Service Stupidity
Why, oh why, is this customer service thang so hard? Companies spend billions a year chasing new customers while avoiding or outright dissing their existing ones. I got the following email from a friend a few days ago (edited for length and - ahem - profanity):
My email problem, which has been cropping up over and over for at least 6 months, finally revealed itself as residing in the Norton arena. Please god, DON’T MAKE ME HAVE TO CALL INDIA!!!!!!! I was stuck. That’s where they send you. So I called HQ to bitterly complain and demand stateside support. Half hour later I was being gently refused by the young woman who privately told me her heart bled for me, but promised to forward me over to…yup folks…India…to their top advanced support. Pleasant surprise. I got a guy who spent 40 minutes with me, checked everything, redid all my settings, updated me, and e-mail started pouring in. I thanked him profusely… asked for his indulgence on the India support problem, because he was the FIRST person I’ve understood much at all, who also really knew what he was doing and wasn’t reading from a **** script with no obvious knowledge of a problem.
I wouldn’t have gotten him if I hadn’t created a stink. I’ve written them vituperative and nasty notes before about how their support policies SUCK THE BIG ONE by throwing every loyal paying customer over the wall to some Indian with a thick, impossible accent, reading from a wrote script. They never write me back.
I will fight that India support thing wherever I encounter it. It’s great big customer F*** Y** from American companies.
So, if you’re a vendor, here’s what you do: Quit paying consultants like me to tell you no-brainer things like, “don’t hide from your customers” and “answer the damned phone.” Walk your talk about your commitment to customers (and your employees). Trust me, the ROI in customer profitability and loyalty will far exceed your initial costs. I used to package, market and manage call center services and I know all the reasons, excuses, financials, and CEO speak. Stop whining. Just do it.
I give kudos and sympathy to the people in India. We Ugly Americans can be a snotty bunch. Their English is much better than my Hindi (which is non-existent) and they’re just trying to do their job. But, if a company is going to provide a service, they should consider the callers. When I was managing a world-wide call center organization, we were very careful to match staff with countries. The call center might be in Bismarck, Amsterdam or Edinburgh, but we made sure the service reps knew both the culture and the language of the caller and could speak as a fellow native.
If you’re a customer, here’s what you do:
1. Don’t take no for an answer, but be polite. Remember the customer service rep is stuck; they’ve got to follow procedure or lose their jobs (and their privileges, since prisons provide call center outsourcing. Yep, I bet those folks are thrilled to itty-bitty pieces to listen to our whining.)
2. If you’re not getting anywhere, hang up and write to the CEO. Enclose your documentation. Be polite and professional. Me, if I have the time, I also enclose a service analysis (with an invoice) since I’m a consultant. Gets their attention. (Although I did make Mr. Hammonds at MBNA just a tad nervous when I mailed a document package to his home, after his assistant told me there was “nobody higher” than her.)
Related Posts:
Silence is NOT Golden.
No, we never, ever want to talk to you, our customers.
That ol’ time snake oil GAR-an-tee!
People who need people
Customers - service versus processing
Read More:
The Man Who Wanted A Live Operator
Why won’t they take my money?
What to do when you have excessive customer churn. (Hey! Service, what a concept!)
Tags: call centers, customer loyalty customer service, marketing troubleshooting, blogher, nobodies
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April 27th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
OUCH Mary! What a terrible experience, and what a great reminder of the power of a personal, familiar touch in customer service. Spun another way, if you were from China, would you want to call the United States to get support on your PC from someone who had a thick Texas accent speaking Chinese? I doubt it!
April 28th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Hi mary,
I am a B school student studying in a top institute in india and have quite a few friends (who did not manage to get into 1) who have worked or are working in a call center.
Americans have a misconception. That customer support facilities are outsourced to India because they are low end.
Now here’s the surprise. Call center work is considered to be Low-end in India as well!! It is seen as a last resort option for thousands of graduates passing out who do not get a job thanks to India’s humongous population
Some facts:
- Most companies in india conduct English lang. tests before recruiting People
- Most companies give their new joinees ‘accent training’ . Alas American companies typically try to save costs wherever they can and expect People to pick up the accent after about 3hrs. of training!!!
The solution could be so simple. Simply include a process wherein if the caller is not understanding what the current staff is saying she should have the option of saying so within 2 mins after which she can be put onto some one else. The company can easily create a higher and smaller set of slightly higher paid staff who have picked up the accent better. Or provide incentives to employees to pick up the accent better by practising the accent in their free time. If only they were ready to part with their precious dollar! (No anti american bias:) . I luv the country. Just stating the facts. They are true for European companies as well)
Visit my blog when u have time. wud luv to have ur feedback
www.thegrandbrandblog.blogspot.com
April 28th, 2006 at 7:07 am
Whaddaya mean y’all don’t lack tawkin’ to mu? (or something like that).
Thanks for the perspective from India. I’m absolutely in awe of what the people there have done in just a few short years. And, I look forward to visiting the country some day.
I can certainly see why the call center jobs would be considered low-end there as well. It’s incredibly hard to balance satisfying customers with call closure (call centers literally live and die by the minute). The longer a call goes on, the more costly it is to the company (regardless of who is providing the service). So, the rep is under tremendous pressure (between the rock and the hard place as we say here in the U.S.) And, escalation costs yet more (to Jayesh’s point about having another group), so the rep is disincented to escalate (counts against their performance).
Back in the day I spent tense negotiating time fightlng over a penny (or even 1/2 a penny a minute). And, on more than one occasion, I had to pay premium salary/contract to have the ONE available Banyan Vines/IBM SNA/Novell NetWare guru ready, willing and able to provide Level Three Top Priority support. Then, I had to deal with how to keep the call center employees up-to-date on technology as well as happy. Burn out is a huge problem in the industry, even in the best of companies.
And, it’s not just the language or accent - it’s also the culture. That’s really a difficult challenge. That Texan could speak perfect Chinese, but have the wrong attitude and approach.
One last point, people would likely be much more accepting and forgiving of cultural and language differences if they weren’t made to jump through IVR hoops and sit on hold, be transferred multiple times, before they ever reach a live person, here or in India. We’re unhappy to start with, by the time the poor beleagued service rep picks up our call out of queue, we’re livid.
Well, whew! Can you tell this is one of my soap box issues?
April 28th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
I once went from the U.S. to India to the Philippines then back to the U.S. in a one hour conversation in an attempt to get my internet cable serviced at my home. CRAZY! I never got satisfaction because I was so frustrated I gave up.
The truly insane part was that the cable company service department was the same for Earthlink, AOL and Time Warner … it’s the same cable just different “service†companies. I learned that it is best to find out who actually owns the cable in your area before signing up.
So may companies need you Mary!
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:12 pm
It’s bad enough that your call may get transfered to India to resolve a problem, it’s even worse when you get a call in the US of A from somebody (Indian) and you can’t understand a DAMN WORD that they are saying.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:06 am
I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw the cover of this week’s Time. Yes, India is becoming a major economic player and I have great respect for their scary smart people. But, underneath all the PR hoopla, there’s still that pesky human factor, isn’t there?
And, words (even when unintelligible) are better than being asked, “Is this 505-856-2551?” Uh, well, yes, but…so, now the telemarketers are simply calling and asking for me by my phone number? Gee, I can hardly wait to hear the pitch! “Yes, Ms. 2551, you too can save hundreds of dollars on…”
May 13th, 2008 at 8:21 am
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