Stop placating me and make a decision!
Don't you just get so furious when you have an issue, contact customer service, and the front line staff is wonderfully sympathetic and apologetic but cannot make a decision to resolve your issue?
I am tired of the placating and no decision making to fix my issue. I am tired of escalating to a Supervisor, then a Manager and having to wait for call backs to resolve my issue!
I was reading a thought provoking article by Graham Kingma, in April's edition of the Contact Management Magazine entitled, Empower Your Frontline Staff to Boost Profits. In it Graham talks about allowing your frontline staff to make decisions to resolve a customer's issue. What really resonated for me was that empowering your frontline staff should be viewed as allowing them the confidence to effectively resolve a customer's issue (once trained and given the tools). Empowering your frontline staff will boost profits as acquiring new customer's costs more than retaining them.
I had a recent experience at a well known telecommunications retail outlet that made me think that frontline customer service people need to be more empowered to make decisions to retain customers, enhance the customer experience and stop giving customers the run around! Customer Service people are smart, resourceful and care about helping people, so why don't companies give them the tools they need to truly be of help?
I went to this well known retail establishment (of which I am a loyal customer) to upgrade a piece of my equipment (my internet, long distance, Blackberry and digital TV are bundled into this "great deal" to save me money). Low and behold, they had a special promotion for new customers, and I, a loyal customer, had to pay almost double for the same thing! I expressed my concern and the Associate and the Manager were wonderful; they apologized, empathized and tried to explain the rationale of the new customer promotion. At this point I was livid; I proceeded to give them the following analogy:
"Imagine you are going to a wedding of a long time best friend and that best friend made a recent friendship with a cool, well connected person. You arrive at the wedding and you are sitting in the back close to the kitchen and the newly acquired friend (the cool and well-connected person) is at the head table. How would you feel?"
I felt used and taken for granted. They both got the analogy but still no decision could be made; they continued to apologize and offer kind words; lots of placating, but no authority to fix the issue.
I told them I will call head office and sort it out (one would have thought one of them would have made that recommendation and not make me do work). Inany event I called head office and got what I wanted with one phone call.
If frontline staff are empowered to make decisions it is great for the customer, employee and shareholder. As Graham said in his article; "they (frontline staff) won't give away the farm." In most cases they will make great decisions that meet the need of the customer and the business.
I sometimes think the reason most customer services jobs are not highly regarded is that most people in this role are not allowed to problem solve and provide a resolution to customers issues. I'm sure it's as frustrating for many of them as it is for the customer. If you cannot solve the customer's issue then you cannot effectively service them.
In this day and age of instant information, gratification, and busy lives, there are few organizations that ensure their frontline people are well equipped to make a decision and truly provide service, not platitudes!
