What We Have Come To Expect
Does calling the customer service department have to be a bad experience? There are countless examples of customer service departments that exist to mask the problems a company is facing with a product or service. "We didn't produce it correctly, so we'll just have to gear up to take the calls from customers and send field service people to fix it."
Think of the waste embedded in that last sentence. Two entire departments exist on a scale completely out of line with what would be required were products and services built from the idea to the delivered goods with quality in mind.
Unfortunately, the problems seldom stop there. Call centers are being managed using telecommunications technology that is almost guaranteed to provide a bad experience for the caller. Hold times are miserable. Linkages to vital information systems are poorly conceived.
Predictive analysis should allow any call center to alter the hold times and the handoff's that customers are forced to endure. It is not a difficult matter to keep a historical record of a customer's calls so that the CSR who takes the next call can see the recent calls and outcomes from the same customer.
Are CEO's so busy with "more important stuff" that these matters don't belong in the executive suite? Every day small business owners solve these kinds of problems or they go out of business. Why isn't the head of Wal-Mart or the head of HP or the head of Time Warner concerned about how the customer experiences their products and services?