Businesses these days are much more aware of customer expectations and therefore, tries to leave no stones unturned when it comes to customer service. But even then occasional slips are sometimes reported, giving the customer service department a bad reputation while leaving the customers horrified even in this golden age of customer service. And those make the perfect stories to share with our readers on the eve of Halloween.
So, sit with your bucket of treats and get ready for a good scare:
-
No Web Self-Service Option available
Forrester reports that 36% of US customers online prefer self-sufficiency for service. This number jumps up to 46% for people aged between 18 and 29 years. When no self-service option is available, customers have no choice but to call customer care and wait in the long queue. Millennial customers these days are always on the lookout for simple, fast solutions to their problems.
By not providing a self-service option for your customers, you could be driving web savvy consumers away.
-
Navigating through a Complex IVR System.
Over time, IVR system has got extensive and, therefore, complicated. Where to complain about a service or an anomaly in billing? – Most customers don’t know for sure. As a result, IVR navigation often involves an incredible amount of guesswork, which leads to a poor customer experience.
The confusion and frustration are enough to spook away the customers. Of course, this is a well-intentioned initiative turned into a disaster – the design and implementation gone wrong, setting the stage for a gory customer encounter.
-
Agents Can’t Solve Problems Faster
The primary goal of any customer service department is to solve the customers’ problems. A secondary goal is to do it quick and effectively. According to Ventana Research, 44% of contact center agents need to access more than three applications to resolve an issue, and 70% admit that switching between applications is a huge waste of time. Fusion CX has experienced that “Alt+Tabing” can add 1-2 minutes to a typical customer call. It slows your agents down and makes the issue resolution process slower.
To resolve this, companies can deliver a process-driven workflow over a unified agent desktop with application data available on a single interface.
-
Repeating Information over and again
Customers often ask for some information via email and then call customer service to confirm whether their request has been processed or not. And they end up finding that the agent does not have access to their support email and therefore, they have to repeat the information. – this is not a very uncommon scenario, even in 2015.
As much as it pains us to say, there are only a few companies that have the system of integrating information received through multiple customer service channels into a single interface.
Once it is done, it will be much easier for the customer service department to meet those requests and resolve issues. Customers too will breathe a sigh of relief from not having to repeat information every time they change channels or speak with a different agent.
All they need to provide is their phone number or email address registered with the company. If it can be that simple, why complicate the process?
-
Long wait time before their call got through
The customer wants to upgrade their current order but has some questions regarding that, so he calls up the customer service department. But to his dismay, he has to wait for over an hour to talk to a live agent. Most customers these days do not have the time. As a result, most of them slam down the phone after 10 minutes, feeling frustrated.
The solution to this problem is to include a call back request into the IVR script. A caller who opts for that option will get a call back from the customer service department at a time that suits the customer.
-
Agents won’t go beyond the script to help the customer
This is a typical issue for a large number of companies. Most businesses provide their customer service agents with nothing but a rigid script that does not have room for improvisation as per the customer’s needs. And in a large number of cases, businesses do not allow agents to go beyond the script and make small decisions on the spot, making the process far lengthier than it should.
Providing agents with a conversation guide and allowing them to make small decisions, like providing a small discount to an angry customer on his next purchase above a certain amount, can help businesses manage crisis situations in a better way.
Which one of these has annoyed you the most or did we miss out any horror story that you might have encountered?
Share your experiencesto help us eliminate horrifying customer service scenarios.
Wish you a Spooktacular Halloween.
