Surface Ripples

Your Call Is Important...

Ever experienced a message like this: ‘Thank you for your email. This is an automated reply acknowledging the receipt of your email. We are currently experiencing high volume of enquiries’ or, when calling a Call Centre, an automated response along the lines of ‘We are currently experiencing a high volume than usual of calls which may result in long delays in answering your call’?

If so you’re not alone.  

The underlining message is simply “We don’t have enough people to answer your email/query promptly”.  The coronavirus epidemic saw this type of message grow as workers:

• Reported sick either because of catching COVID and having to isolate or having to care for a relative in the same position, or 
• Had been furloughed/made redundant.

 Again, the ‘COVID Catch-22 Conundrum’ struck.  Organisations had to cut costs - often drastically - to survive.  As face-to-face interactions were impossible due to social distancing, ”remote services” proliferated, with the attendant problems like those described at the beginning. 

The great news for any business is that, if we can get our response service right DESPITE the restrictions imposed by COVID or any other event that means we can’t put people “on the ground”, we stand a good chance of taking business from the competition.  

This isn’t as easy as it sounds.  If an event has happened that forces people to stay at home (e.g. a pandemic), our business is likely to be in the same position as all the others.  If we rely on having people to deal with other people, it seems pointless.  Depending on our business, answers may include:

• Sourcing better quality goods to reduce the number of potential complaints about “quality issues”.
• Ensuring that those who purchase our goods/services are properly instructed on their use/delivery.
• Improving peoples’ ability to work from home, e.g., by enabling a mechanism to “switch” calls to designated external landline numbers or offering to pay part of their mobile bill.
• Ensuring that, where systems access is required for customer assistance/complaints staff, it is made available.
• Arranging for a courier service to collect/deliver faulty items from customers/to repair centres as part of our “contingency plans” (assuming, of course, that they don’t suffer from the same “staffing issues”).

None of these solutions are quick, easy or cheap to implement (although the development of technology has reduced the cost in many cases).  I know one business which has now purchased laptops for all its advisory staff (they already have office mobiles).

“Remote services” of various kinds proliferated during the coronavirus pandemic.  Restaurants adapted by opening huge kitchens in out-of-town areas and maintaining a fleet of delivery drivers to get food where it was needed.  Then the delivery driver services decided to cut out the “end man” and operate kitchens themselves!  Such are the “natural laws of business”…    

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.

Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 08:48