“Good morning, this is Stephanie calling just to check that our fitter has arrived” so the bright and cheery Customer Service operator from a well known company enquired early Tuesday morning.

“Unfortunately not.” Responded the customer sadly.

“Oh, that’s unusual as he is very reliable. I will give him a call and come back to you shortly.” Stephanie cheerily said as she went through her well rehearsed script.

Two and a quarter hours later the telephone had remained silent and the fitter was still conspicuous by his absence so the customer, not wanting to inconvenience the company by putting them to the expense and hassle of having to ring back, decided they would ring them. Immediately a recorded announcement clicked in to report that ‘All our agents are busy (good, trying to track down their fitter) however, if you would care to leave a short message after the tone and your telephone number we will call you back shortly. Beeeeeep. Start recording now.’ Message duly left.

Content in the thought that once they received the message they would be calling back quite quickly as they must by now have tracked down the errant fitter. All that resource looking for him….

Ever so slowly the clock continues its relentless march onwards and morning turns into afternoon. The papers are more thoroughly read than usual and the crossword has been finished. Still the telephone has remained obstinately quiet and the work remains untouched. This is ridiculous! Who else can I ring in this company to escalate things? The correspondence from the company offers a glimmer of hope, the number for their Survey department.

So, hope springs eternal, the number is dialled. Holy smoke, a mistake, the telephone is answered immediately and a very helpful lady takes the contract number and listens to the story. But as quickly hopes are dashed on the rocks as she says she will transfer the call to Customer Service. ‘All our agents are…..’ No thanks, been here before and the call is swiftly terminated. I know, check their website, let’s see if there are other numbers we can call. No, the only option is an 0800 sales number, but at least this one is free!

Third time lucky and yes, the telephone answers straight away, but no, they are Sales and need to transfer them to customer service. The customers stomach knots, but surprisingly this time they get straight through. By coincidence the operator was their old friend Stephanie who asked “How did you get through to me?” “Magic and persistence” they replied. Stupid question though as it made them think they weren’t supposed to get through.

Anyway the customer is assured that messages had been left, but the fitter had not responded (which might explain why he had not turned up!). The customer took control of the situation and progress was rapid. If the fitter was uncontactable could they assume that at this late stage in the day he would not be turning up as they needed to go out? This was conceded as “He is usually so reliable, something drastic must have happened.” The customer asked why they had not come back to them? “I had left messages for the fitter, but he had not responded.” “So what is going to happen tomorrow if you can’t get hold of this phantom fitter today?”

Stephanie agreed to get the manager to call them to discuss options. Amazingly he called within five minutes and agreed a plan of action which was to give the fitter until 15.00 to respond to calls and if that fails then the manager would redirect another fitter to undertake the work. The customer retired exhausted and sceptical, but surprisingly the manager called later that afternoon to confirm who would be doing the job and they duly arrived on the following day. Job’s done you think.

Not at all! This company and many others needs to learn from this all too common experience:

Take Ownership. Train your service people to not just simply assume that by passing the problem on it is dealt with. Follow it through to ensure it is dealt with within a reasonable time frame.

Empowerment. Give them your authority to chase others to get things done to make sure the customer’s problem is resolved.

Agree Action. Agree with the customer what course of action is going to be taken to resolve the issue.

Follow Through. Keep the customer informed of progress or otherwise by agreeing specific times to call back. This reassures them you have not forgotten. If you watch Master Chef, the Professionals Michel Roux Jnr. said the same thing on Wednesday night when one contestant failed to produce the kidney to accompany the roast deer: “Tell them, they will respect you for that.” And he was right, the food critics did. ‘Enough said!

Placing Resources. Customer Service is there to pull out all the stops when something untoward happens. It is a given that your organisation is geared up to deliver ‘what it says on the can’. Service levels are all very well for an internal back patting, but mean’ diddly squat’ to those customers who are the small percentage (we hope) for whom it goes pear shaped! Turning a frustrated customer into a satisfied customer is what customer service excellence is all about.

Senior management consistently isolates itself behind layers of powerless operatives and self congratulatory service level statistics. They fail to experience their business as their customers do. If a customer does write in to complain then the stock response usually pays lip service to the complaint followed by a justification of why they haven’t really made a mistake.

To learn how to avoid some of the common pitfalls why not book a place on our successful Customer Service Course?

To download the Customer Service Course Flyer

To understand what your customers really think about your business why not commission a survey?
To download more information Customer and Employee Surveys

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.