There are many cringeworthy mistakes contact centre teams make when trying to deliver a great customer experience – yet they become so ingrained in day-to-day working life that no one thinks to challenge them any more.
To put them in the spotlight, we asked our consultants panel for their best examples of stupid things they’ve seen contact centre professionals do to their customers – so you can weed them out of your operation as soon as possible.
Here’s what they said…
1. Mindlessly Asking “How’s the Weather?”
When trying to establish rapport with a customer, using the weather is a sure way to leave the customer feeling like the agent or salesperson is disinterested and unauthentic, resulting in an overall “blah” experience.
“How’s the weather?” works if it’s a topic for the day. For example, a question about the weather may be appropriate if there’s a snowstorm. But if it’s just a generic icebreaker, there are better questions.
For example, “What’s been the highlight of your day so far?” or “I see you’re calling from (NAME THE CITY). I’ve never been there. What’s it like?” are far better for taking a genuine interest in the customer and building rapport.
Contributed by: Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer (CAO) at Shepard Presentations LLC
2. Making It Difficult for Agents to Transfer Calls
When done well, skills-based routing can be of benefit to customers and agents, but when done poorly, it leads to increasing frustration for both customers and agents, as calls are inevitably transferred from agent to agent for resolution.
A proportionately large volume of organizations even prevent their agents from warm transferring an escalation or transfer, and to make that situation worse, have siloed systems so the new agent can’t see what happened in the first call. This means the customer is dumped into a queue and must repeat themselves.
Contributed by: Michael Clark, Co-Founder and Principal Consultant of CXTT Consulting
For top tips and advice to make sure every transfer is handled as efficiently as possible – without compromising CX, read our article: How to Stop Call Transfers Ruining Your CX
3. Using Compliance Statements Such as “Lapse of Subscriber Due to Death” in Customer-Facing Conversations
When aspiring to deliver better customer experiences, many organizations shoot themselves in the foot by using language and actions that directly oppose their stated goals.
Externally, we see it all the time: jargon-filled scripts that confuse rather than clarify! Terms like “lapse of subscriber due to death” instead of “we’re sorry to hear your mother died.”
These phrases might check compliance boxes, but they alienate customers, create friction, and fly in the face of the ‘net easy’ principle – making every experience as effortless as possible.
Contributed by: Rob Clarke, Director and Co-Founder of Elev-8 Performance
4. Saying “Unfortunately, We Can’t Do That…”
Years ago, when I was a contact centre supervisor, I got this memo from my boss that I had to pass on to my team:
“Stop using the word ‘unfortunately’ in customer service calls – it’s a ‘bad’ word!”
At first, I thought this was a little silly. I mean, there are times when we just can’t help a customer, and “unfortunately” feels like a normal way to express that we’re sorry about it.
But as I thought about it more, I realized that management had a point. It’s so easy to say, “Unfortunately, we can’t do that,” and leave it at that.
But that kind of response doesn’t help anyone and can make the customer feel even worse. The idea behind this memo was to create a culture of “let’s see what we can do” instead.
By dropping “unfortunately” from our vocabulary, we were encouraged to focus on solutions rather than what we couldn’t do.
So instead of saying “unfortunately,” we started saying things like, “I understand this is important to you, and let’s see what options we can explore.” This little change made a big difference. It helped us think creatively and engage with customers in a more positive way.
Contributed by: Jenny Dempsey, Community & Customer Service Leader
Sometimes agents have to deliver bad news to customers. For best-practice tips to help agents with difficult conversations, read our article: How to Deliver Bad News in Customer Service
5. Saying “You’ll Have to Call Back…”
When you expect agents to rely on statements such as “It’s not our department that deals with that, you’ll have to call back” or “I can’t make outbound calls, so you’ll need to call back…”, you make your internal problem the customer’s problem.
An approach that’s a far cry from delivering great customer service!
Contributed by: Garry Gormley, Founder of FAB Solutions
6. Using Internal Jargon on Your IVR
The welcome messages and options on IVRs are a hotbed for using internally understood words that make callers grapple to understand the veneered meaning.
For example, “press 1 for the high-touch team” or “thank you, you have been verified”.
Contributed by: Nerys Corfield, Injection Consulting
7. Making a Habit of Saying “No Problem” in Every Customer Conversation
Your customer has every expectation that their experience will be problem-free. No customer ever calls or walks into your establishment to proclaim, “Here I am. Here’s my money. Dissatisfy me now.”
But when you say “No problem”, your customer can quickly think, “Why? Was there a possibility that it would be a problem?”
At the same time, “No problem” can also be interpreted as “no problem to you.” What you are saying to your customer is “Of the two of us, I am the star of the show. And you are asking something so small that it is no problem.” All of which can contradict customer-centricity.
Contributed by: Bill Quiseng, Chief Experience Officer at billquiseng.com
There are also a number of other phrases agents should avoid saying. For advice, read our article: 15 Things You Should Never Say to a Customer
8. Making Assumptions About What Your Customers Already Know
When you work for a business, and are there every day, you have a pretty firm understanding of what’s going on, how things work, the processes and even the acronyms. You are considered experts compared to your customers.
You take this for granted when you speak to customers and can be guilty of expecting them to understand the product like you do. But they don’t, and this causes frustration and contradicts your good intentions.
That’s why it’s great to get into the habit of clearly explaining to a customer the nitty-gritty of your business and product. Never assume they know!
“The Alien” Training Exercise – Challenging Assumptions
I often ask agents to imagine I’m an alien and they need to explain to me what tennis is in ten statements or less.
At the end of the game, I need to have a good understanding of what tennis is. Often, they’re able to rattle off that it’s a game, played on a court, with a ball and a net, etc…
But there are two mistakes that are most common:
- They try to explain the scoring system to me, which is too complex to explain in ten statements and a level of detail I don’t need to get the gist.
- They assume I know what a ball is, or a net is, or a court is. I don’t. I’m an alien, remember.
It can really help to think of customers as being aliens arriving in your business, who do not understand the product as well as you do. A great customer service agent is very mindful of that. Never assume!
Contributed by: Clayton Drotsky, Director of Growth Crew Ltd
9. Saying “My Manager Won’t Tell You Any Different If I Transfer You to Them.”
When an agent gets frustrated that the customer won’t accept their word for the resolution and won’t escalate to a manager, this can be a sign of poor call and objection-handling skills and/or a sign they know their manager won’t thank them for escalating the call.
Contributed by: Garry Gormley, Founder of FAB Solutions
10. Playing “Your Call Is Important to Us” on Your IVR
Of course, not forgetting the all-time classic that contradicts any hope a customer may have for good customer service… The dreaded phrase heard in countless IVRs as customers wait for their call to be answered: “Your call is important to us.”
This is often made worse by being told repeatedly that they can resolve their issue online when the customer has already spent half an hour on the website and been unable to resolve their issue!
Contributed by: Michael Clark, Co-Founder and Principal Consultant of CXTT Consulting
If you are looking for examples of IVR messages that will engage customers as they wait on hold, read our article: IVR Messaging: 11 Examples of On-Hold Messages to Keep Customers Engaged
Have you seen any cringeworthy examples of contact centres doing stupid things to their customers?
Join our LinkedIn community group and share your experiences.
If you are looking for more insights on how to provide the best customer service, read these articles next:
- 18 Bad Habits That Kill CX
- Build a Customer Support Strategy That Shines
- Capture Customer Needs – Just Like This!
Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman
Published On: 27th Nov 2024
Read more about - Customer Service Strategy, Bill Quiseng, Clayton Drotsky, Customer Service, CX, Garry Gormley, Jenny Dempsey, Michael Clark, Nerys Corfield, Rob Clarke, Shep Hyken, Top Story
