In a very unscientific poll of my closest friends, I obtained conclusive research data that identifies the top three most annoying and epic customer service fails. The commonality of the fails seem to come down to the number of times déjà vu conversations happen with multiple customer service representatives. And, it really ticks my friends off. I am sure they are not alone. Here is the list of the most common customer service fails:
- Repeat everything, every time
- Hate the long wait times (but like callbacks)
- Wrong person transfers
Let’s take a closer look at each of these nasty fails…
- It’s Like a Broken Record … Having to repeat problems over and over
You know the problem. You’ve made contact, but your issue is not fixed. So, you make contact again and they’ve never heard of you. Or, they know who you are, but not the issue that you had last time you called. Can you tell me your name, phone number, date of birth, mother’s maiden name and your issue again, please?
Companies have been slow to fix this issue, but it can be easily solved. It’s now very simple to coordinate customer information and history across contact channels, across time, across different agents and even when you have used self-service options on the phone or web. It’s called Omnichannel. No excuses any more for this epic fail.
- Waiting for Godot… Those long wait times
Sometimes wait times are almost unavoidable when surges in call volume occur and capacity is not able to meet demand. Customers gets that, but, the key to customer service success is to offer choices to the versus just holding, or as one my friend’s put very sufficiently, “I like the callbacks.”
Spikes do occur and can create unpleasantly long wait times. A virtual call queue can help solve this problem by offering the option of remaining on hold or a callback. This contact center solution allows you to schedule a callback with the phone number of your choice, at the time of your choice. Another epic fail solved!
- Wrong Person… Let me transfer you…and the infinite loop of insanity
We have all had to wade through long IVR prompts to attempt to indicate what type of expertise we need to solve our issue. “Would you like to hear those options again?” The worst is that when you do get a live person, they can’t help from their department or silo’d contact center platform, and need to transfer you. How many times have you been transferred, and lost both the person who transferred you and the transferred to person? Too many times for me to count. Bottom line is that transfers should be outlawed!
The contact center technology exists today where customers can be routed efficiently to the right agent and most knowledgeable person every time. Even better, and what increasingly many people want these days is the self service information to solve their problem without talking to anyone. For example, based on what you have been doing lately with the company, a firm could ask, “Are you calling about your mortgage application?” If the customer’s answer is yes, the platform could provide a status update on the application through self-service options and only if requested, route the person to a mortgage specialist — saving time and money while providing an amazing experience.
How can omnichannel help?
Omnichannel is the next generation of customer experience. It can solve these epic customer service fails. Omnichannel delivers a seamless, consistent and personalized customer experience across all channels, touchpoints and enables all the resources within a company to better work together – across the entire customer journey.
If you’d like to learn more about delivering an omnichannel customer experience, check out this Forrester research report titled, Manage the Cross-Touchpoint Customer Journey.
To see how a single, integrated platform can help your firm overcome epic service fails and deliver true omnichannel interactions, request a Genesys Customer Experience Platform demo today!
