What Not to Say to Customers During Service Recovery

There are far too many ways to turn customers off, and once that happens, it can take a lot of work to regain their trust. Tech support folks probably have it the hardest when it comes to this, most likely because they have to assess problems based on technical issues that the customer may or may not even know about. These kinds of professionals can have the savviest of customers… or customers who don’t even know what using the “on” button means. In any case, the agent in question must never, ever fall into the pit of DYPII (did you plug it in?).

That’s what the folks over at virtual PBX provider Nextiva call it. It’s similar to the simple yet burning question “did you reboot?” While it’s the go-to launching pad of troubleshooting, you may find yourself getting a lot of customer eye rolling, or even customers who feel like they’re being talked down to and don’t appreciate it. DYPII questions and other “did you reboot?” questions do have their place, as they are a bit necessary to diagnose the problem at hand, but they have their place, and that place is not up front.

What Nextiva says is that instead of hitting it off with a DYPII question, first get on the level of the customer, apologize sincerely for the issue at hand, and then get to the problem. Starting off with a calm apology can really make the situation instead of sending it down in flames before the customer has even had a chance to get the help he or she needs.

Even cable customers get a similar response from support agents if services are down. For instance, say your Internet and cable television have completely ceased functioning, but you know you need your connection up and running to send in some time-sensitive work, and your toddler is sorely missing his 3 p.m. “Sesame Street” time. You’ve done the signal refresh, but nothing happens. You call into your service provider, only to be asked “did you unplug the modem and wait a few minutes? We can send a refresh signal.”

Of course this bothers you, because yes, of course you performed this action. While the agent doesn’t know this, and you can’t fault them for assuming that you haven’t done the obvious, starting the conversation off with a DYPII question is only going to make you want to cancel your subscription that very instant.

The best course of action is, even in the face of asking the obvious, find new ways to ask your customers if they’ve performed the basics. Always, always start it off on the right foot, and try to engage before assessing. A personal touch can go a long way.