Apologies for inconvenience caused to you :(

I made a complaint last month regarding some charges wrongly debited to my credit card account.  The complaint was sent through mail to customer care. As soon as I clicked on the sent button, in a lighting speed I got an automated mail from them saying that my case is registered and a reference id is generated which I have to remember for all future coordination (how I wish that companies are similarly fast in resolving complaints as well). It took me multiple conversations with the customer care executive, escalations to higher authority, several exchange of mails before the case was resolved. One thing that was common all across. During every conversation I had with them, one statement was used every time and it was also in the starting line of every single mail. The statement was “Apologies for the inconvenience caused to you”..!!! I mean..really??

The word “Apology” is the most commonly used & abused word by customer service department these days. It becomes so sick hearing this line so often. For God sake the least one can do is at least rephrase the line.

Things have become so mechanical that personal touch has been lost completely. Today we have predefined scripts everywhere, automated mails wishing birthdays and taking feedback, apologies doesn’t mean or sound apologies etc. Customer care executives are not measured on customer satisfaction levels but on how efficiently they manage “average handling time”, how beautifully they converse in predefined script,  how fast are they in closing the cases (without checking whether customer is satisfied with the resolution), and other metric to suit the organization.

Just a thought, what if customer care executive has the freedom to speak to customer based on what customer mood is, what if customer care executive is empowered to take the decision to give a spot on resolution rather than going through the hierarchy matrix & making customer wait (brilliant way of introducing Lean), what if instead of measuring customer care executive on average handling time they are measured on how customer rated them when they closed the case, what if instead of getting automated mails you actually get a call from them wishing on your birthday etc.

In the age of technology, some things are still meant to be as is. It may yield better results in terms of customer satisfaction at the same time would contribute in reducing waste within organization which occurs due to lots of re work and endless waiting time at both ends!!!!