Customer Service

[Whomp]

Establishing the culture is the key. Businesses that are struggling with the concept should consider looking at how Zappo's creates raving fans with their core values. I know my team does and my gal's company closes a ton of business by showing off their culture on site visits.

If you're struggling with the concept, as it appears your organization is, I recommend sending CEO Tony Hsieh an email at Tony@deliveringhappiness.com (give him your address) and he will send you their culture book. In it Zappo's employees are asked to write a couple paragraphs about what their culture means to them (stories, pictures, personal experience etc.)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

One of the stupidest customer service issues I had was when several years I once bought a game (I dont remember the name -- sorry), not realizing it had to be activated on the internet. Was not mentioned on the package. And it turned out the publisher was out of business and there was no patch to activate the game. (why the heck was it even on the shelf?) I tried to return the game and I had printed out an article about the company going out of business but I could not return it because of the "no returns of open games unless the disc is defective" rule. Even the manager wouldnt do anything. I'm still sort of mad about this.

 

[Deviate]

If this was something like a GameStop I'd have contacted someone at the corporate level. The BBB is amazing and getting things done in my experience as well. Very rarely this issue will pop up at my work. (Similar anyway.) Someone will purchase whatever piece of software and it doesn't work for one reason or another. If we exhaust every tech support option, we almost always do a refund. (I can't think of an instance where we haven't.) We have to back our product.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well i had only spent something like $5 on the game so i didn't think the time was worth that. And the company publish the game was out of business so I couldnt very well contact them.

 

[Labtec600]

Problem with customer service is you have to deal with people.

 

[NetGear]

Not just people. That's bad in itself but you don't even get that luxury. You have to deal with angry people. Whiny people. And people with problems. And they all think you're mr. Verizon, mr. Gamestop, mr bestbuy.

 

[BvBPL]

There's nothing like a customer service job to turn a people person into a misanthrope.

 

[emzie]

The funny thing is how many people don't realize they're talking to an ally.

When you call customer service. you're talking to someone who likely hates the company more than you do. If you don't act like a degenerate human being, we will probably find ways to give you credits.

 

[JonBonham]

Whomp any brief notes on how to establish or have a good culture in a call center?

 

[Cutlass]

The funny thing is how many people don't realize they're talking to an ally.

When you call customer service. you're talking to someone who likely hates the company more than you do. If you don't act like a degenerate human being, we will probably find ways to give you credits.

Unless it's AT&T. Their Indian call center people are so terrified of helping you that you can reduce them to tears by trying to insist that they don't waste your time.

 

[Whomp]

Whomp any brief notes on how to establish or have a good culture in a call center?

We operate in a client facing, high touch environment so while there are differences in our client experience I think some of the basic tenents remain the same.

For instance, have you ever flown American Airlines or Southwest Airlines? Given the choice between the regimented monotone voice of the American Flight Attendant or the singing flight attendant at Southwest it's a no brainer for me. Weird? Maybe but at Zappos how weird are you is an interview question. In fact, one of their people sent me an email not too long ago that reminded me to "keep my weird meter full".

So core values...what are they for your organization? At Zappos weird is good. In our practice, we send humorous books on marriage, age, promotions etc. Our clients probably throw out their birthday cards. They do not toss our book about how houses are blackholes.

We developed our core tenets together. For a call center, I would ask everyone what they believe the core values are? We think these values should be built from the front line up since this is where the best decisions and most customer focused people reside. I know if I were running a call center one thing I would change would be to stop measuring how quickly someone can expedite incoming calls. Instead, I would encourage them to spend as much time on the phone as the customer needs and no scripts. Be yourself.

One other notable example of questions to askon culture change is what they ask at Rackspace "what do we want from work? How do we succeed on a human level? One of the rackers core values is to be a valued member, of a winning team, on a inspiring mission. Pull up one of their youtube videos (the wedding one is great) to see how they roll and the work environment they operate in. Pretty awesome.

How do you want to handle recognition? Pens are boring. Being put in a strait jacket in front of the whole company for delivering great service is weird and just great. My gal's company did a "cake boss" contest using the brands of the company doing a site visit with them. Then again, they're weird. What company has their CEO come out wearing a "party rock anthem" robot head at a company wide meeting turned party after she delivered news of their monster 2011?

Sorry for not being brief but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Being a misanthrope is no way to live or work.

 

[Speedo]

I haven't looked recently but I believe it is around two years. I can't remember if that was for the company or our department though.

In the last year we've had 1 person get fired and 4 people quit. We hired 7 people and will be hiring 4 more in April. We have seasonal staff too but that doesn't count.

I've worked at two call centers. I'd say at both places the average employee stayed less than 6 months.

Bottom line?

Call center pay is usually terrible.
Call center jobs are usually insanely stressful.
Call center management is usually awful.
Call center culture is usually terrible; everyone hates their job, management, and their customers.

 

[Janig]

I agree that happy workers mean happier customers. No comment on the op quotes but Ive done customer service and I admit it was good experience.

 

[dIZZyBlIZZy]

Not just people. That's bad in itself but you don't even get that luxury. You have to deal with angry people. Whiny people. And people with problems. And they all think you're mr. Verizon, mr. Gamestop, mr bestbuy.

That's what that shirt you wear means to them. In college I worked a casino, in slot department. So many players had some stupid belief that somehow, I was in control of the payout of the machines. I remember one that claimed I had a button on my radio that I could point at a machine and push to make it start paying! Even if that was possible, would a casino really give that kind of ability to someone on the bottom of the food chain?

The funny thing is how many people don't realize they're talking to an ally.

When you call customer service. you're talking to someone who likely hates the company more than you do. If you don't act like a degenerate human being, we will probably find ways to give you credits.

I think people are too short sighted to look beyond their own problems.

I've worked at two call centers. I'd say at both places the average employee stayed less than 6 months.

Bottom line?

Call center pay is usually terrible.
Call center jobs are usually insanely stressful.
Call center management is usually awful.
Call center culture is usually terrible; everyone hates their job, management, and their customers.

I feel for the people who have to put up with moronic middle managers whom think they are far more important than they are, or demeaning customers set on belittling retailers/call takers as if this will better accomplish their goals, whom also think they are far more important than they are. No human being deserves to be degraded like the family dog that peed on the carpet.

But I promise you, it can be far worse. If you spent 6 weeks as a correctional officer working a pod, you would see how much worse it could be. Morale of the story, it's easier to be thick-skinned if you think about how it could be worse.

 

[Cutlass]

Customer service is hard. And doing it well even harder. Specific to certain companies and situations, you can try to deliver customer service well. But much of CS is still a low paid employee caught between customers who are either irate or distrustful or for some other reason not willing to give the benefit of the doubt, on the one hand, and managers who are not good, or overly demanding, or just cheap, on the other. And so while many businesses can try to have good customer service, for many other businesses it's really hard to do. And if your employees are not well paid and well treated internally, then that will be reflected in how they treat others. And while it is rare for an employee to actually treat a customer with a nasty attitude, it does happen, because it is also true many customers suck. So all too much of the customer service that you hear about is actually an employee in a no win situation.

 

[emzie]

The awful pay bit I don't find to be too true. Keep in mind you're talking about a job that doesn't require a university degree. My starting pay in a call centre was like 40% more than the starting pay of a teacher in some states.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I could never do customer service. The main issue is my speech impediment. People would probably rather talk to somebody with a heavy accent than me. In the worst cases what I'm saying isn't much more than a bunch of random sounds mashed together. Nothing resembling words.

 

[emzie]

I could never do customer service. The main issue is my speech impediment. People would probably rather talk to somebody with a heavy accent than me. In the worst cases what I'm saying isn't much more than a bunch of random sounds mashed together. Nothing resembling words.

You can do web-based support.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well, theres that. But nothing phone.

 

[JonBonham]

We operate in a client facing, high touch environment so while there are differences in our client experience I think some of the basic tenents remain the same.

For instance, have you ever flown American Airlines or Southwest Airlines? Given the choice between the regimented monotone voice of the American Flight Attendant or the singing flight attendant at Southwest it's a no brainer for me. Weird? Maybe but at Zappos how weird are you is an interview question. In fact, one of their people sent me an email not too long ago that reminded me to "keep my weird meter full".

So core values...what are they for your organization? At Zappos weird is good. In our practice, we send humorous books on marriage, age, promotions etc. Our clients probably throw out their birthday cards. They do not toss our book about how houses are blackholes.

We developed our core tenets together. For a call center, I would ask everyone what they believe the core values are? We think these values should be built from the front line up since this is where the best decisions and most customer focused people reside. I know if I were running a call center one thing I would change would be to stop measuring how quickly someone can expedite incoming calls. Instead, I would encourage them to spend as much time on the phone as the customer needs and no scripts. Be yourself.

One other notable example of questions to askon culture change is what they ask at Rackspace "what do we want from work? How do we succeed on a human level? One of the rackers core values is to be a valued member, of a winning team, on a inspiring mission. Pull up one of their youtube videos (the wedding one is great) to see how they roll and the work environment they operate in. Pretty awesome.

How do you want to handle recognition? Pens are boring. Being put in a strait jacket in front of the whole company for delivering great service is weird and just great. My gal's company did a "cake boss" contest using the brands of the company doing a site visit with them. Then again, they're weird. What company has their CEO come out wearing a "party rock anthem" robot head at a company wide meeting turned party after she delivered news of their monster 2011?

Sorry for not being brief but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Being a misanthrope is no way to live or work.

No sorry necessary, the brief was for your sake not mine, I'm more than happy for the details! The weird and interesting recognition thing sounds fun, and thanks for the ideas about culture, definitely something to think about.

I work for a large cell phone company call center and so the corporate values is already established, being customer focus teamwork innovation communication and accountabilty, but the division i work in is for a smaller brand that has smaller team sizes, so there's room for the teams to build on the regular office culture (nothing stands out in the culture of this place really) and I was looking for some inspiration on how to do that. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, if you don't mind a little more brain picking, i'd be happy to hear if you had any more ideas for an inbound customer service cell phone company call center culture!