Does thinking of customer service as a negative blind companies to new opportunities? (Part 2)

It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this blog that many large companies hate giving customer service.  To avoid talking to their customers, companies outsource, automate, and even (if they're Sprint) send break-up letters to their most challenging customers.

But is customer service the horrible beast many companies make it out to be?  Or do opportunities lurk just past its frightening exterior?

Yesterday, in Does thinking of customer service as a negative blind companies to new opportunities (Part 1), I challenged the belief of companies like Sprint that customer service calls are negatives that should be avoided.

Here are a couple more "What If" questions that Sprint should be asking.

Question 3: What if Sprint benefited from customers calling the service line?

Many many companies spend a lot of money on market research, paying big bucks to find out what their customers want.  They do surveys, gather focus groups, and pay other companies to tell them what customers are saying.  It's not an easy thing for them to get quality input.

At the same time, customers calling the service lines are often faced with long, boring waits where they listen to elevator music and head the same advertisement over and over and over.

Hmmm.  Can something be done to improve both those situations?  What if customer who called the help line were invited to help the company with a little market research while they waited?

Customers could complete a survey, evaluate a radio advertisement for its effectiveness, or even share their ideas with a representative.

Although many customers would do it for free (just to avoid the horrible hold music), the company could offer incentives to increase participation.  Perhaps a 10% deduction on their next bill, or a coupon code to buy phone accessories on their website, or maybe even a shorter wait?

Market research would get access to a large number of subscribers, customers would not be so irritated at the long wait and the company would be able to write-off some customer-service expenses as a development initiative.

Question 4: What if Sprint only paid for customer service representatives when they were needed?

One major disadvantage for large companies like Sprint is the cost of running a large customer care center.  Unlike restaurants, customer care representatives cannot just be "phased out" when call volume drops.  Call center workers expect to work their full shifts.

Or could a customer care center be run more like a restuaruant? What if Sprint changed the traditional call center structure to give it more flexibility in staffing by (a) decentralizing it and (b) hiring more part time workers.

(A) VoIP technology allows people to answer phone calls where ever, whenever with the same line.  This could enable Sprint to set-up many smaller call centers around the world that would all be accessible by the same number (which might already be happening) OR it could allow call center representatives to work from home.

Which brings up (B) hiring more part-time workers.  The issue with having a large center is that workers expect to have full shifts when they come in to work.  If workers are allowed to work from home, or from smaller close-by centers, however, they might be willing to come in for shorter shifts during peak hours.

College students might be very interested in a job where they could come in for just a couple hours to make some extra money.  Another possibility is stay-at-home parents.  Airline Jet Blue currently homesources its entire reservation service to approximately 1000 housewives in Utah who work an average of 25 hours a week.

By moving to a system like that, Sprint wouldn't have to pay for a full staff of customer service agents during their slow periods, but would still be fully-staffed during their busiest times.

So, there are a couple more ideas about how Sprint could turn their customer service calls into a positive.  Sometimes, even the "worst obligations" can harbor opportunities.

But... if Sprint prefers the monster, they are perfectly welcome to continue down their deep dark path to see what waits for them at the end.

Note 1: I say Sprint because they just grabbed headlines by firing 1000 of their neediest customers... but it could be any company that hates customer service calls.

Note 2: Special thanks to Thiago and  Jean for the Godzilla photos!

Comments

[Doug Meacham]

Hi Katie, Great series on Sprint. Question 3 is particularly interesting although I think the biggest answer to "how can we improve" asked while customers are waiting to speak to Customer Service would be to not have to wait to speak to Customer Service. Still, the biggest insight for me is that Sprint is not a "Sense & Respond" organization. They aren't out there listening to the signals coming from their customers and acting quickly to respond to them. If they were, they would not continue to have the volume of Customer Service calls for the same chronic problems. A May, 2007 study (http://tinyurl.com/2kutoh) showed that the wireless industry in general improving CS scores, but still one of the lower ranking industries. Sprint was the only carrier to show decline (3%) in their service score over the previous year.

This industry, along with cable providers and airlines have a common thread. Their industries are relatively closed to new competition due to the high cost of entry. Companies in these industries traditionally don't focus on customer service because there is no pressure to do so. They are more about maintaining parity with the other players than differentiating for the customer. Sprint seems to be abandoning even that approach.

Hi Doug,

Thanks for providing some specifics to back up my post. After all, it would be one thing if Sprint provided exceptional service and a few bad apples were simply taking advantage of them. But, it's one thing to fire customers for calling in too much when you're known for helping customers as much as possible--it's something completely different to fire customers when you're known for providing horrible customer service!

~Katie

[Becky Carroll]

Thank you for your two posts on Sprint, Katie. Many, many companies are similar in that they view customer service as an expensive necessity rather than viewing it as an opportunity to interact with customers.

One of the areas for improvement is in the metrics. When call centers are measured on how quickly they can close a call, the behaviors are very different from when reps are measured on a customer-focused approach. I have shadowed both types of call centers, and reps do what they are measured to do!

I am not sure a customer calling in with an issue would be very open to taking a survey while they are waiting (it would only highlight the amount of time they are on hold), but it could be something to test. I share other ideas in my post just before the New Year about how to have customer focus and cost reduction co-exist in the contact center: http://customersrock.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/customer-service-new-years-musings/.

Keep up the good work, Katie! :)

Hi Becky, Thanks for bringing up the point that customer service reps focus on what they're measured on. Your post (the one linked above) really does a good job explaining how companies come to have such bad service... and why they should improve it.

Of course, the survey idea might not work and customers could hate it. But, it's interesting to think of other alternatives than the elevator music for customers stuck on hold.

That's the fun of innovation... I get to bring up ideas that might be completely insane, and then see how they can lead to something that does work.

And, how do you know it wouldn't work? Perhaps we're all so used to the elevator music that we can't imagine anything different.