Phil Lauterjung

Flckr - Serene Silence

Pardon the interruption, but I need to vent.  Don’t worry, I promise not to do this very often; and, this definitely has application for all of our businesses.  It relates back to a recent post – Should Customer Service be a Given? – and is from a personal experience this past weekend.

It started with a call my wife took from Citibank regarding a “problem” with a credit card account.  She couldn’t figure out what the lady was talking about so she did the next best thing and handed the phone off to me.  I’m not really sure why she did, since she has seen me in action on these types of calls before – not always a pretty sight.

I won’t bore you with the details, but Citibank thought I still owed $58, or was it $27 that had added fees (the lady on the phone wasn’t really clear), on a credit card that I had paid in full in April.  I pulled out my April statement and clearly (at least I thought it was clear) explained my side.  As I did she became more and more confused (couldn’t answer simple questions) and then said she would have to transfer me to customer service.  Great!  My favorite part of these types of calls – telephone ring-around-the-rosey.

Of course I had to explain everything all over again to the young man in customer service – sheeesh!  He said he would try to explain what had happened with my account, but wasn’t able to do so.  The worst part was that he was in India and was attempting to tell me about credit card law here in the U.S.; and, doing so very badly and incorrectly.  To his credit he did speak clear and fluent English.  He wasn’t able to resolve the issue either.  Soooo, you guessed it – on to the next level, a supervisor.  We have now wasted almost 30 minutes trying to resolve a $58, or $27, problem.

The supervisor was far more helpful – finally!  She actually didn’t make me repeat my entire story for what would have been the 3rd time.  She asked if she could put me on hold for about 2 minutes to review my account.  She returned in less than 2 minutes and apologized for the problem and said she would be issuing a credit for the total amount.

Here’s the point.  Was I really satisfied?  Yes and no.  Yes, the outcome was correct, but why did I have to go through 3 people and over 30 minutes to get it done?

When companies don’t empower their front-line, first-contact people to resolve minor issues the final resolution doesn’t really result in a very happy customer.  My original issue involved a lousy $27 and, even with the labor rates in India, they likely spent more than that on this problem.

Those of us that manage customer service functions, or own a business, need to make sure that we do all we can to resolve issues with our customers with one person and one call whenever possible.  If you disagree with that I’d like to hear your take.

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