Inside the Customer Experience

 

Being in the customer experience measurement industry for the last 12 years, I cannot help but analyze and evaluate customer experiences in my personal life; I guess that is a work hazard of sorts.

 

I am currently involved in a journey to get my mom’s phone and internet service restored. We are on day four and I am hoping it is the last and final day.

 

My mom’s wireless services went out, which means no phone and no internet. She is allergic to the computer, so the internet is not an issue. However, she is in her 70’s and does not have a cell phone, so the home phone is kind of important. It went out on Sunday afternoon, so I used my phone to call and find out what might be happening. This, of course, after I tried recycling the modem and all of the good stuff that comes with that.

 

Call #1: I follow the automated prompts, and my voice doesn’t ever seem to register with this company’s system. After many unsuccessful attempts, they finally allow me to use the keypad for my entries. I get to a representative, and I explain the situation, as well as everything I’ve done so far to try to resolve it. She promptly walks me through the recycling process, saying that “maybe I’ve done it incorrectly.” Okay, I’ll give this a pass. We try it, and no dice. I’m put on hold for six minutes, after which she tells me there may be an outage in the area, but I should schedule a service call. Okay, so is there an outage or not? That will determine if I need to schedule a service call. She says she’s not sure but there might be, and suggests I wait a bit and call back if it’s still out.

 

Call #2: I wait a few hours and call back. I explain the situation again, and here I am asked to confirm every number ever in existence, from the account number, home number, best number to reach us, and the home address. They do some internal testing and say there must be an outage in the area, and no worries, it should be back soon. No mention of a service call. So we wait.

 

Call #3: The next day I try calling my Mom’s house and the phone is still not working. So I call the company. I go through the painful “they can’t understand my voice” system and somehow get through to a rep. Again, I have to confirm every number known to man and have to re-explain the situation. This rep is very detail oriented, and starts to re-explain what I’ve just said to make sure he’s got it right. I am put on hold for five minutes while he “tests the system.” He returns and confirms it’s not working. Okay, great. He then says that there is not, and has not been an outage, so we need a service call. I explain that no one is home during the day and ask if this is a problem. He says that the rep will only be checking the outside lines, and if there is a need to go into the home, someone will need to be there. I ask if it’s possible to leave my cell phone (which is on file with the account) so if they find they need someone to go inside, I can run over there since I only live a few minutes away. He said that is fine and again confirms the cell phone number and email address on file. He apologizes profusely and says I will receive a text message and email to confirm the appointment. I never received either.

 

Call #4: I wait with my cell phone beside me during the time frame in which the rep was to come in case I was needed. I never got a call or text. Now I’m wondering if the issue has been resolved or if the rep ever came out. I wait until plenty of time passed after the latest part of the window before calling. Again, went through voice recognition hell and confirmation of every number I can possibly now, which they’ve now added that I confirm the “secret code” to access the account. I ask if the situation has been resolved and if the tech came out, and what was found out because it appears it is still not fixed. I am on hold for 10 minutes during this time, after which the representative assured me that the tech did go to the house, but she cannot get a hold of him. She is going to try again, so I am on hold another six minutes. She said the tech did go to the house and there was an issue with the outside wire, but it has been fixed. I asked why service does not seem to be restored yet. Back on hold for 8 minutes. She returns, apologizing and saying that the tech thinks more work needs to be done. Thinks? So, when will this be done, and is it on the outside or inside line? She wasn’t sure, so back on hold I went. She confirmed that he “thinks” it’s outside work still but won’t be back until the following day. It might be inside work, but he’s not sure. I ask why I wasn’t called if the tech thought it might be inside work, and she did not have an answer.

 

I ask what the next step is, and she said she will get back in touch with the tech to get an ETA on his return, and that I will get a text and email to confirm. At this point, she ends the call by trying to get me to change over our television service to them and bundle services. Um, now is not the time to try to sell me. However, she attempts to overcome my objections twice before letting me off the phone.
She then ended the call by assuring me the issue would be resolved, and to make things easier for me, I could visit their website and check on the status. That’d be great, if we had internet…

 

I patiently wait for a call, email, or text, and nothing happens. So, hours later that same night, comes call #5….

 

Still need to confirm everything in the account, and need to explain the entire situation. Again. This rep assures me everything will be fixed on this call; I want to ask him if he has superpowers, but refrain. I am on hold for 12 minutes while he tries to reach the dispatch/tech department. He returns and says they won’t get back to him, and he’s very sorry but will keep trying. On hold for another 8 minutes while we wait to hear from someone.

 

When he returns, he tells me the tech did fix something outside but they will have to come in and reconfigure the modem. I ask why that was not explained to me prior to this, and if that was the case, why they didn’t just do that on the first visit. He said he did not know, but he would get this resolved. He sets up the service call for today with a four hour window. He says I will get a text and email to confirm. I let him know that I’ve been told that several times through the process, but I have never gotten either, and I wanted them to know so they can be sure this feature works properly. He AGAIN confirms the phone number and email and promises I will get them. He also tells me about their app, which is free to use (he says this like it’s rare and I’ve just won the lottery), and then starts asking about my cell phone provider in an attempt to get me to switch. Second attempt to upsell during the process. I very politely say that maybe we should fix the current issues before we consider getting additional services from them.

 

He ends the call by saying I will get a text and email to confirm the appointment. I am still waiting for those….

 

So today’s the day. We’ll see what happens.

 

This is a longer process than it should have been; the company did some things right, and also did some things in ways that could have been better. Let’s unpack this situation into the good, the bad, and the ugly…

 

What they did right

1. At each call, the representatives were apologetic and indicated they wanted to get this resolved. Sometimes it sounded as though they were truly following a script, but at least there was sincerity in their voices across the board.

 

2. As redundant as it was for me, and frustrating after the third or fourth time, the representatives were careful to restate what they heard me say so they could make sure they were understanding my issues. It would have been more effective had they done this and referenced notes/comments from my past interactions to really make me feel as though they were understanding the situation. But, the restating of the concern was a good thing.

 

3. At the end of the calls, I was told how information would be communicated to be about future appointments, and I was told that the company had an app and a portion of their website devoted to status updates on technical issues. This was great in that they gave me avenues to pursue and check things at my convenience; if the features worked properly, that would be a win for the company.

 

What could have been better

1. Cut down on the confirmation of information: I completely understand needing to verify account information for security purposes, but if the reps refer to the account notes, they should see I’ve called multiple times so my information is probably correct. Going through this procedure multiple times increased the time to resolve the issue and was frustrating after the second or third call.

 

2. Beef up the communication chain: I understand it takes time for the reps to get in touch with the tech department. That is not an issue at all, and I don’t mind the time spent waiting if I can get a consistent answer. Long wait times only to hear different versions of the outcome is frustrating, and makes me wonder if the tech actually came out to the house. It also prevented me from asking more detailed questions, as I feared another long wait to get an answer that I wasn’t sure was 100% correct.

 

3. I explicitly told the rep early on that if the tech was at the house and needed to get inside, to contact my cell phone and I’d be there in less than 5 minutes. I never got a call, which left me wondering if he truly came out. If he did, and fixed something outside, would he know that the modem needed to be reconfigured? If not, this seems to be a lack of training. If so, why didn’t he call? Did he not get the message about calling me and just assumed since no one was home, he couldn’t do it? If that’s the case, why weren’t we notified somehow that additional work needed to be done that required someone at home?

What was just plain ugly

1. Trying to upsell to a customer with unresolved issues: this is not the first time I’ve experienced this, yet it still boggles the mind. In some cases, it does sound like they are following a script, and I’m sure upselling/cross selling services is encouraged. However, this is not the time to attempt this – it’s clear I’ve made several calls and my issues have not been resolved over a period of days. Probably not the best time to ask if I want to add services with them.

 

We will see how this gets resolved. Hopefully the tech comes out and finally puts this issue to rest. Of course, a refund for the days my mom was out of service would be great as well, but that might be asking for too much. I will wait to see if that is offered, and if not, will ask myself to see how that is handled. Four days without service, at the fault of the company, should be worth something.

 

If a customer has an unresolved poor experience with your company, what will it take to make it right? According to research, it takes a while. I recently read a statistic data sheet from Help Scout, which uncovered some interesting facts and statistics related to customer service. While you can read the article here, I wanted to highlight a few interesting statistics related to poor customer experiences:

 

 

 

 

So, what are we looking at? First, if a customer has a poor experience, and it is unresolved, from their perspective, it’s going to take 12 positive experiences to overcome the one negative. That’s a lot of work! Couple that with the fact that where there is one customer who complains, there are 26 others that are dissatisfied, but never say anything, things can get tricky with regard to customer loyalty and retention.

 

What’s a company to do? Below are some tips to consider when looking at the customer experience, identifying pain points, and implementing procedures to ensure that customers keep coming back.

 

1. Are you listening? Customers want to tell you what they think, especially when they’re unhappy. Do you have an easy way for them to share their thoughts with you? Review your customer service channels – do you have multiple communication points so customers can share their thoughts with you where they are most comfortable, whether that is by phone, email, social media, or live chat? Make it easy for customers to talk to you; when they feel heard, and their issues are resolved, they will give you that chance to give them 12 positive experiences, long forgetting the one poor experience.

 

2. What does your resolution loop look like? Often times, when customer issues go unresolved, they shut down. You may never know that they felt the issue was not fully addressed – they just leave and do business with others. If you have a strong resolution loop in place, ensuring that all issues are resolved, following up with the customer to be sure they perceive it as resolved, and looking at trends to pinpoint common areas of customer disconnect to proactively preventing them in the future, you will circumvent a lot of customer loss. Remember, customers will “forgive and forget” to a certain extent when their issues are resolved.

 

3. How are you measuring customer resolution and overall experience? If you have a solid resolution loop in place, are you certain it is playing out as intended? How are calls handled? This is where customer experience management tools, such as mystery shopping and quality content monitoring come into play. By utilizing these types of services, you will have the opportunity to review customer channels in an objective, quantitative manner. Quality content monitoring allows your already recorded customer service calls to be listened to an evaluated based on an objective performance criteria list – when a company has not used a mystery shopping program in the past, this type of evaluation can give some great insight and give the company a starting place to monitor performance.

 

Customers are tough, and today’s customer is much different than customers even five years ago. Making sure you know what they’re thinking, resolving issues, and striving to make each experience positive will keep loyalty and satisfaction levels high.