Outbound Call Centers and IVR’s
I recently had the unfortunate experience in dealing with a company that uses call centers as the boogie man for their company. They don’t answer their calls and it’s the fault of the call center they contract their support to.
The company doesn’t offer email or web based direct contact, only thru the call center. Again, they claim it’s the fault of the call center that I cannot get in touch with anyone at their company.
Finally there’s the BS of calling the company, getting an automated voice response (IVR) you know punch 1 for this and 2 for that, etc. etc.
Which no matter what you select the first time, goes to another IVR which again doesn’t matter what you select goes to yet another one, which ends up with the customer being told no one is available to take your call, try again later.
I’d like to get a hold of anyone in the company to find out how this is the call centers fault that they can’t provide an email address? What garbage!
Call centers have enough problems and bad press and shouldn’t be used as the scapegoat for poorly run and operated companies.
directory Assisstance…Here’s some Crazy Information
This just in from the Leave me alone and don’t bother me folks in New Zealand…
New Zealand’s web portal Stuff posted an amusing list of strange directory assistance queries, including “Can I have the mobile number for the guy who plays the violin outside Whitcoulls?” and “I’ve lost my friend’s phone number and address, but I have her first name and birth date. Will that help?” Manager Tania Shackleton told Stuff, “No matter what the request is, we need to remain friendly and professional.”
What they also need is a privacy act similar to the United States HIPPA act from a few years ago.
Call Center-Customer Service and the survey
Customer service! Just the words seem to suggest that customers are important. Fact is, in many businesses, the companies now work their hardest to keep people from finding the customer service departments or help call centers. Why? Because customer service COSTS MONEY and many businesses don’t believe that a customer service call center is value add.
Why?
Because all they can see is cost to run a call center. They never see that because of good service, customers are more loyal. Customer loyalty cannot be measured accurately so instead of figuring out how to measure it correctly, management typically runs to the “survey”.
Now it’s not that surveys aren’t important, just that questions can be fashioned to get any answer anyone is looking to find. The reason for this is the very human trait of translation and communication. In a call center, one of the most difficult problems to deal with is the lack of communication between the agent and the customer. Verbalizing helps but try to gain the direct level of understanding through a few survey questions and the logical understanding is that it’s bogus