The Customer Authority

According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) it is. It’s interesting, because I keep hearing/reading different opinions on this subject and how it’s an indicator of the recession improving.

Some are saying customer service is just a poor as always in some areas, or in fact, is declining as employees become more disgruntled with work conditions. Others say – such as the following article, that businesses have taken heed of the recession and have taken steps to improve their customer service as a result. And this in turn is helping the economy slowly begin to recover.

Perhaps it’s a little bit of both. The stronger and smarter businesses who know where they need to make changes to survive the economy have been making the right choices and taking action. The others who don’t care as much, or maybe don’t know how to make effective changes, are the ones suffering.

I can tell you one thing – the mention of customer service offices moving overseas too save money is definitely not the answer. In fact, I was quite disappointed to read that bit of information. While I understand the need to save money, outsourcing simply leads to a slew of other problems, as I’ve mentioned in one of my previous posts. Any companies using this method as a means to save money will only find themselves losing business because their customers will not be satisfied with their new customer service.

In the meantime, take a look at the article and see what you think. Are we moving out of the recession? Is customer service actually getting better? Let me know what you think!

Customer satisfaction has been on the rise since late last year and some analysts think the upward trend is a… (read article here).

When I used to work for Coca-Cola, I worked as an Account Coordinator. My main role was to ensure our customers received their installation of our Coke fountain machines without any problems. I was essentially the liason between the customer, sales, and the service techs. It was my job to make sure things ran as smoothly as possible. And I did.

From time to time, I’d have my own internal problems with my computer. Something would stop working and I’d have to figure out what broke. If I couldn’t figure it out on my own (which usually consisted of my “rebooting” the computer), I’d call our Help Desk for support.

Normally this was never a problem other than I sometimes had to hold on the line for more than ten minutes if they were backed up. Yup – even in our own company we had to wait for service. But I had a headset, so I could easily multi-task doing other things while I was on hold. No big deal. Until…

One day when I called, I got someone who obviously was not a native English speaker. This didn’t seem odd to me at first, since there are plenty of IT guys I’ve come across over the years who are foreign. And generally, I don’t have a big problem understanding people with accents because half my family speaks with an accent. But this guy had a really heavy accent. To the point I was having a hard time understanding anything he said. It was almost like listening to an “Abbot and Costello” routine:

Accent Guy: “Can you give me your name and ID number please today?

Me: “Hi, yeah – Michelle Alvarez – B12345”

Accent Guy: “Thank you Miss Albures. And please you tell me, what is problem you are having today, thank you?”

Me: “Uh – my computer doesn’t seem to be working and I don’t know why.”

Accent Guy: “Did you turn off your system please?”

Me: “Yes”.

Accent Guy: “And it did not come back on?”

Me: “No – I mean yes. It came back on, but it’s still not working”.

Accent Guy: “So it is not back on.”

Me: “No, it IS back on.”

Accent Guy: “So it is off and not working.”

Me: “No, it’s ON and not working.”

Accent Guy: “It’s working now?”

Me: “Uh – is there someone else I can speak with please?”

Twenty minutes of going around in a circle on the phone, I STILL didn’t have my computer working and the guy had to pass my ticket on to someone else. Needless to say, I was frustrated and seriously annoyed by the time the conversation was over. It was only after having the same scenario occur a couple more times that I found out Coke had out-sourced our Help Desk to India.

Now I don’t have a problem with foreigners of any kind. As I said, half my family is from another country. I’ve lived overseas and went to an International High School filled with people from all over the world. I’m truly fascinated by other cultures. And while I understand the principle of corporations trying to save money by outsourcing, I disagree highly with how they are going about doing it.

Because in my experience – not just with Coke, but with other companies I’ve dealt with who outsource – the customer is the one who ultimately suffers. If you’re a company that has made sure your outsourcing employees have proper training and can understand and speak English at a high level, that’s one thing. That to me says you are looking out for your customers and there should be little to no problems in communication. However, that is not usually the case.

Most of the time there is a language barrier great enough where the customer is having difficulty in communicating their problem and/or getting it resolved. And when a customer is already upset over a problem, the last thing you want to do as a business is offer a solution that only frustrates them even more.

Coke ultimately received enough complaints internally from its employees that they changed their outsourcing methods. They went back to utilizing internal employees again, and for those associates with heavy accents, they started using the company’s instant messaging system to communicate. For me, this was a great solution. I didn’t care if the person who was trying to help me had an accent as long as we could communicate and he was competent in providing a solution.

So before you decide to use outsourcing for your business, or even if you already are, you might want to re-think this strategy and decide which is more important – saving money by using a cheaper resource – or losing your customers because they’re no longer satisfied with the service you provide?