Call Centers, Stressful?

At Vox we dug up a statistic that says 97% of customers find dealing with call centers stressful.

No kidding.

Recently I had to call my cellular company for some technical assistance. First I called the standard customer service number and after a long welcome message, update about their holiday hours, and menu, I pressed 3 for technical assistance. Then I was informed that what I really needed to do was call another number from another phone to get help with technical issues, where I was informed that (after another round of lengthy menus, welcome messages, and service updates) it would be about a 12 minute wait. I figured it could have been a lot worse so I held the line.

While on hold I was annoyed beyond words by relentlessly redundant promos offering me "killer deals" and "hot new features", interspersed with promos for a text message trivia game I could play for a chance to win a Toyota Prius (somebody must play those things). After about 15 minutes of listening to that crap it’s no surprise that I wasn’t in the best of moods (I think there was smoke coming out of my ears) and I hadn't even had a chance to speak with an actual human about my problem. When I was unexpectedly disconnected after about 35 minutes, I put the phone down discouraged and disgusted thinking "there's got to be a better way".

I would start by:

• Doing a better job of estimating the actual wait time (my wait time was almost triple the estimate I was given).
• Tightening up the "welcome" messages, menus, and service updates.
• Finding a much more pleasant way of letting the customer know that they are still connected and "waiting in the order they called for the next available service representative." I know cross selling is important but enough is enough already. (Hint: bombing people with ads that sound like a used car salesman screaming at you might not be the most effective means of cross selling.)

Or how about eliminating the whole stupid process and let me put my number in a queue so someone can call me back when my turn comes around?

The best part about the whole experience is that one of the messages that kept playing over and over and over (and over) was a toot your own horn piece about the customer satisfaction award they had just won. Maybe they should double check their method for measuring customer satisfaction.  If that was award winning customer service, I’d hate to experience average or poor service.  Which reminds me of an article on our web site about why your satisfaction numbers lie like a rug, but that’s another story.