Disconnect: Perception vs. Reality of Customer Service

When it comes to customer service these days, there is a lot of talk, but not nearly as much walk. Everybody says they’re customer-service focused (even Walmart, which is a bit comical to anyone who has ever actually been in a Walmart). There’s a reason for this: as a society, we’re obsessed with getting the best service – we see it as one of the few differentiators between companies left in a very commoditized marketplace – and we’re willing to ditch any company that doesn’t provide it. Many companies today seem to want us to believe their “customer service quality” tag (News - Alert) lines … without actually taking the time and expense to make sure it’s true. In fact, companies often believe that they provide far better customer service than they actually do (when real customers are polled).

According to Forbes’ contributor Micah Solomon, there are some companies that offer lousy customer service on purpose. If it’s not on purpose, it’s certainly within the realm of being fixable … but the companies don’t seem that interested in fixing it.

According to Solomon, you are intentionally sinking your customer service if you do any of the following:

• If you say you want to treat customers in a warm, caring manner but you don’t hire employees who are naturally warm and caring.
• If you hire warm, caring employees but too few of them to properly serve your customers.
• If you hire enough caring employees, but don’t invest in the training they need to serve customers properly.
• If you hire enough warm, caring, properly trained employees, but make them suffer with obsolete technology and facilities.
• If you hire enough warm, caring people and properly train and equip them, but then work them to the point of burnout or fail to involve them in designing their work and workday.

A prime example of this would be Comcast (News - Alert) CEO Brian Roberts blaming his company’s rotten customer service on call volume, as he did in an interview recently.

“What unfortunately happens is we have about … 350 million interactions with consumers a year, between phone calls and truck calls,” Roberts said. “It may be over 400 million, and that doesn’t count any online interactions which are over, I think, a billion.”

Comcast is aware it gets high call volume. It’s a huge company. It’s also a company with enormous financial resources, yet it can’t even be bothered to put in place enough resources to handle the high call volume? Roberts and the rest of Comcast are intentionally providing bad customer service.

Even though it may not be intentional, providing bad customer service is too easy to do. Cut the budget in the call center and force it to limp through without outdated technology? Reduce headcount to bare bones level because labor costs are too high? Outsource to Asia and use agents whose accents can’t be understood by your customers?

These are all examples of putting short-term profits over long-term customer relationships. If you’re engaging in any of these practices, join the club: you’re intentionally sabotaging your customer service.