Even today, I have to make a call to a well-known financial institution in Quebec because of a technical problem.
My journey begins with an answering machine with multiple options apart from speaking to a human immediately. After listening carefully and pressing 0 and # a few times, I’m transferred to an artificial intelligence who, unfortunately, doesn’t understand what I’m asking. However, my request is clear and I have the impression that my French isn’t too bad. I repeat myself several times in an increasingly aggressive tone. I get angry and repeat the 0 and # several times. Eureka, I seem to have transferred to a human. It’s weird because I really feel like I had to get angry with the keys to be transferred.
But beware, I’m being transferred to a human, but no agent is available to answer me at the moment. The estimated waiting time is over 15 minutes. The good thing is that I’m offered to stay on the line or call me back as soon as an agent becomes available. To save time and avoid waiting on the line listening to sleepy or stressful music, I select the call-back option!
To make matters worse, I never got a call back. So I had to call back and replay the entire thousand-option answering machine. The most annoying thing is having to wait and listen to all the options, even if 99% of them don’t meet our requirements. It’s a big waste of time and it’s annoying.
It’s at this point that it becomes very difficult to keep smiling and remain courteous, as the answering machine clearly states that I am expected to be polite and courteous to the staff… But I’ve already wasted over 15 minutes listening to useless options, a useless artificial intelligence that I have to train by the sweat of my brow.
I’ll spare you the rest, as the service was excruciating despite more than an hour’s wait on the phone and my unresolved problem. A perfect storm for making customers furious with the staff, who end up “losing it” too.
To provide quality customer service over the phone, you ideally need to
1- Answer immediately: ideally with a human or a text message, not after 5 minutes fighting with an answering machine and an artificial intelligence that doesn’t understand requests.
2- Return the call: If I indicate that I want to be called back, deliver the promise and call the customer back. Even better, make an appointment to call back at a specific time.
3- Remain courteous: To both customer and agent. To do this, you have to respect the first two criteria.
There’s still a lot of work to be done to support customers in customer service without wasting their time and patience. Companies are able to reduce frustration by switching some calls to text dialogue mode to ensure they maintain communication with the customer and avoid waiting on the phone line. What’s more, text messaging allows both the customer and the agent to come back with answers later in the day or week, as well as being able to refer the customer to information links relevant to their situation for support. And not a link to a frequently asked questions area where the customer still has to waste time looking for the answer to his question.
Cloud telephony takes the hassle out of keeping customers waiting on the line by switching them to a communication channel tailored to the customer’s situation and preferences. There’s no longer any reason for someone to ask you for your phone number; it should be displayed on the screen, and they should even know who you are to serve you efficiently and avoid repeating yourself from agent to agent.
Fresk is an intelligent telephone system specifically designed to eliminate this type of situation and ensure impeccable telephone customer service.
