Customer Service Guys Have a Chance to be Heroes and They Blow It  By: Abe WalkingBear Sanchez

Overlooking the basics of good customer service is prevalent and the fault of Top Management.

 What a week. First it was a premature past due notice from our insurance company, then a billing error on my calling card account and then a snow related outage of cable and phone service.

 "Best Friend Insurance, this is Bob how may I help you?" was the greeting I got from the Insurance Company's Customer Care Department after I had punched the right response to the prompts and been placed on hold. I gave Bob my name and my policy number and started to tell him why I was calling when he cut me off, "I'm pulling up your account …please hold."

 Once Bob had pulled up my account, he acknowledged that I was Abe WalkingBear Sanchez; I guess he didn't catch my name when I gave it to him the first time or maybe he wanted to be sure I wasn't some other Abe WalkingBear Sanchez. "What can I do for you Mr. Sanchez?" asked Bob. I explained that I had received a past due notice, but that my records showed the premium had been paid on time and in full.

 "Yes, I show that payment  being posted about 2 weeks after you say it was paid - sometimes, we have a delay in payments getting posted. You are up to date and don't need to pay anything at this time. Just pay when you're due, OK ?" said Bob. "No. It's not ok," I said.

 I asked Bob why the past due notice had been sent if the payment had been received, thereby causing me to have to check my records and then go through the telephone queue to find out that, in fact, everything was  "O.K." "Well, sometimes the notices are printed out in advance of being mailed; so, maybe your past due notice was printed before your payment was posted and mailed after, ok?" said Bob. "No. It's not ok," I said. "Let me speak with your supervisor, please."

 Hold, hold, hold. "This is Steve, Bob's supervisor. Can I help you?" I asked Steve if Bob had explained why I had called. "He said you got a past due notice, but that your payment was received and that everything is  OK.," said Steve. "No. Everything is not O.K.," I said.

 I asked Steve if it seemed right to him that I had received a past due notice, that I had to take my time to check my records, take my time to call and go through the response maze and to have to hold on to be told that everything was "OK" Steve explained how payment postings are often late and how past due notices are sometimes run in advance of the date they're mailed and that Bob was a good employee, "OK ?" "No. It's not OK," I said. I asked Steve for his manager's name and phone number; and, he got hostile. "What do you want from us, we have other policyholders waiting to talk to us; we told you everything was O.K.?"

 I explained to Steve that both he and Bob were acting as if their company owned me and my business, that their customer service level was very low and that I didn't blame Bob or him. It was obvious to me that their training was lacking and that their performance was being measured by the number of calls they took and not on quality.

 "My manager is on vacation," Steve said. "O.K." I said, "Let me speak with his manager please." Hold, hold,  hold… "This is Mary, may I help you?" I again identified myself and why I was calling. Mary was very nice, but couldn't do anything but take a message for her boss Mr. Smith, a Vice President, who among other duties oversaw the Customer Service Department. I left a message for Mr. Smith. Two days later, toward the end of the day, Mr. Smith called. I again explained how their way of doing business had created work and time loss for me, the customer. "Yes - we've had a problem with delays in premiums being posted and with notices going out with errors. But, we are aware of it and working to improve things, O.K.?"

 NO. IT IS NOT OK !!

 I explained to Mr. Smith that first of all no one in his company had said to me, "I'm sorry there's a problem - tell me all about it," including himself.

 Whenever a customer calls with a problem, even one of their own making, the first words out of the "customer service" rep's mouth should be a disarming statement.

 Customer Service guys have a chance to help, to be heroes and they blow it.

 I asked Mr. Smith about his Customer Service Training and how the customer service reps' performance was being measured. He mumbled jumbled his way around the question, he either didn't know or didn't want to answer.

 Keeping customers is cheaper than replacing customers.

 As a rule, the most profitable sale is the repeat sale; the most profitable customer is one retained.  Yet this simple fact, that there may be a cost factor of 8 to 12 times as much to sell a new customer vs. keeping one, seems to have been forgotten. It's a pain to have to switch vendors/suppliers, but sometimes it gets to the point where you have to because they leave you no choice.
 

 Abe's Golden Rules of Excellent Customer Service

 1. If there's a delay in answering calls give the customer the choice of leaving a message or holding for a representative.

 2. Say you're sorry there's a problem, even if it's due to the customer's own stupidity; and, ask how you can help.

 3. Don't transfer customers or go into long explanations about how you do things. Take ownership of the problem and fix it.

 4. Make customers whole and learn from the call. It's not enough to say you're sorry when a problem is your fault. You created a loss for the customer and you must show some pain in the form of some cost to you. A small gift or a credit tells customers you mean it when you say you regret creating a problem.

 5. Listen and learn from customers. They'll tell you where "areas of opportunity for improvement" exist throughout your business organization.

 Management's Fault

 Whatever the business function is, it must have a clearly stated purpose. Why does a department or function exist? Like Mr. Smith, many executives are overseeing areas of business without understanding the purpose of that area. Performance monitoring and measurements must compliment the clearly stated and understood purpose -- regardless of the stated purpose, people respond to how their work is measured.

 Management's Opportunity

 In too many companies, it seems as if the unofficial company motto is "We never have time to do things right the first time, but we always have time to do them over again."

 Purpose: Everyone in Customer Service should know the purpose of customer service is helping the customers.

 Policies: Guidelines that are goal driven must be established for the major components of Customer Service:

 A. Customer Contact
 B. Problem Identification and Resolution
 C. Customer follow up
 D. Internal Process Improvement

 Procedures: Step by step instruction on how the established goals can be achieved.

 People Requirement: Put people with the right attitude and skills in the job.

 Performance: Monitoring and Measurement
 Make sure you are monitoring for what you want. Be sure performance measurement compliments the purpose.

 Pay:  Pay your people to do the thing you want done. Do this by tying pay to performance.

 In Closing

 Mr. Smith is supposed to get back to me on improvements he said would be made. We'll see about that. Now on to the calling card billing error. The phone and cable companies? Well, they're supposed to be out today - we'll see about that.  In the meantime, I'll just keep using my cell phone.

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The Author

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of  http://www.armg-usa.com , Abe also sits on the board of www.BestBizways.com Inc.

TEC (The Executive Committee), "Inc." Magazine Annual Business Conference, CU (Denver), CSU (Ft. Collins), IBM, NASFT, PEI, BCFM, RAB, STAFDA, WIMA, ISD, Pet Industry Distributors Assn., Rain Bird, Winroc, Johnstone Supply, Able Distributing, Evergreen Marketing Group, Southern Wholesalers Assn., Touchstone/2000 Software are but a few of the groups, schools, companies and associations for whom Abe has conducted programs.