The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

I had a fairly good experience with my DSL provider. The company was with Bell South Access DSL. I was having a problem and I had to get it sorted. My DSL modem went bad and it would no longer provide service to me. So I called Bell South, and the front end of the process was a bit shaky and I had to enter my DSL account number a few times and I had to get transferred to another group. In the middle of the conversation we got disconnected, so it sounded like this thing was going to go really bad really fast.

What happened was that I got a returned phone call right away. I couldn't even answer the phone fast enough to call them back. The phone was ringing and it was the agent that I was just talking to. He identified himself and apologized for getting cut off. He said here is what I have so far is there anything else. I said yes I think I have a bad modem here. So we went through a trouble shooting process and it was very simple and very straight forward.

We communicated well with each other. We went through a trouble shooting process and he said "yes it seems like you have a bad router can I set you up with a service visit." He said the next time he could get a service provider out there would be in about a week. I said that I couldn't really wait a week, and I asked if he could send me a new modem so I can try it. It may not be the modem but I could try it and then we can get it fixed and fast track through this thing and get the correction made easily. He said I can certainly do that, and he asked if he could take down some information. He said that if I wanted it over night he would have to charge it to me if that was alright. I said no problem as long as it gets here. I got it by the next afternoon and set it up. I called them back and went through the same process. I gave them my phone number a few times and got routed to this other group that got it up in running in 5 minutes.

They were very professional, they reiterated what they were going to do and what the result was going to be if it was working properly. I think all tolled I probably spent 30 or 45 minutes on the whole problem. They were very responsive and they knew their business, and they knew what it took to get me back on the air. I felt very good about it.

Kevin Hegebarth - Director, Witness Systems

The bad experience that I had was when I was trying to book a vacation and a hotel for my family to go to a specific location in the US. In the process of doing that I couldn't do it online so I called their call center. Looking to book the hotel, I was relatively flexible but I had to give them a date for my vacation so they could search for the room. The experience was such that I felt that I was dealing with an order taker. The person on the other line was interested in taking my order, but if they didn't have that availability on that specific date they were not flexible in their mind to leverage all the other resources that they had in order to win my business, and in order to book my vacation. They were limited in their ability to access their knowledge and to actually understand other availability and understand my needs and understand the different options that they have in order to fulfill my needs. They were just sitting their for the purpose of just taking an order, and not leveraging all the systems that they had in order to make me a customer, and gain my business and actually give me great service.

I ended up going with another company. In our business we have the chance to see many call centers and I could envision how to go from order takers to vacation planners and changing and shifting and getting into my head and trying to achieve my goal, by having the right information at the right time,. They were seeking for the specific task that I am giving them, not being creative and not being knowledgeable about all the options and just going to fulfill my request.

In the call center environment you want to be flexible you want to actually go for the root cause, and go for the root reason for what will make me happy. It's not just finding the room at that hotel on that day, because I am actually trying to plan a vacation. I might have flexibility. They should be looking for things like looking for if I have kids or not and other options.

I ended up going to a beautiful hotel in the Cats Hills. I enjoyed a beautiful time with my family, not on the original date that I was supposed to go though. I found another company that was flexible enough to ask "what is it that you are looking for in your vacation?" They met my needs and they also had the ability to tap into their knowledge base according to the needs that I have.

The call center needs to trim down everything in their knowledge base in order to stick for the one thing or few things that are the options for me. It is being flexible with all the information that is out their and bringing the right information at the right time towards my needs as a customer. It was a great vacation.

Shay Grinfeld - CEO, e-Glue

The most recent experience that I had with a call center agency was with United Airlines. I was recently making a reservation for a trip out to New Zealand and the customer service was excellent. They were very accommodating and they helped to coordinate a number of colleagues that were flying from Europe. I was going out on vacation for a couple of weeks and probably the thing that impressed me the most with the customer service was the way they went beyond the normal customer service that you would normally receive from call centers.

They provided quite a comprehensive service in terms of e-mailing me the information straight away and then following it up. I had to call back and change a few things and again they were very accommodating. They were able to send my schedule to my friends in the UK that were able to call back and coordinate their schedule.

It was superb service, very efficient, very friendly. They couldn't do enough for you. I fly regularly with United Airlines, but even calling through as an anonymous customer the customer service is always good for them. They had a very prompt service and you weren't left long on the virtual lead, which is very common in call centers and people usually switch off within 10 or 15 seconds. I would highly recommend them.

Anthony O'Keefe - Vice President - Midwest, Welsh Development Agency (WDA)

I called into a large software manufacturer up in the northwest that will go nameless. I had an e-mail problem and the person that answered the phone was very polite and articulate. She asked what my problem was and I gave her about 30 seconds of a very articulate example of what was wrong with my computer. She then proceeded to ask six questions that I already gave her answers to. I explained to her, that she was not listening to me, and that I gave her all the information that she needed. She said that she was sorry and that she had to ask a few more questions. I told her exactly what the problem was again and she went back to reading off her prompts again. I told her that I needed to talk to someone who can help my problem. She said that she couldn't help me, and that she would turn me over to a specialist.

She put me on hold and then she came back and asked me "is there anything else that I can do for you before I transfer you to a specialist?." I was thinking "anything else you can do….you didn't help me to begin with!" She didn't listen to me, she was so busy reading her prompts that she didn't even hear a word that I said. It was very frustrating.

So I finally got through to a specialist and he went through his prompts and did the exact same thing to me. I had to hang up and go to someone else for help. It was an example of how in a call center you need to stop reading your prompts and listen to the customer. Start using your brains! I'm sure that they were very well educated people but I think that it was a leadership problem because they are mandated on what to do. They are not allowed to deal with a customer the way that they should be.

So I called some people that I knew, who worked for the state of Washington in the computer department to get the answers that I needed.

Brad Worthlely  - Consultant & Behaviour Change Specialist, Brad Worthley International