Going…Going…Gone…

I'm not talking about baseball…I'm talking about customer service. It's out of here.

Somewhere in the last decade, people were replaced by phone trees in the name of "efficiency." Companies force chatbots on customers and call it "innovation." And somewhere, lost in all of that, is what used to set good companies apart from bad ones: a real desire to help the customers who make us successful.

I thought a lot about this before writing it down because it obviously isn’t true of every company. A handful still treat and invest in customer service as if it matters. (You probably have one or two you'd defend to the death.) But they're the exception now, not the rule.

What really irritates me, and many others, isn't just that service has gotten worse. It's “where” it's gotten worse. This isn't a small-business or a big-corporation problem. It isn't just a tech, utility, or retail problem. I've seen a five-person shop treat a customer like an inconvenience, and I've seen a Fortune 100 company do the exact same thing. Company size doesn't predict it. Industry doesn't predict it. The failure is broad.

Start with the phone tree. You call in with a problem, often a quick and easy question, and a menu greets you. Press 1 for this. Press 2 for that. If that gets you to someone who can and will help you, great. But it seems that more often than not, none of the options quite match your issue, so you guess, and you're routed to a queue, a looooong queue, and a recording tells you repeatedly that your call is important. Then, forty minutes later, you get a human being who must ask you to repeat everything you already told the automated system. By the time you reach someone who can actually help, you've spent more energy proving you deserve help than the help itself would have taken.

Another factor, it seems, is that the person you finally talk to doesn’t have the knowledge, skill, or frankly the motivation, to provide assistance. Then there's the chatbot—and let me clarify that I'm referring to an automated system, not a human-to-human chat. A chatbot can help you look up a tracking number or reset a password, as long as it's designed with the customer in mind. HOWEVER, (note the caps) it is NOT (more caps) a substitute for a person when you're frustrated and irritated, when your situation doesn't fit the script, or when you just need someone to say, "I understand, let me fix this."

Companies often lean on chatbots and phone trees not because they serve the customer better, but because they're cheaper than paying and training people to do the job right. That's the driving force behind most of these initiatives: they're nothing more than cost-cutting measures wearing a customer-experience disguise.
A common theme has emerged, and it isn’t complicated (though I do acknowledge a few exceptions). When a customer has real alternatives, including legitimate competitors with better service to move to, bad service costs a company a lot of money. In short, if the product and price are similar or the same, why stay where you aren’t appreciated?

But when a customer has limited options, whether because of a monopoly, a contract, a subscription they can't easily escape, or simple market consolidation, bad service costs the company almost nothing. The incentive to invest in good people, good training, and good processes disappears. All that’s left is a call center measured by average call time instead of resolution and satisfaction.

This should bother us as leaders, not just as customers. Somewhere along the way, many companies stopped viewing customer service as a value proposition and began treating it as a line item to cut. You can't destroy your customer service and increase loyalty—profit maybe, in the short term, but not loyalty. At least, I have never seen that happen. If there are examples out there, please send me a note; I want to study what they did. What companies are left with are the customers who stay because leaving is a hassle. Maybe that is profitable if there is no alternative, but it is horrible for the consumer, consumer satisfaction, and earned trust.

The good news, if there is any, is that the companies still doing this right stand out more than ever, precisely because the bar is set so low. Honestly, that bar is so low now that it doesn't take much to seem remarkable. If I need a person, let me speak to one quickly. Then let that person solve the problem, or quickly connect me with someone who can, without repeating every detail, account, and ticket number. Train them well enough and trust them enough to do it without multiple rounds of escalation. That's not a new strategy. It's just the strategy almost everyone has abandoned in the name of efficiency and, perhaps, profit.

Two quick personal examples.

For years I fought, screamed, and belittled a huge, multi-billion-dollar communications company regarding my home internet service. I experienced daily outages. I found it almost impossible to reach a person, and when I finally did, they were of little help. I won’t say their customer service was terrible. That would be far too kind. It was non-existent, but they were my only choice.

Then, just a few years ago, my local electric cooperative began stringing fiber across its territory, and it started picking up customers and momentum. The reviews were outstanding. A single call went straight to a human who not only could help, but also sounded like they actually cared and wanted to help, because the caller was a customer or potential customer. Today, that cooperative owns the market. I don’t know the percentage of homes they pass that have chosen to switch to their service, but in my neighborhood it must be in the 70%-plus range. I was the first to make the switch, and I couldn’t be happier.

My second example involves a company that has eliminated the chat and phone options completely. Visit their website, and you will find no phone number, only an email address for questions or complaints. Along with that, a note states that someone will respond within 14 days. FOURTEEN DAYS! Guess what, they were my only legitimate choice for the required service. (A note for the record: they overperformed and responded on day 11. Sarcasm intended.)
Customer service isn't dead everywhere. But for an awful lot of companies, there are no home runs: only strikeouts, and they are mounting. Offending companies are falling many games (or customers) out of first place. They will miss the playoffs.

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