The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
Customer Frustrations
Tuesday - February 19, 2008 02:07 PM in
I've written a lot about things which go into good customer service. The past few days I've also been thinking about factors which go into bad service.
Here's my off-the-cuff list:
I'm sure I've missed a few, but these are the customer service mistakes which seem to factor most prominently in consumer horror stories.
Posted by Peter Leppik
- Inability to help: Customer service representatives don't have the authority to solve the customer's problem.
- Inconsistency: Service which is never the same quality twice.
- Incompetence: Customer service representatives don't have the necessary skills or training.
- Hoops: Pointless steps which the customer is forced to take in order to be served (for example: entering an account number multiple times, answering irrelevant questions in an IVR or from an agent, being forced to go through multiple IVR menus, etc.)
- Unwillingness to Admit Mistakes: Company refuses to acknowledge making an error.
- No History: When a problem requires multiple calls to solve, the customer has to start over from the beginning each time.
- No Follow-Through/Broken Promises: An agent promises to take some action, but doesn't.
- Unwillingness to Escalate: The customer service representative won't escalate the call to a supervisor when asked.
I'm sure I've missed a few, but these are the customer service mistakes which seem to factor most prominently in consumer horror stories.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 02:07 PM by | | | |