible. He or she has no control over quality of supply, the fact that the supplier is being required to accept a complaint, or rectify a fault is sufficient.
- It is an absolute necessity to have all details on hand. Serial numbers, receipts, date of purchase and place of purchase are all key matters and it will be unlikely that an agent can progress a case in the absence of these.
- The agent is probably timed and rated on length of calls and will not appreciate being kept busy any longer than necessary so a businesslike approach does much to ensure a speedy resolution.
- Agents should always announce their name at the start of any call. This should be noted, along with the time that the call is picked up.
- If an agent becomes obstructive, or if an impasse is reached, a customer should ask politely to speak to a supervisor in order to advance his or her cause. Apologising, and making it clear that this is necessary because the agent is not empowered by the company to make a favourable decision will take the pressure out of the situation.
- All aggravating circumstances should be noted, including call queue wait, lack of empowerment at agent level, lack of agent knowledge, lack of agent manners. The detail should be presented in a written complaint to the company. The agent is not there to take flack during the call.
It is sad that any customer of a company that has supplied faulty product or service needs to go to these lengths, but the alternative is a battle of wits across a telephone line with a low paid and under supported employee.
