Miguel de Luiss last blog post..One simple way you can improve your life

Sadly, there is a lot of “people with a pulse” hiring in the area of customer service, which may as frustrating for the people who are serious about helping customers as it is for the customer themselves. After all, when a bad customer service rep answers a question wrong, or angers a customer, the customer will either call back, or ask for a supervisor, at which time they end up talking to someone like me, and by the time the customer gets to that level, they are angry–not to mention that they now have to explain the entire issue over again.

As far as phone trees are concerned, they are also a frustration for a caring customer service rep. At the job I had, there was phone tree to get to me, and in cases where the customer needed to speak to someone in another department, there was another phone tree–a GOOD customer service rep would NOT put someone into a phone tree, but rather, advise them that they were going to transfer them, advise that it might take a moment, then go through the phone tree WITH the customer (or have the customer on hold while they do it), rather than making them do it.

There are many, many common mistakes that customer service reps make that contribute to customer frustration and dis-satisfaction. I could, quite literally, write a book. In fact, as a career choice goes, training customer service reps is very high on the list of things I would be delighted to do for the rest of my life, if only to assure that no customer service reps ever use the words “our” and “policy” together in a sentence, ever again.

Shellys last blog post..Almost Made It!

I actually think the part of this post that isn’t the letter would better inform them. It gives constructive, rather than just factual, criticism and helps them to put the problem in perspective.

I feel your pain though.

David Dittells last blog post..Language Detective: Do You Have To Be A Mom To Be A MILF?

I actually have more experience with the opposite side of it, as I’ve known many people who have worked in call centers, either making calls or taking service calls. Some companies outsource their customer support, so the people you’re talking to don’t actually work for that company. And if the call center they outsource to has poor hiring practices, well, you’re in deep trouble.

A friend of mine told me that when the tech support company he worked for changed ownership, hiring standards went from “people who are reasonably knowledgeable about technical stuff” to “people who have a pulse.” People who spent too long actually trying to help the customer got reprimanded.

On a good phone note, one phone tree I’ve never had a problem with, oddly enough, is my local Wal-Mart pharmacy. It never misunderstands what buttons I push, and I can refill a prescription in less than 3 minutes. Nice.

My recent phone support nightmare is here.

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Please do stop by my Interior Living Room blog when you have a chance. It’s my new favorite thing.

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