THE Weakest Link

Both the beauty and the curse of the telephone channel is the two-way access it gives customers to your company in real time. When it works well it is indeed a beautiful thing. When it breaks down, things can get pretty ugly very quickly.

Using third-party teleservices vendors for a variety of calls (from direct response order calls to customer service and support) has become a necessity for many organizations lacking the resources and technology to handle customer contacts internally. Though the trend to outsource will not likely reverse itself any time soon, it does present some challenges in making contact smooth and transparent for the customer.

No matter how well a calling campaign is planned, trained and tested with a teleservices outsourcer, certain customer issues will fall outside the normal program spectrum. These issues include specific requests, problems or complaints that can never be fully anticipated and should always be expedited immediately to the client company. This is often the weakest link in the chain.

Here’s a real-life case study, from my recent experience.

As a gift, I received a Total Gym 1000 that had been ordered from a fitness-related catalog. I had seen the infomercials for Total Gym exercise equipment and put it on my birthday wish list.

I used the Total Gym and was pleased with the equipment, although I knew I wasn’t using it to its full potential. Then one day I saw the infomercial again and noticed that a training video was promoted with the Gym. I hadn’t received a video with my equipment and thought it might help me use the accessories and learn some new exercises. So I called the infomercial’s 800 number to request the video. That’s when the trouble started.

I reached the outsourcer handling inbound orders and was told by a rep that I had the Total Gym 1000, not the Total Gym 2000, which came with the video. No problem, I said, I’d be happy to pay for the video. You can’t, the rep told me, we don’t sell just the video. I asked to speak to a supervisor, who told me the same thing. He noted a number of Total Gym 1000 owners had called with the same request, the company had been given the feedback, and there was nothing he could do to help us.

So I asked the supervisor for a number to call the company directly and was told they had no direct phone, fax number or e-mail to give me, only a postal address. Increasingly frustrated, I took down the address, hung up and called directory assistance. The only number listed for the company was the original 800 response number back to the outsourcer. I called it again and waited 20 minutes on hold before hanging up in disgust. I wanted the video and didn’t appreciate the way I had been treated. But this was not tremendously high on my priority list and life went on.

About a week later, I received a call from Total Gym Fitness at my home office where I had placed the original calls. Apparently, the outsourcer had captured my ANI (automatic number identification), which identified the number I had been calling from before I had hung up. The representative noted he was calling for Total Gym, that I had called them some time in the past and hadn’t gotten through, and he wanted to know how he could help me.

The wound freshly opened, I started to tell him about my quest for the video and frustration at not being able to contact the company directly. Instead of offering a solution, this rep poured salt in the wound by suggesting it was my fault as a consumer for purchasing the 1000, which was a model the company had “discontinued” (sold off) 10 years ago because of quality problems like parts falling off.

Whoa! I had started out basically happy with the Gym-just wanting the video so I could use it better. Then I was annoyed because the company had put up a brick wall preventing customers from contacting them directly. (Discontinued model or not, I still considered myself a customer of Total Gym Fitness!) Now I was infuriated to be insulted, when all I had tried to do was purchase additional products from the company. Worse yet, I was now concerned about the future quality and safety of the equipment-which was never at issue until the rep brought it up!

Needless to say, that rep got an earful. By the end of the conversation, he relented and gave me the 800 number for the company’s internal service center. A few weeks passed before I had a chance to try again. This time was a completely different experience.

The service rep was courteous and knowledgeable, explaining the benefits of a newly released video that would be most appropriate for my needs since it focused more on exercises and less on set-up. She took my order (confirming all the details), empathized with my past encounter, and promised to pass along my feedback for improving their customer contact processes.

All’s well that ends well? Maybe so, but I doubt I will ever forget the experience and would hesitate to make another significant equipment purchase from the company.

Which leads us to some golden rules for making the telephone medium work for-not against-you and your customers:

* The telephone is ubiquitous. Forget trying to minimize the impact of calls on your organization by not publishing a headquarters number or not providing your teleservices vendor with a number for expediting issues. This simply frustrates customers who will eventually find a way to get through to you (not good) while allowing the rest of the pack to give up and never do business with you again-after they tell 10 friends about the experience (even worse).

* A subset of the previous rule is forcing customers (by dictate, cost or inconvenience) to communicate with your company by one specific channel (which is rarely the customer’s preferred channel). In this day and age, an arbitrary requirement for customers to respond by snail mail is usually met with contempt-and rightly so!

* One of the most important aspects of working with your outsourcer is determining up front which issues need to be directed back to your company, who will be responsible for them, and specifically how the vendor will handle them (don’t forget to plan for off-hours situations).

* Whenever possible, callers to your toll-free number who must be redirected should be handled with a “warm transfer.” Inform the caller another person/ department is best equipped to help them, ask permission to put the caller on hold while you try that extension, make the call and get the specialist’s name, and get both parties back on the line before handing the call off: “Thank you for waiting, John. Ihave Sue Specialist on the line and she can help you with that video request…”

* The next-best solution is a cold transfer, setting expectations up front: “John I’m going to transfer you to our special order department. At this time of day calls may get backed up a little so I’ll give you that direct toll-free number in case you get interrupted while on hold and would prefer to call back…”

* Or provide a toll-free number with an explanation: “Since I don’t have access to your records at this time, John, I can give you the toll-free number for customer service. They’re open until 7 p.m. eastern time…”

* If there’s no 800 number, give the toll number with hours of business or tips for using the company’s automated voice response system, if available and appropriate, at off hours.

* The last alternative is providing real-time-not snail mail -channels for written correspondence, like fax or e-mail. Remind the caller to include his contact information for a response. Identify the person or team responsible for handling customer correspondence and set goals for turning around a response quickly (hint: within 24 hours or less is ideal).