Comments on: Wired tells us why customer service sucks.

By: Expat

Expat — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:42:12 +0000

In regards to the price of outsourcing, as a expat currently residing in the Philippines I have seen what the call centers offer in terms of pay. On average, a call center will offer around $300-400 (US) per month to someone handling phone calls. This depends on how many hours they are willing to put in (mainly graveyard shift with limited breaks & often with a minimum of 8 hours per day – some work 10-12 hour shifts with 2-3 5-minute breaks & 20-30 minutes for their main meal) & how well they handle customer service with those who call. It has been brought up time & again by those here that the call centers do not retain employees because someone can always replace them with one of the dozens to hundreds who apply every day. You can often search about the problems with the call centers here & it’s understandable to a certain degree why they do not show as much necessary customer support as they should when their own employers have little or no concern for them as employees.

By: Service Untitled » GoDaddy Made it Quick and Easy - customer service and customer service experience blog

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:47:45 +0000

[...] The goal of a customer service interaction (except at some companies) is to get the customer’s issue resolved in a timely manner and to the customer’s satisfaction. When I called GoDaddy this morning, they did exactly that. [...]

By: Service Untitled

Service Untitled — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:45:00 +0000

Thanks for your comments!

Bill: you’re exactly right. It is kind of scary that it could be this easy. It is actually far more complicated, but what Wired said is a big part of a lot of issues.

Jeff: Thanks for pointing those links and studies out.

By: Jeff Toister

Jeff Toister — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:01:45 +0000

I think I know where Wired got their “1 in 3″ statistic on measuring customer satisfaction. A 2007 study by the Incoming Calls Management Institute found that 31% of respondants don’t formally measure customer satisfaction. There were ~250 participants from around the world, though mostly from the United State.

Having worked in a few call centers, my experience is that talk time is a more more prevalent statistic. In other words, the average call center focuses more on getting you off the phone quickly than on resolving your problem.

You are definitely on to something when you wondered about measuring agent satisfaction. A 2006 Harvard Business Review article detailed some research done by Gallup on the clear link between “Customer Engagement” and “Employee Engagement”. You can find a free PDF of this article by Googling “hbr human sigma article”.

By: Bill Gammell

Bill Gammell — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:40:45 +0000

In a way you’ve got to be optimistic after reading this article. If you have the audacity and resolve to make customer service a priority, there is an open playing field for you to stand out.