I upgraded my mobile phone recently, and went to my network provider’s local store to do it. While I was there, there was another customer service story unfolding and I confess I did eavesdrop a little. Well, it takes ages to get all your numbers transferred from one phone to another, what else was I to do?
There was a customer in the store who had been with the network provider for years and couldn’t get his new phone activated. There didn’t seem to be any reason for this, other than a series of internal processes that required him to either be somewhere else, or wait another day, or something. All told, he was obviously very frustrated and this was apparently the third day in a row that he’d been to the branch to sort it out. Each time, the staff said it would be sorted “tomorrow”.
The staff in branch were talking to the contact center to try to resolve the issue, but no matter what option they suggested, they met with a resounding “no”. Eventually the customer spoke to the call center again. I was struck when he said;
“I just want my phone to work. Give me a solution. Everything you’ve said is about your processes. I don’t care about your processes, I just want solutions”.
We talk a lot about how internal processes can frustrate customers to the point of potentially losing them. What struck me in this case was how very aware the customer was of the problem. Often as consumers, we’re just aware that we’re not getting what we want and blame poor service. But in this case, the man was very clear about the problem and I really hope that the person he was speaking to was able to report it back to someone who could take action.
Resolving an individual customer’s gripes through customer feedback is important. But the ability to use the Voice of the Customer to redesign and streamline processes delivers long term, strategic benefits. Combining the Voice of the Customer and the Voice of the Employee gives a really clear picture of the touch points that are failing, and the processes that are causing that failure. Seem to me that in this case, some voices still need to be heard…
