Service Untitled

I wrote about how to properly transfer customers quite a while ago, but I think the issue needs to be brought up again because it is so important. There are primarily two ways to transfer a call: blindly and not blindly (I’m sure there is another term, but I think not blindly is sufficient). A blind transfer is when the original representative puts transfers the customer to the new department, person, etc. without doing anything. They enter in the extension on their phone and off the customer goes.

Good customer service companies do not do blind transfers – ever. They don’t do blind transfers because blind transfers confuse customers and employees. They make the customer repeat the same information to another person and essentially start from scratch after spending at least some time on the phone with another person. When customers are transferred properly, they get on the phone with a representative who knows about their problem and is familiar with what has been done already and what needs to be done now. The customer and the new representative can get right to work. A seamless transfer ends up leading to a seamless customer service experience.

And for the companies that care about their bottom-line in addition to their customers’ happiness, blind transfers don’t make business sense either. If the original representative invested a couple of minutes and explained the issue, what he or she had done already, and so on, it’d save the new representative time. Getting the original representative off the phone and then making the new representative stay on the phone (which is what happens with blind transfers) is not efficient.

So if you are concerned about your bottom-line and your customers’ happiness (as you should be), then consider training your customer service representatives to transfer customers properly. You’ll save time and money and your customers will appreciate the extra effort.