Why Do We Receive Such Terrible Customer Service?

Title: Why do we receive such terrible customer service?

By: Christopher “Synther” Wilson

I have no flashy pictures of products to put up for this one, which feels a little weird.  But a recent conversation really pinpointed the issue at hand and gave me some insight into why we get such terrible customer service/technical support 75% of the time we call a 1800 number.  Believe it or not, it isn’t because we’re all stupid.  And I find it hard to actually fully blame the poor guy reading from a script on the other end of the phone.  The answer is simple: Customer Service management is a bunch of imbeciles and the army of plebeians in the call center is receiving horrendous training.

I don’t make this claim lightly.  At one time I was the lead technical support trainer for companies such as Netscape, @Home, and Gateway.  This was all back when customer service actually meant something and was handled correctly.  Today, customer service is seen more as a front line means to cover up any mistakes by the company and defend the company’s position rather than to simply fix the end user’s problem.  Very few companies follow the number one rule to customer service/technical support: When you answer the phone or respond to that email, own the issue and take responsibility.  God forbid that anyone take any responsibility.

Look, I’ve got news for you.  When you signed on to be a customer service rep, you made it your job to always be at fault and to fix it.  That’s your job.  Period.  It isn’t to upsell the end user to a more expensive package, it isn’t to defend the company, and it isn’t to put any blame on the end user.  Own it and take responsibility.  The second rule is to never, ever, assume anything.  Get the information, repeat the information back to the end user, and work with that.  Don’t assume you know something that hasn’t been told to you.  The third rule is to ask close ended questions.  Avoid open ended questions like, “how are you doing today?”  This simply leads to a diatribe of useless information you don’t need.  Be on point and stick to the topic at hand.

I bring this all up because I just witnessed higher end reps for a fairly large gaming company do exactly the opposite of good customer service.  Then, when I called them on it, I was basically told that I was not only wrong but that they didn’t see the difference in how things were handled.  Now they’ve not only handled the issue in a grossly incorrect manner, they’ve compounded it by then trying to defend their completely inept handling of it.  It’s really rather amazing that anyone in customer service can either be this stupid or have such low willpower that they’ve been indoctrinated to tow the company line on such a level.  Let alone to hear this from people that claim to be “lead reps” for said company.

For your edification, here is the incorrect way of handling customer service, just so that we’re on the same page.


WRONG

Customer contacts you via phone, email, or on a forum and states that their account was hacked.  They’ve had numerous fraudulent charges placed on their credit/debit card.

Rep: “We recommend all users enable two stage authentication on their accounts.”

Rep: “I’ll get you in touch with teir 2 support, since teir 1 is rarely able to give out more information on the nature of this issue and is more suited for handling fraudulent charges.”

So, why was this wrong?  The initial response of telling the customer that it is recommended that two stage authentication is enabled puts the blame on the customer.  As a customer service rep, you signed up to be at fault and to fix it.  Victim blaming for a hack of your network is not taking ownership and it is certainly not taking responsibility.  Whether or not the customer had two stage authentication enabled or if they used the same password on multiple sites/clients is not your issue and is it not your place to assume that this is what happened.  You never, ever, start a customer service call by blaming the victim for what has happened to them.  Not only was this standard customer service/technical support training, any moron would know that this is simply common sense.

The second part of the response may be correct in some situations.  However, in a lot of ways it feels like the rep is simply passing the buck.  “You do what you can until you can’t do any more, then you pass it up to tier 2,” is the usual rule on this.  If the standard procedure is to pass fraudulent charges up to tier 2, then by all means waste no time in doing so.

If you did the above and are unable to see how badly you handled this situation after it is pointed out to you, head directly to a doctor with an MRI machine to make sure you have a brain in your skull.

Almost immediately after having viewed this absolutely disgusting display of customer service, I was fortunate enough to actually receive good customer service.  Not just good, but outstanding!  So, here is the correct way of doing customer service, so that we have a way of seeing the difference.

RIGHT

Customer contacts you via phone/email/or on a forum to state that they have downloaded the new driver for your company’s hardware but that the driver will not install correctly.  The driver never gets to a point where it detects the hardware, but claims it has installed.  It then promptly fails to operate properly.

Rep: “We’re sorry you’re having these issues.  The driver was just released last night and it looks like the wrong file was put up on the server.  Here is a link to the correct driver.  Can you please download the driver again?”

Rep: “If you are continuing to have issues with the driver, can you tell me what the filename of the download is?  What version of Windows are you using?”

What did the rep do correctly here?  They took responsibility for the issue by immediately apologizing for any issues.  They took ownership of the issue by admitting that the incorrect file was placed on the server.  They then gave a 99% probability of fixing the issue by offering a link to the correct file.  The rep then gets bonus points for following up the initial statement by offering further assistance should the new download fail to install properly and by asking closed ended questions to help further his knowledge of what is going on.  This was a masterful display of how to do customer service/technical support correctly.  And it did solve the issue.  Total call time: 5 minutes.

Companies like Comcast and EA have gained reputations, if not awards, for being the worst companies in America for the simple reason that they fail time and again to follow the first three rules of customer service.  Sure, they have some dirty back end deals that you don’t find out about until later, but the initial reason is because they have terrible customer service.  And then they back up that terrible customer service by having leads or managers that attempt to defend their terrible customer service.  In most cases, you can screw your customers all you want as long as you apologize for it and take ownership on the phone when they call you.

I just gave these companies a plainly drawn road map on how to fix their terrible reputation.  I doubt they’ll use it because the people in charge are more concerned with being right than fixing the end user’s issues or how to properly conduct business.  I hope they enjoy getting more awards.