A recent lighting storm rolled through and managed to take out my Comcast internet and TV service. That’s right, it took out both services which would lead any reasonably intelligent human to arrive at one conclusion, their service is not reaching our home. Unfortunately the customer service representative (CSR) was either not an intelligent human, or more likely, not empowered to act as one. In an earlier instance, where both TV’s were not receiving a couple specific channels, a CSR tried to convince me that both digital receivers may have died at exactly the same time…and only died for those few channels. In both cases Comcast refused to send help unless we would schedule an appointment and be home. No calm, rational, or reasonable deductive reasoning could sway even a manager from this course of action. This incredulous behavior reminds me of the days when the first thing any internet help desk would ask you to do is reboot your computer.
Now the question comes to mind, is this good for the company? It would seem my beef is with my hardship, but at least a small part of me asks, wouldn’t it be huge savings to the company and an overall customer satisfaction win if they were to empower their representatives to take an alternate action when warranted? I know you are going to interject that most CSR’s and customers are not savvy and are incapable of being trusted with such decisions making authority. While I agree with the reasoning, that doesn’t make it a viable solution.
New CSR response triggers for client and company well-being.
- Note when a client objected to the course of action and when the solution would have been solved faster/better if their direction had been heeded.
- Empower the CSR to transfer to higher tier when it is clear that the callers understanding of the issue is better than that of the CSR’s.
- Empower the CSR to not follow a script when the response doesn’t fit and clearly the person on the other end will know it.
- Train CSR’s to optionally deviate from company policies and scripts when a suggested action is unlikely to yield results.
- Provide better training or hiring vetting: I know…a ridiculous thought.
My Comcast issue? A Comcast guy did come out this morning and very shortly after stepping out of the vehicle admitted this had to be a line issue base on my assertion that every piece of equipment in my house didn’t spontaneously stop accepting their signal at once. How is it that my logic worked with this individual, but not the one on the phone? Now the wait for a line guy to come out…like I requested in the first place. Sigh.
Tell me about your DUH, CSR moments. Go ahead, let it out, but no defamation or big boy language.