Nightmare on Customer Service Street!

‘Tis the season for spooks, scares, and spine-tingling surprises. And while most of us enjoy greeting the unknown at our front door on Halloween night, no one is amused by an unexpected nightmare experience with customer service. What happens when your customers reach out to you? Is it a treat? Or a bad dream that’s impossible to shake off? Here are three of the most horrifying encounters sure to send your customers running away, screaming.

The House of Mirrors

Few things can break a customer’s spirit as quickly as getting trapped in the endless, mindless maze of waiting on hold or bouncing their way through a circular transfer loop. No matter how many times they call out for help, they always end up right back where they started—with no hope of ever reaching a live human being who can actually assist them. If your customer care provider is still blaming these ordeals on unanticipated spikes in call volume, maybe it’s time to dig deeper into their capabilities. Have they invested in cloud-based platforms? Conversational AI? Do they have IT talent to oversee these investments?

The Zombie

Lifeless, expressionless, and guaranteed not to care if your customer gets the help they need or the brand appreciation they crave. The zombie agent will lumber and shuffle through every call, tearing your brand reputation apart with their long silences, sighs, and groans. Is this a hiring problem? Have the zombies infiltrated your service provider’s management and supervisor team? If your provider tries to tell you they’ll fix it with training, be afraid. Be very afraid. While any agent can have a bad day, persistent apathy is unlikely to get better with more coaching. Empathy isn’t a skill you can train. It’s a core competency that candidates bring with them. Or not. 

The Vampire

They’re charming. They’re smooth. And they’ll suck the life out of your customers with their endless chatter that never seems to address their needs. Positive customer experience is the lifeblood of customer loyalty, intimacy, and advocacy for the brands they love.

Vampires are bloodsuckers. When it comes to customer care, that’s exactly what they’ll do to your bottom line if you’re not careful. Unlike the problem with zombies, this is a trainable issue. Well-meaning agents who enjoy communicating with people often just need a lot of support in developing their active listening skills. They need to understand your brand and your customers well enough to know what to listen for and how to meaningfully respond and act. But does your customer care provider have a consistent training and coaching process led by highly competent managers and coaches? You can’t know until you look closely.

If you want to treat your customers to a better, more consistent brand-boosting experience at every point of interaction, please reach out. We would love to learn about your goals and challenges. And we look forward to talking with you about how we can help.

Happy Halloween!