When is a company policy bad for the Customer Experience?

Gary, thanks for the thoughtful response. You raise a point that has been a problem for many companies, as they increase the purchase options/channels for their customers:

Inconsistent experience accross channels. A customer should receive and "feel" the same experience, regardless of where and how they make the purchase. The seller's job is simply to make life easy for the customer.

Thanks again,
Jim

Jim,

I have been thinking about this issue myself lately. It is truly amazing how policies prohibit companies from doing "the right thing", and how pervasive the problem actually is. You highlighted two excellent examples. In my experience, i have found that when your policies start to go down one of the following paths -- you will likely end up with increased customer dissatisfaction:

1. Requiring customers to justify, either in a pre-sales role, or in a post-sale resolution of an issue. I can't tell you how annoying it is to be bombarded with some intricately detailed questionnaire or site survey just to begin a solicitation process. Hire more sales engineers, or train your sales force to conduct these as part of an initial visit. On the post-sale side, requiring customers to justify reasons for returns or replacements, or overly involving the customer in fixing your own product problems. Collaborative solutions with customers is good --- expecting your paying customers to collaborate to fix deficiencies and design flaws is not.

2. Trying to manage customers. Customers are like cats -- they cannot be herded, and will pay attention to you when they want to. Customers my be motivated by you, inspired by you, enticed by you, and even pissed off by you. However, they should not be managed by you.

3. Marketing communications and opt-in / opt-out / selective subscription. Companies need to respect the wishes of customers in terms of how often they wish to receive communication and what types of communication they should receive. Email marketing is cheap, but that does not translate into any correlation between the volume of messages and improvements in the intended result.

Those are the three that are at the forefront of my mind right now. I am sure I will think of others.

I came across a very interesting talk on this issue, and I'd like to share it with you.

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_using_our_practical_wisdom.html

Bruce Kearns

Simply put, when the company hasn't trained (and empowered) employees well enough to understand when a situation calls for flexibility in a policy. The fine line is training them to recognize a situation that will benefit the company more in the long run to make an exception, without exceptions getting out of hand and becoming a harmful "norm."

I bought a download software from called GSA Auto Website Submitter, they are an overseas outfit, the software cost over $60.00.
I have had it only about 4 months now and the licenses key has expired already, I used it twice.
I told them I did not see or read anything about the licenses expiring I got this back: “You should learn how to read, it is in the manual, it is not my fault you don’t know how to read”
I responded to that by saying I would make sure I told my friend about the email and the hidden licenses expiration in the middle of the manual.
I got: “Go ahead, I don’t care, tell who every you want to”.
With this kind of customer service, I wander how they stay in business.

Policies are only there to cover YOUR ass, not the customer's...so they often get in the way.

While sometimes you simply must have a policy (such as a legal situation), it's much more effective to have guidelines, and empower your customer service representatives to make decisions for themselves.

Example:

Customer A paid $3000 for a custom paint job found a chip and just wants that spot painted over. You say yes...the cost is very small for you, and it makes that person a customer (and an evangelist) for life.

On the other hand, Customer B paid $3000 but wants the WHOLE THING repainted because of one chip, you might gently say "no". The cost is very large and they've indicated that they'll be a problem customer. Better to offer to paint over the chip and - if they won't accept that - let them move on to another company.

A strict policy of "no touch-ups" would have left Customer A angry and unlikely to spend with you again (or refer others). A "we'll repaint anything" policy would leave you penniless. Guidelines ("If we can help within reason, we'll eat the cost") and good judgement win the day in this situation.

A company policy is bad for the Customer Experience when it gets in the way of a CS person being able to answer a Customer's question or solve a problem without deferring to it. If a rep ever has to say, "I'm sorry but our policy..." that policy needs to be revised. Policies need to be written from the Customer perspective as well as the company's. You may not want to give away the farm, but bad policies can lose the farm for you.

Bruce, thanks for your input. I like the way you framed the those common root causes of negative CEx. I think thatt can be a very useful approach to preventing the negative, and re-directing toward a positive CEx.

And thanks for that link to Barry Schwartz' TED talk - I'll have to check that one out.

Thanks again - Jim

Roy, thanks for the comment "Policies need to be written from the Customer perspective as well as the company's." If more operations and support managers took that approach, we'd have to find a different topic to discuss! ;) And your farm metaphor is spot-on.

Thanks again - Jim

Thanks Christine. You raise two important points:

1. Training - critical for the employees to understand how to make the right decisions, during those "moments of truth."

2. Taking the "long view" - Too many companies (CEO's, directors and managers alike)become overly concerned with the short-term numbers, and will do so at the expense of the long-term value of the customer relationship. And you're right - balance is key.

Thanks again - Jim

Company policy is bad for Customer Experience when companies ship their Call Center jobs overseas.

If you ask your friends & neighbors about their Call Center experiences – some of them will tell you that they’ve occasionally had to deal with a Customer Service Representative (CSR) based in the USA who was clearly a poor fit for the job - and who delivered a poor caller experience.

But when it comes to describing their experiences dealing with a company that has shipped their Call Center work overseas - the vast majority of your friends will tell you that they generally have a hard time understanding – or being understood by the Agent – and that their call is typically being handled by a ‘script reader’.

Overwhelmingly your friends will tell you that they want to speak with a CSR from their region - who is typically better able to serve & communicate with them. Probe a little deeper – and they’ll also tell you that they’re opposed to shipping Call Center jobs overseas – and particularly to countries with poor human rights records or lax labor standards such as India.

The CSR is your ambassador to customers. The human voice of the CSR provides your company’s human face. Many times when a customer calls it is because something has gone wrong. If the caller cannot understand the CSR due to accent issues/communicative style - problems are compounded. The caller can become agitated and your company may wind up losing a customer & future sales. In the present economic environment just hearing a foreign accent could trip that trigger. Losing dollars chasing dimes is not a wise long-term Customer Care Strategy.

According to “The 2010 Contact Center Consumer Index” from Avaya: “there is a strong & growing correlation between a customer’s Call Center experience and their loyalty to a company or brand. A single poor Call Center experience results in a 47% chance that the customer will move his or her business to a competitor.”

The difference in effectiveness & customer satisfaction between onshore and offshore Call Centers is significant.

From the CFI Group’s “2010 Contact Center Customer Satisfaction Index”:

First Contact Resolution: onshore 67% offshore 50%

Ease of Understanding: onshore 85% offshore 54%

Overall Customer Satisfaction: onshore 79% offshore 58%

Average Handle Time has also been reported to be 39%-105% longer offshore than with onshore Call Centers handling calls of the same type.

From the Jan. 2010 Issue of Site Selection: “Offshoring calls to India works in very limited situations. Interaction with clients and understanding the culture & environment of clients doesn’t work very well at all. The direction of the industry is to bring these customer facing jobs back to the USA.”

The latest Labor Market Outlook from the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development in the UK: “Companies are bringing back call centre operations to the UK from India. Most of the companies that we deal with are looking to keep call centre staff in the UK wherever possible because there is a significant increase in the level of service and customer satisfaction provided."

In the past two years a few of the companies that have moved overseas Call Center departments onshore cut across all product lines and include: Delta & United Airlines, AT&T, Dell, Expedia, HP & Monster. Opting to ‘come home’ for their Call Center employees is making sense for more & more companies seeking to enhance their Service Levels and Brand Reputation while delivering a higher degree of overall Customer Satisfaction.

Top performing Call Centers drive their Revenue & Performance through superior hiring tactics. We help employers gain better insight & more accurate predictions as to which applicants from a pool of Candidates would perform up to, or beyond their established standards. You can find out about a Free Trial of SPAS Call Center Agent Pre-Employment Screening Software at http://www.telesoftsystems.ca/64201.html

Whenever processes dictate the customer experience everyone loses. The customer waits longer or misses out on service opportunities, the employees feel uncomfortable about delivering 'forced' messages or behaviors, and the business loses, well, business. The right way to design the customer experience that's right for the business is to consider what customers want and employees need right from the start. Get the experience right, then align the business processes to support it in a sustainable and profitable way. That's my secret.