September 2000

The New CRM Dichotomy: Great Service, Wrong Information

BY DARA BLOOM MIRSKY, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, TMCNET.COM

I should have known it was too good to be true.

I charged the phone overnight and went to make my first call. Nothing happened -- I couldn't get a connection. Since it was Sunday, I rationalized that there could be a delay in activating my account. But on Monday, I still couldn't make or receive calls, even local ones. I made my first call to tech support and spoke with another friendly SNET rep. Chris figured out that Wendy had incorrectly keyed the serial number for my phone into the system -- essentially, the phone was behaving as though it was stolen. He corrected the serial number and had me call my office phone to check that it worked -- it did. I thanked him profusely, put the phone on standby and didn't give it another thought.

Tuesday morning, the phone was dead. Wendy had told me the phone's battery would last five days on standby...but it had only been 48 hours since I had fully charged the battery. Again, I tried to rationalize the problem away: maybe I just need to drain and charge the battery a couple of times before it lasted as long as she promised. I tried that tactic a couple of times, to no avail. So I headed to Ericsson's Web site for the real scoop on my battery. There it was in black and white: the battery that came with the phone has a standby time of just 43 hours. So I spent another $50 to buy a replacement battery that doubles the standby time.

While all the above charging and discharging was going on, I made another call to SNET. This call wasn't in response to a problem: it was to have them waive my $25 activation fee. Having this fee waived wasn't my idea -- Wendy had encouraged me to call to have this done, saying SNET does this all the time in situations like mine, where my husband already has an account with the same provider. Needless to say, the agent I spoke with about the fee had never heard of such a refund. Still, she was happy to give me the benefit of the doubt and credited the $25 cheerfully -- not before taking down Wendy's name, however.

Finally, I thought, this is all settled. I picked up the phone with high hopes and dialed my husband at his office in New York. I discovered I could not make a long-distance call. I wasn't even surprised at this point. I went back to my desk and called Chris, the SNET tech support guy who had figured out the serial number problem. This time, I was able to self-diagnose: I needed a PIN. I had specifically asked Wendy about this when I purchased the phone, and she had told me I didn't need one. Chris confirmed my suspicions -- I needed an access code to make long-distance calls within the first week of my new service contract. With my new PIN in hand, I placed my long-distance call and it went through. Finally.

Since I am skeptical by nature, I am amazed at how lulled into acceptance I was by the confidence and helpfulness Wendy exuded. Also, I'm fascinated by the fact that I still feel positive about my interaction with her. As someone who tends to be more critical about my customer service experiences than most, I think this perception is fascinating. Her helpfulness (even though she really wasn't) and willingness to please are what I remember, not the multitude of things she got wrong. It's easy to think back on situations in which a call center agent gave me either wrong or incomplete information, plus a bad attitude: that combination is deadly. In fact, it's the reason I was shopping for a new wireless provider in the first place.

Perhaps the recent media and industry attention on the sore state of CRM, and its mission-critical status in a company, have spawned efforts to train more approachable, friendly, accommodating customer service reps. But has accuracy has been lost in the balance? In this tight labor market, are call center managers willing to hire agents who can put on a friendly face for the company, even if they compromise accuracy? Or is the problem on the back end, with databases that aren't up-to-date or knowledge bases that aren't easy to use? Maybe it's simply a training issue: in the rush to train more courteous agents, the training on tools they will need to give correct, complete answers has been de-emphasized.

These questions beg one more: what is the value of a friendly agent like Wendy? Your initial answer may be, "none." I would suggest that's too hasty a response. It's not that we should be comfortable with a lower standard of service; it's just that we should not underestimate the power of a considerate, helpful agent who presents a caring, human face for a company. If that agent is getting the information right most of the time, and they make a good-faith effort to correct errors when they are wrong, they are of value to your organization.

The author may be contacted at dbloom@tmcnet.com.

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