Trade show season is, mercifully, drawing to a close and loading docks across the nation are filled with display booths, crushed foam core signs, dented ballot boxes and damp collateral. Marketing pros are tracking their stuff as it lurches across the country, sits in Memphis awaiting a customs broker or languishes in some depot. At some point they are going to tire of the online tracker or the pointless mobile app and pick up a phone to find out what’s really going on. This is where the trouble will start.
These people, along with millions of consumers will be looking for their books, bank balances, mail-order spouses or an explanation about why their thing won’t print, their movie won’t load or their car won’t start. If you have done a good job of setting up a self-service channel, these folks will be doing just what you hoped they would and visiting your Helpful Website or using your Helpful App. They will read the frequently asked questions. They will search your Knowledge Base. They will read your interactive online user manual. Some will figure it out, but a good number will not.
A good number will click the little chat button on the page or, if you really force them to, they’ll give you a call.
When they call, where will they go? They will go to your Tier 1 support line. The one designed to get rid of them quickly by offering gum to the rep with the lowest handle times. The rep will ask for their account number, waybill number, address, email, password, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, street you grew up on, favourite teacher and a cheek swab before inquiring about the nature of the call. They don’t know that your customer has spent most of an afternoon on your Helpful Website. They don’t know they have checked out Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumblr to see if someone knows the answer to their question. They would probably be surprised to learn that the customer is now in a better position to triage the call than they are.
This is the Porcupine Defining Moment (PDM). You remember Porcupines: they are the customers who are so pissed off they’ve grown quills and are looking for someone to fling them at. Click here for a primer on Porcupines, if you’re still not sure.
At the PDM, what should occur is an immediate escalation to a Tier 2 or higher support queue. After all, the customer has just done their own Tier 1 support. They’ve looked at the same documentation the reps use, they have tapped into the same database of questions and issues and they have peered at the same delivery data. They are probably not in the mood to be taken through the game of 20 Questions that most first-line support scripts offer.
Indeed, if they have gone to Google, user communities and the like, they are probably well into second-tier support territory and, as their humour diminishes, they sure as hell aren’t interested in supplying another DNA sample.
This is one of those times when Marketing and Customer Service ought to be talking a little more. If we are going to prevent Porcupines, we need to figure out how to work with customers who are engaged enough to use the mobile apps, customer sites, online communities and LinkedIn groups marketing keeps flinging into the ether, usually without checking with the service department first. We should remember that engagement, in this context, is not necessarily by choice.
It could be as simple as reviewing your Tier 1 scripts to capture and properly direct the customers who have done some of the legwork for themselves. To send customers directly to a higher support team, you can also use a different toll-free number as they get deeper into the self-service materials. Customers who are rooting around in the bowels of your knowledge base could also trigger a live chat with a tenured rep who isn’t on the hamster wheel of handle time. If you know how to do live chat when you want to take their money, you certainly know how do it when it’s time to take their wrath.
Related Posts:
How Marketing is Pushing Customer Service Under the Bus
A Refreshing Look at Customer Loyalty
I’m Tired of Grazing Your Required Fields
BizMarketer is Elizabeth Williams
You can reach me at escwilliams@gmail.com
or follow me on Twitter @bizmkter
