Classic Customer Service Mistakes in the Contact Centre

Classic customer service mistakes in the contact centre include arguing with the customer and wasting time. Sometimes we fail to see beyond the current transaction and don’t take into account the bigger picture, such as the value of the customer, the history of their loyalty and the future value of the relationship.

Advisers are often following process, some of which is correct, but sometimes they interpret it incorrectly, too rigidly or with fear.

For example, I called my home insurance company after my young son did some accidental damage (with a biro) on our leather sofa. From the outset, I felt that there was no empathy, a simple ‘Sorry to hear that’ would have gone a long way. Instead, I suspected I was being led by the adviser to find a loophole which would make the claim for a leather expert to visit us unviable. After 30 minutes of being severely drilled, she got there in the end, triumphantly classifying the damage as ‘wilful’, even though our son was just 15 months old. We promptly cancelled all our insurance policies with them and would never use this company again. Utterly pointless. In the end, I got the biro out myself, pretty easily, with hairspray, if you’re interested.

Compare this to Ocado ,the automated home grocery shopping company that have delivered our weekly shop for 4 years. Last week whilst on holiday in Portugal we realised that an Ocado delivery would arrive at our home in the UK in two hours’ time! We had forgotten to cancel it before the cut-off.

Ocado could have used small print to hold us to account. £150 of groceries was already on the van and rattling through the lanes of Lancashire towards our empty house. And it was totally my own fault. The phone call lasted under 3 minutes.

‘Easily done, Mrs Blunt! There’s a lot to think about when you’re going away. I’ve cancelled that with the driver and you won’t be charged. I’ll let you get back to enjoying your holiday.’

I tweeted my #custserv appreciation to my 1,600 followers and am certain I will remain resolutely loyal to Ocado for many more years.

A big part of the different customer experience here comes in the culture of the companies. I know insurance is a heavily regulated industry and there feels little freedom for negotiation or empowerment of the frontline to decide to ‘do the right thing’, but where is the human touch?

If the insurance adviser had said, ‘I’m as frustrated as you that this is excluded, but what I can do is give you the details of a self-pay leather expert/link to a website of tips/suggest you try hairspray – just do a small hidden patch test first”, it would have felt very different indeed and we would probably have kept our policies in place.
Does anyone add up the cost of the adviser arguing with me for 30 minutes plus the loss of my present (and future) business? I doubt it.

Many of our current frontline contact centre training projects are focused around the human element, liberating advisers to ‘Do The Right Thing’ and to stop wasting handling time and ‘just say yes’. Advisers love this mindset training (sponsored by senior leaders and backed by new, looser processes and quality frameworks) and this is shown in the training feedback, employee opinion surveys and absence and retention stats (more cost savings to offset your ‘goodwill’ pot). Even better is the positive impact on customer experience that keeps our clients growing, not losing, customers.