Right after Christmas, I called the waste management provider for our subdivision to see when they would be coming around to pick up Christmas trees for recycling. The person I spoke with politely informed me that they didn’t provide that service, and suggested I call another agency. When I pointed out that they had, indeed, provided that service last year, she again politely informed me that she had worked there for three years and she was not aware that this service had ever been provided (I knew she was wrong, but I didn’t want to waste time arguing).
Imagine my surprise, then, when I read an announcement in our community newspaper announcing that trees were going to be picked up by none other than this same waste management provider; all you had to do was call and get your name on the list to be picked up on a certain day. So, I quickly made the call, and talked to another young lady who again informed me that they did not provide this service! When I informed her about the announcement I had just read in the newspaper, she put me on hold (with a slightly exasperated tone) and went to consult with her manager. A couple of minutes later she came back on the line to confirm that they were offering this service after all, but the manager had neglected to make this fact known to anyone in the front office! She apologized for the confusion, took down my information, and my Christmas tree has now gone on to better place.
Here is another example that happened recently to a friend of mine who had an urgent need to get a check cashed, due to a family emergency. His local bank was across town, but his bank informed him that they had a check cashing agreement with another bank, much closer to him; these two banks would, in effect, extend mutual services to customers of both banks. However, when my friend hurried over to the other bank and presented his check for payment, his check was declined because … you guessed it … he didn’t have an account at this bank. He ended up wasting valuable time and drastically escalating an already stressful situation by driving across town to get his check cashed. Of course, he complained very loudly, and a subsequent investigation revealed that the mutual recognition of customers policy between the two banks did exist, but the policy had never been explained to the tellers at the second bank! The only person who knew of the policy was the head teller, who had just gone on break and left strict instructions not to be disturbed right before my friend pulled up to the drive through.
In both of these cases, poor customer service resulted not from incompetent CSRs, but from poor management policies that made the CSRs look incompetent. In both situations, both the employees and the institutions could have been spared a lot of embarrassment, and the customers could have been spared a lot of frustration, if the managers had simply taken the time to adequately train and prepare their staff members.
If you are charged with managing customer facing personnel, it is your responsibility to clearly inform them of any policies that affect their ability to deliver outstanding service to your customers. You should also inform them of the procedure for resolving any confusion when customers appear to have expectations that don’t conform to the policy as the CSRs understand them. This is just one more good example of why “NO” is never the best first answer for a CSR to give to a customer for any reason. When in doubt, check it out. But, more to the point, managers must never leave their staff members in the dark when it comes to anything that affects customers. In both of these cases, a simple two minute conversation, or even a two line email, would have prevented all this confusion.
Customer Service Quick Tip - Clarify and Confirm
As a CSR, you probably hear the same set of complaints and problems over and over again, day after day. You have heard it all before, and you already know how this whole thing is probably going to play out. However, your customer is going through this for the first time, and they need the assurance that you are taking their problem seriously. If you want to create a sense of confidence and appreciation in your customer, listen carefully, ask good questions to clarify exactly what the customer is saying, and then confirm what their main concerns and needs are before suggesting any solutions. The customer will feel much better about your solution if they believe you created it for them. Also, clarifying and confirming keeps you from jumping to conclusions before you have all the facts.
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