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What pains you about call-in customer service?

There have been massive strides in NLP, but I feel like I have to decide between sittig on hold for hours with my bank or listening to a robotic voice walking me thorugh a menu. There have been some improvements on both in the past years. The questions is, can we make calling customer service at large companies an enjoyable experience? If you're a company, and want to get involved as we build out a solution, sign up to be an initial partner/join the waitlist at: https://communis.super.site Either way, I want to hear your pain points. What do you want to improve about customer service interactions that take place over the phone?

quantified 3y ago
I love the ability for companies to design call trees that prevent customers from getting help. For example, Expedia recently rolled out changes that prevented some people from logging in. But all routes (phone, chatbot) required an existing reservation to get ahold of any help whatsoever. Even needing to enter an existing valid itinerary number, which maybe you'd be unable to retrieve because emails only held a fragment, you needed to log in to get the entire id. The assumption was that the tech was flawless. And, if you used subterfuge, like locating a number for hospitality providers and getting transferred, the human scripts did not allow for anything that wasn't based on an itinerary. From the Expedia's point of view, the fact that a persistent customer might penetrate their walls could be cynically seen as a pain point. From the customer's point of view, the thing that sucks isn't the tech but the design of customer service itself.
- inquisitiverab 3y ago
  Good point. But do you think they do this mainly because they're short staffed?
ssss11 3y ago
The analyst you end up speaking to has no power whatsoever and this has been the case for decades. They have a set list of questions, a tree of outcomes, and there’s no decision making required. I get it - that’s efficient, cost effective and predictable for the company. You often can’t escalate complaints. You can’t explain your situation that falls out of the norm. It’s not “customer service”. Customers don’t like it for good reasons. But you know what, it’s better than a bot or AI, so the future will be even bleaker.
- inquisitiverab 3y ago
  Hm these comments are helpful. Seems like the other comment is suggesting a bot would be too flexible, and you're suggesting the bot would be too rigid. Is that accurate?
  - inquisitiverab 3y ago
    I also wonder if the reason complaints aren't escalated is because supervisors are short-staffed or if it's because the company is worried about losing revenu with escalated complaints.
    - ssss11 3y ago
      The whole point of scripts, decision trees, bots etc is to lead a customer down a pre-defined path to an outcome the business can predict, forecast, and manage to _their_ desired outcomes. They can then do things like push more automation and less staff, esp less supervisors (there’s no decisions to be made now). Any scenario that doesn’t fit that process is inefficient for the business. What fits for the customer is likely the opposite (maybe not always though) I think people (customers) in general want to be heard and their problem considered. But instead get treated like an annoyance for not fitting the mold, or ignored. So, the further down the path of automation and away from people manning phones and helping out the customer, the more dire I think it’ll be. I can’t see any company deviating from that trend though.
  - ssss11 3y ago
    I think the other comment was made in sarcasm and they are saying a similar theme to me.
Jill_the_Pill 3y ago
Absolutely you can make customer service a much better experience for callers! Here is how . . . . listen very closely now . . . . Hire and retain many more human workers. Train them well, treat them well, and pay them well. Give them the resources, autonomy, and time they need to solve problems. Chop down all the phone trees.

quantified 3y ago

I love the ability for companies to design call trees that prevent customers from getting help. For example, Expedia recently rolled out changes that prevented some people from logging in. But all routes (phone, chatbot) required an existing reservation to get ahold of any help whatsoever. Even needing to enter an existing valid itinerary number, which maybe you'd be unable to retrieve because emails only held a fragment, you needed to log in to get the entire id. The assumption was that the tech was flawless. And, if you used subterfuge, like locating a number for hospitality providers and getting transferred, the human scripts did not allow for anything that wasn't based on an itinerary. From the Expedia's point of view, the fact that a persistent customer might penetrate their walls could be cynically seen as a pain point. From the customer's point of view, the thing that sucks isn't the tech but the design of customer service itself.

inquisitiverab 3y ago
Good point. But do you think they do this mainly because they're short staffed?

ssss11 3y ago

The analyst you end up speaking to has no power whatsoever and this has been the case for decades. They have a set list of questions, a tree of outcomes, and there’s no decision making required. I get it - that’s efficient, cost effective and predictable for the company. You often can’t escalate complaints. You can’t explain your situation that falls out of the norm. It’s not “customer service”. Customers don’t like it for good reasons. But you know what, it’s better than a bot or AI, so the future will be even bleaker.

inquisitiverab 3y ago
Hm these comments are helpful. Seems like the other comment is suggesting a bot would be too flexible, and you're suggesting the bot would be too rigid. Is that accurate?
- inquisitiverab 3y ago
  I also wonder if the reason complaints aren't escalated is because supervisors are short-staffed or if it's because the company is worried about losing revenu with escalated complaints.
  - ssss11 3y ago
    The whole point of scripts, decision trees, bots etc is to lead a customer down a pre-defined path to an outcome the business can predict, forecast, and manage to _their_ desired outcomes. They can then do things like push more automation and less staff, esp less supervisors (there’s no decisions to be made now). Any scenario that doesn’t fit that process is inefficient for the business. What fits for the customer is likely the opposite (maybe not always though) I think people (customers) in general want to be heard and their problem considered. But instead get treated like an annoyance for not fitting the mold, or ignored. So, the further down the path of automation and away from people manning phones and helping out the customer, the more dire I think it’ll be. I can’t see any company deviating from that trend though.
- ssss11 3y ago
  I think the other comment was made in sarcasm and they are saying a similar theme to me.

Jill_the_Pill 3y ago

Absolutely you can make customer service a much better experience for callers! Here is how . . . . listen very closely now . . . . Hire and retain many more human workers. Train them well, treat them well, and pay them well. Give them the resources, autonomy, and time they need to solve problems. Chop down all the phone trees.