This Shouldn’t Happen to a Customer… Related Articles Seven Tips to Avoid Dead Air Time in Customer Service Calls 12 Reasons You Shouldn’t Skip Training in a Short-Staffed Call Centre Why You Shouldn't Look For Contact Centre Spreadsheet Templates Definition: Contact Centre Jargon and Terminologies 3,729 Filed under - Customer Service Strategy, Customer Effort, CX Carolyn Blunt reveals 5 things that companies should never do to their customers. 1. Fail to follow up on call-back requests Having a ‘click to request a call-back’ function on the website is great – unless it doesn’t result in a call-back. 2. Promise the call will be connected quickly – then not deliver It is bad practice to have a recorded message that says ‘you will be connected in less than 15 seconds’ – and then keep your customer on hold for the best part of 4 minutes before connecting to an ‘escalated complaints team’. This is not the best de-escalation strategy – and I pity the agent that ultimately receives the connected call. 3. Apologise but repeatedly fail to fix the problem Telling your dissatisfied customer that you are very sorry and that the error on their customer account will be adjusted within 48 hours – and then not having adjusted it a week later – isn’t great. This is even worse when it happens repeatedly during the resolution of a single problem. 4. Provide a goodwill gesture instead of properly resolving the issue It is poor show to provide a £10 gesture of goodwill payment, but still not remove all of the £31 of incorrect charges by the time the customer’s statement is sent out. 5. Keep asking for details that have already been provided Carolyn Blunt Twitter can be a great way to engage with your customer base, but having a Twitter team that asks customers to ‘please DM the details’ when they already have – many times – is going to do more harm than good! Sadly ALL of these things did happen between a company and one of its customers. Isn’t it time to make some changes? With thanks to Carolyn Blunt at Real Results Training Author: Megan Jones Published On: 19th Nov 2014 - Last modified: 20th Sep 2019 Read more about - Customer Service Strategy, Customer Effort, CX Recommended Articles Seven Tips to Avoid Dead Air Time in Customer Service Calls 12 Reasons You Shouldn’t Skip Training in a Short-Staffed Call Centre Why You Shouldn't Look For Contact Centre Spreadsheet Templates Contact Centre Jargon and Terminologies Related Reports eBook: Five Trendsetters in CX Innovation White Paper: How to Drive Business Improvements with Customer Insights Report: Customer Experience Horizons eBook: How Customers Can Lead Your Business Transformation in 2024 Contact Centre Reports, Surveys and White Papers Get the latest exciting call centre reports, specialist whitepapers and interesting case-studies. Choose the content that you want to receive. Contact Centre Reports, Surveys and White Papers Invites to exclusive Webinars & Events Weekly Newsletter