Being a technical support representative for Dell, I hardly get calls about customers asking for their computer’s system specification or upgrade information. Almost all of the calls I get starts with “I have a problem with my computer…” or uniformly sounds like that which ever way the customer said it. It’s always about a system crashing, locking up, or anyway they will describe it. A customer who calls up and just laughs about it, I know, was just trying to calm his/her nerves or is naturally nice no matter how many times they have to sit for hours asking for assistance. All though we don’t also get that many screaming, cussing and swearing customers everyday, but fairly a large number are frustrated customers. I guess that will be the same for any technical support segments for any type of products and services.
In the technical support department of Dell especially in the company outsourced to the Philippines (that’s where I am), we were set with certain standards as the customer contact. Dell, a client, also set standards of service that the outsourcer shall pass, and that will in turn have the outsourcer (shareholders) need the agents to pass a higher standard than what the client had expected from the shareholders themselves. Metrics may change drastically depending on how it also changed from the higher office (Dell). The metrics may be handling time of the phone call (duration), resolution rate, customer satisfaction, quality assessment or anything that may come up to boost the service level and productivity.
Although, these metrics are good-naturedly created to uplift the quality of service that the technical support representatives will give to the customers, it may also wreak havoc to its entire purpose.
For instance, the handling time metric, is a given value of phone handling duration that is expected to be met by the support agents. This metric may cause a staggard and unfeeling sound of the entire conversation. It may also force some representatives to cut it short with their customers, either by not ending the call properly with a resolution or at worst disconnecting a call.
The quality assessment, can somehow delay in getting to the resolution of the customer’s computer issue or in assisting the customer. We have to verify the account, get the name, email address and telephone number of the customer. It would, at times, cause annoyance to the customer. Another part of this assessment is being within the scope of support. Scope of support will limit you to the segment where the system belongs to, be it in Small Medium Business, Corporate or Consumer, and some sub-segments as well. This will cause a lot of transfer rates and another frustrated and angry customer. For instance, an agent in Small Medium Business for Dimension support pulled up a service tag for Corporate segment but still a Dimension, may need to transfer the customer to the Corporate department, even though he/she would’ve been supporting same system. For a compliance to the quality assessment, the agent will have to transfer the customer and transferring the customer will help him/her in manipulating his/her average handling time.
The dispatch resolution rate, which is unique to the Dell account, is a metric that rates the resolution of the part replacement that were sent by an agent in a condition that no dispatches were sent in that same system within 7 days. That means, agents will be forced to be meticulously check if the logical troubleshooting to diagnose the issue has been performed. Some customers will have no time having to do the things they already did. Some customers will find most of the steps as redundant and pointless. Some of the customers felt like they were wasting their time.
I, for myself, gets in the dilemma of helping a customer sincerely as I can or performing in a way of what the shareholder (outsourcer) is expected of me. Sometimes, I felt like I wanted to go away from being crippled of quantifying every detail of being a good technical support agent in our shareholder’s view. Sometimes, I felt like I just wanted to help regardless of anything they have put the limits on.
Customers may seem stupid at times, but most of the time they have a point.
Customers, may seem illogical at times, but most of the time we were the ones who defied logic because of the rules we follow.
Customers may be impatient at times but I don’t believe they will be if service is prompt and efficient. I may put my Avaya phone on mute, and swear under my breath or out loud, how obnoxious, illogical, stupid, the customer was, but in the end, I came to feel that they didn’t deserve what they’ve gone through.
I also see the efforts that our shareholders and client are working on. I haven’t seen anybody in our shareholder’s team of managers that were sitting around doing nothing. The people I worked with were the most industrious people I’ve ever seen in my entire life and I’m proud to be their subordinate.
There really is no perfect formula in giving the best customer service. I’ve seen everybody’s efforts in working together to achieve the quality service that were expected of us, but don’t you think we might have overlooked one thing?
Do you think you can give better quality service if you’re not crippled with client and shareholder metrics?
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