Sounding Human: The Difference Between Good And Bad Customer Service
from the is-it-really-that-hard? dept
I'm writing up the beginning of this post while on an airplane, flying from New York to San Francisco. By the time you've read it, I'll have added some stuff to it after I landed. The issue is one of customer service and sounding human. Late last week, I saw this amusing online customer service chat transcript between a Zappos customer service representative and a guy who wanted to see if their customer service really was as good as advertised. Zappos is famous for its hiring and training practices (including paying people to quit after a month). With the customer service team, there are no scripts and reps aren't measured on how many calls they get through like many other customer service centers, but on how well they help customers. That is really evident in the transcript. Here's an excerpt, though you should read the whole thing:You are now chatting with JonathanNow, as I mentioned, I'm writing this from an airplane, where I had hoped to have in-flight internet access. I had it last week on the flight from San Francisco to NY and it was fabulous. And, yes, I've seen the wonderful and enlightening Louis CK bit where he talks about how ridiculous it is that anyone would complain that in-flight WiFi broke, because just think of how amazing it is (by the way, in later interviews, Louis admitted that it wasn't the guy sitting next to him who complained -- but he was really discussing his own reaction to the WiFi breaking). I'm not at all upset that the WiFi broke. It would have been cool (and useful in terms of productivity), but I am amazed that it could work at all, and I know it's new so bound to have some hiccups. That's fine. This post isn't about the fact that the WiFi broke. It's about the way Aircell/GoGo handled it.
Jonathan: Hello Timmy. How can I help you?
Timmy: do you know how wide the G-Shock Atomic Solar - AWG101 SKU #7403774 is?
Timmy: i mean, how big a wrist it would fit?
Timmy: Timmy has a big fat wrist
Timmy: Timmy need watch grande
Jonathan: I'll see what I can find out for Timmy.
Timmy: awesome. and can we please continue to talk about Timmy in the 3rd person? Timmy likes to boost Timmy's ego by talking about Timmy that way
Jonathan: Jonathan would be happy to neglect the use of pronouns for the duration of this conversation.
Timmy: Jonathan and Timmy shall get along just fine
Jonathan: Will Timmy be able to measure Timmy's wrist?
Timmy: Timmy's wrist is big, but not Biggie-Smalls big. Timmy doesn't have the required measurement instruments.
Timmy: Timmy is 6'4" 220lbs if that helps Jonathan
Jonathan: Luckily, that is roughly the size of Jonathan's brother, so that does help.
It's not at all clear what the problem was exactly. When I first opened up the browser, the proxy server page wouldn't load at all. After a few minutes it did load, and at the top it said: "click buy to get started." Only problem? There was no "buy" to click. Just a big empty white box. However, there was a link to sign in if you already had an account -- which, thanks to my flight last week, I did. So I clicked that, and put in my username/password, and was told that it couldn't authenticate it. I checked my email to confirm the username, and even though I'm sure of the password, tried to go to "recover forgotten password" just in case... and was told it didn't recognize my username or the email address. Fine. It seemed pretty clear that their authentication system had broken down, too. I tried to go back to the main page, but it told me I couldn't until I had purchased my account...
However, I did notice a link to "contact customer service" and discovered that even though I couldn't connect to the full internet, I could have a "live chat" with a customer service rep on the ground named "Georgia." I'm asked my name, and I give it (even though it should have been obvious from the email address I had to give to login to the chat). After Georgia asked for my name and I gave it, it took about 2 minutes for a reply. No problem... I'm sure Georgia is dealing with others as well. But I'm not even sure if she's still there. Then I'm asked the problem, which I describe and am told:
"I apologize for the inconvenience and I'll be glad to help you with that."
Sounds great. So I wait. And wait. And wait. And then start wondering... am I supposed to do anything? I assume it's being looked into, but it's not at all clear. I wasn't told to wait. I was just told that she can help. But is she? So after about 5 minutes of nothing, I say "Hello?" and get a quick apology followed by a statement that they are aware of a problem on my flight and will be monitoring it, and if I'm unable to connect, they'll send me a gift code for future flights. Ok. That's fine again... but what does that mean directly for me. I ask "so should I just try again later?" and am told "I would suggest you reboot and try again."
Wait... what? I was just told the problem was with GoGo's system, so why would it make sense to tell me to reboot? I point this out in a polite manner, and am told: "It may help, yet it may not be resolved until after your flight is over." Beyond the odd use of pronouns (first "it" refers to rebooting, second "it" refers to the problem with their system), this again sounds like someone with a script, rather than anyone trying to sound human or recognize how silly it is for me to reboot after she's already admitted the problem is on her end.
Given that I was clearly communicating with someone on the ground, I figured it was worth asking if there was some way around the authentication issue, since clearly I could connect to a very limited subset of the internet on the ground. I'm then told "all ways to sign in and sign up are not properly working." Aha, so it really is a problem with their system, and not my own, but why couldn't they have just explained that problem initially so that I understood? I tell her that I'll just try to sign on later, and am asked "Is there anything else I can help you with?" Now, I understand this is rather standard closing question... but it seems rather silly in this context. Considering there's no connectivity and that's the only thing this company provides, I'm not sure what else I could possibly be helped with.
Now, this wasn't a bad customer service experience (even if it didn't resolve the problem, though that wasn't "Georgia's fault"). But it was striking to me the contrast between what I had just read with the Zappos transcript and this one. Is it really that difficult for customer service reps to sound human?
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Filed Under: customer service, sounding human
Companies: aircell, gogo, zappos
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International Reps
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Re: International Reps
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Re: International Reps
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Re: Re: International Reps
No matter where you live, it is not an unreasonable expectation that English-language support be, well, English-language.
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Re: Re: International Reps
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Re: Re: Re: International Reps
I call one number and they ultimately send me to an Apple Store (which usually ends up in me meeting up with "The Genius" or (sadly) they diagnose the problem and overnight me new equipment.
I actually look forward to meeting with the Genius, because I end up splitting the bar tab afterwards.
Seriously, Steve Jobs is really on to something here. Why is it so hard for everyone else? I don't mind picking up a bar tab, but when HP wants a $70 fee from the specialist whose thick voice, spiced with curry, came thru the phone... Well, that was it.
Wasn't Christopher Columbus looking for India when he found America?
What an interesting series of events transpired afterwards, no?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: International Reps
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The transcript
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Re: The transcript
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Re: Re: The transcript
The filter flagged it as porn. So watch yourself.
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Re: Re: Re: The transcript
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The transcript
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Re: The transcript
Oops. Sorry. It's been added to the post.
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automated response
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Re: automated response
Jonathan even posted some comments on Todd's blog.
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Re: Re: automated response
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Sounding Human
From what I've experienced, scripts are golden. They are designed to keep the conversation short. But waiting for 2-5 minutes doesn't make sense for that determination. Maybe you should reboot ;-)
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But perhaps his work will come back agan, maybe in another form...?
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Zappos transcript
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If the wi-fi don't work, it don't work - Not like there is anyone on the flight crew to run a network diagnostic.
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Re:
Can you be more of an ass? Can I institute a new rule? You must have at least 9 inches to your name or have $3M in the bank to post as Coward. 401(k)s, stocks, and illiquid assets don't count.
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If the wi-fi don't work, it don't work - Not like there is anyone on the flight crew to run a network diagnostic.
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Some, unfortunately - like my power company - I'm stuck with.
But others are so top notch; I'd almost buy their product even if I didn't need it, lol - almost..
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> remarks about being unprofessional."
He might have, depends on the company. But as a consumer, and one with a rather twisted sense of humor myself, I applaud the tech and would look dis-favorably on the reprimanding company. Customer service in the US in my experience is very bad. I spend a lot of time in Asia and I can assure you we would do well to emulate the service of typical Asian companies. Even when US companies try their best to make it professional they can really screw it up.
One experience I can relate along these lines is one I have of my cell phone carrier. In their rush to save a buck but still provide quality service this carrier has elected to farm their work to India but train their employees to speak perfect English. But in their training they neglected to give them any background knowledge of the continental US. So I figured out the situation as soon as the customer service rep had never heard of Brooklyn and wasn't quite sure that Chicago was in Illinois, or was it Wyoming?
Bad service? Via lack of rather common knowledge required to be of service in the phone industry? Yes. They saved a few bucks an hour only to annoy one of their customers to a big extent.
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Re: Common Knowledge
Here is the story of My sister, and it is 100% real.
My Brother in Law went to a Jewler in his hometown of L.A. and had a custom ring designed for my sister. They Got married, and settled in Minneapolis, MN. Not too long after getting married, the stone to my sister's ring fell out, so she called the Jewler in L.A. to explain the situation. The lady at the other end of the phone politely stated that if she would just bring the ring into the store they would take care of it. My sister informed the rep that she lived in Minneapolis, MN, and asked if they had any locations near there she could go to? The Rep replied "We just opened up a new store in Dallas. Would that Work?"
Now anyone not from southern california, Please raise your hand if you think Dallas is near Minneapolis?
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Re: Re: Common Knowledge
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Re: Re: Common Knowledge
Perhaps you should write a letter to Tom (He looks like Bruce Springsteen) for his incredible business practices. I imagine he would thoroughly enjoy the value his business practices provided to not only your family, but your candid willingness to share and recommend, based on the simple fact that he's doing the right thing. A golden nugget like that, well... Wouldn't just lift his day, but his next few years.
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The suits in charge...
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I suspect...
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Re: I suspect...
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Re: Re: I suspect...
- actually less so than most call centers, which monitor fixed metrics, most often 'duration of call'. But since you can't measure satisfaction as easily, Zappos worries less about measuring their reps as other call centers.
Instead, they focus on hiring, training, and culture. Heard the CEO explaining it a few weeks ago in San Jose. Hiring is take extremely seriously at Zappos. They're looking for a specific kind of person.
Then training, which takes a month. All execs also go through the call center training, and are required to do a tour at the call center at set intervals.
Also, as Mike's story noted, they pay people to quit after the month of training. They figure that by offering $2k to quit, people just in it for a job or money will quit, and people who love the culture will stay.
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customer service people are typically incompetent
This encompasses a majority of customer service people, easily. So to find most stupid ones.
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International Support
Customer: "I am sorry, but your English is not very good and I am having a hard time understanding you."
CS Agent: "I am sorry. Perhaps you should hang up and call back. Eventually you should get someone in the US."
That is an agent that cares!
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Mike, you were talking to a bot
One of the "features" of LivePerson is that it could answer some number of problems all by itself with NO user interaction whatsoever. Then, the company would set thresholds to determine how many "poor quality" responses were necessary before having the program hand off support to a "supervisor", which was actually a "live person".
Since then, every time I have tried a chat I have attempted to give it a Turing Test to see if it is actually a person or a bot.
In every case, it's been a bot.
The reason "Timmy" insists on being called "Timmy" in the third person throughout the conversation is that it immediately tells Timmy whether it is a live person helping him, because no bot scripting program would understand that.
I usually used something like, "Where are you located?" "What's the weather like there?" Amazingly some bots would lie and list an actual location. But they never got the weather one right (a couple responded, but a quick weather search online proved them to be lying bots).
The other trick is to get them into an endless loop where they keep giving you the same response over and over. A real person would not type the same thing 7 or more times in a row no matter how many times you asked or what the script looked like, but bots will continue to happily answer the same thing 50 times or more, infinite really.
Think about it. YOU HAD NO CONNECTIVITY TO THE GROUND. Not no connectivity to the ground except our chat program, which works just fine, too bad we didn't use that technology for the rest of the traffic.
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Re: Mike, you were talking to a bot
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Re: Mike, you were talking to a bot
Think about it. You don't know that. Have you ever logged into a wifi hotspot, and been able to access the captive portal, but not the Internet? In that case, you can access lots of content or services from the hotspot operator, but need authentication (of payment or membership) to get to the Internet.
And Mike said the element that wasn't working was the authentication system. So he could very well have accessed a support chat on the ground as part of a captive portal.
We don't know whether he was chatting with a bot or a person, and if a bot, whether it was in the plane or the ground. Would have been fun for him to Turing the chat. My guess is human with a bad set of scripts.
Reboot! Ha! Mike, you're lucky she didn't advise you to do the all-healing default customer support advice: "You will need to re-install Windows, then it should work."
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Mike, you were talking to a bot
One of the "features" of LivePerson is that it could answer some number of problems all by itself with NO user interaction whatsoever. Then, the company would set thresholds to determine how many "poor quality" responses were necessary before having the program hand off support to a "supervisor", which was actually a "live person".
Since then, every time I have tried a chat I have attempted to give it a Turing Test to see if it is actually a person or a bot.
In every case, it's been a bot.
The reason "Timmy" insists on being called "Timmy" in the third person throughout the conversation is that it immediately tells Timmy whether it is a live person helping him, because no bot scripting program would understand that.
I usually used something like, "Where are you located?" "What's the weather like there?" Amazingly some bots would lie and list an actual location. But they never got the weather one right (a couple responded, but a quick weather search online proved them to be lying bots).
The other trick is to get them into an endless loop where they keep giving you the same response over and over. A real person would not type the same thing 7 or more times in a row no matter how many times you asked or what the script looked like, but bots will continue to happily answer the same thing 50 times or more, infinite really.
Think about it. YOU HAD NO CONNECTIVITY TO THE GROUND. Not no connectivity to the ground except our chat program, which works just fine, too bad we didn't use that technology for the rest of the traffic.
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Why?? Silly human....
Why? You should already know why.
It is NEVER EVER the fault of the ISP....its always YOUR fault, a problem somewhere else, a problem with the area, etc.
The mantra for big business these days, particularly customer or technical support, is to never, under any circumstances, admit fault, error, or ESPECIALLY accept any responsibility for anything. Ever.
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Church Likes Jonathan
Seriously, this is the kind of thing that will get Church to check out Zappos.
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Re: Church Likes Jonathan
Test them out. If you're thinking about buying shoes, call up zappos, and just ask them a random question, like "Why should I buy shoes from you?" Follow it up with something really random, like "Can't I just get hand-me-down shoes from my brother, or win them in a bumfight?"
See how they handle that. Seriously, don't even buy anything, just test them out.
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I went through it with T-mobile customer service, and while I was very tempted to see how sound the system is and abuse it, I had already been trying to get my solution solved for an hour and was in no mood at 2am to exacerbate the program to take any longer.
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Hm..
Because of this we have a good bit of liberty in how we solve problems... Paid decently, but you have to be able to think quickly to do well.
We are also graded based on how many people had to call in again with the same problem, with how many calls taken being listed alot lower on the priority.
All in all, if I had to call in to where I work for support, I know I'd get good service.
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Re:
Have you seen how well the company is doing?
I'd argue that Zappos cost structure does lend itself quite well to profits by making its customers happy so they are willing to spend more with Zappos.
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Re:
For Zappos, it's not about shaving 3 minutes of each call, and thus 13% cost savings. It's about building a long-term relationship with customers. Is that sustainable? Hell, yes. It's all about sustainability.
What we should be asking is: is it sustainable to treat your customers terribly on the phones, failing to provide solutions, and seeming like a bot, whether you are one or not.
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Customer Service
Not only did we have to keep track of our times, to qualify for a bonus, you also had to pass 'Quality' with a 90% or better..
Needless to say, very few people got their bonus, and rarely for consecutive months. How can you be expected to be upbeat and friendly, when you were expected to have an average monthly call time of less than 2 minutes, with 90% quality, considering you were penalized for 'rushing' ... penalized if you deviated from the script by even one word ... penalized because the customer ended the call unsatisfied (mind you, if they were looking for tech support and called billing, you were still penalized for an unsatisfied customer).. penalized because you asked a customer to step out of the nightclub or into the bathroom so you can actually hear what they are screaming at you after 5 minutes of "I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I couldn't hear you.. " (remember the 2 minute average call time)
I wish I had worked for that company Zappos.. I didn't mind talking to people... including the incredibly stupid (and boy did I come across a LOT of those) .. but you do need to have the time... and the script really doesn't cover every situation...
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For anyone unfamiliar with World of Warcraft, the gist of it is that one player(Sevilysia) is advertising that another player(Frostio) is looking for more people for a huge player vs player battle, when he's not. Effectively tricking others into spamming Frostio in game.
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Customer Service Fail.
Can we get them to teach Costco a lesson?
A tragi-comic descent into customer service hell:
http://timastor.blogspot.com/2009/06/costco-story.html
(And I, and some friends are trying to spread this story around enough to get Tim an apology. Any assistance in that endeavor appreciated. He is a nice guy and a d*mn funny writer, and no company should ever accuse a customer of being a terrorist for trying to return a defective product! Seriously.)
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Need complete transcript
I read this transcript about an year ago, and at that time I was working in an outsourcing agency who provide customer service solutions so I distributed it to everyone to read and everyone was impressed.
now I own my own company and I need the full transcript again.
The original link for the Sitelead forum whhich had this link takes me to some sporting goods site, its not taking me to the original transcript page.
Please provide me with the link for the original post, in which teh author had posted complete conversion.
Regards
Manohar
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Randomly checking in ;-)
I dug up the transcript for those who are interested. Enjoy! Also, it's in Tony Hsieh's book, Delivering Happiness. http://deliveringhappinessbook.com
Jonathan: Hello Timmy. How can I help you?
Timmy: do you know how wide the G-Shock Atomic Solar AWG101 SKU #7403774 is?
Timmy: i mean, how big a wrist it would fit?
Timmy: Timmy has a big fat wrist
Timmy: Timmy need watch grande
Jonathan: I ll see what I can find out for Timmy.
Timmy: awesome. and can we please continue to talk about Timmy in the 3rd person? Timmy likes to boost Timmy s ego by talking about Timmy that way
Jonathan: Jonathan would be happy to neglect the use of pronouns for the duration of this conversation.
Timmy: Jonathan and Timmy shall get along just fine
Jonathan: Will Timmy be able to measure Timmy s wrist?
Timmy: Timmy s wrist is big, but not Biggie-Smalls big. Timmy doesn�t have the required measurement instruments.
Timmy: Timmy is 6� 4� 220lbs if that helps Jonathan
Jonathan: Luckily, that is roughly the size of Jonathan�s brother, so that does help.
Jonathan: Jonathan thinks that this watch will work out well for Timmy. The watch�s circumference is 9 inches, so it will probably fit around Timmy s wrist.
Timmy: Ok cool
Timmy: Do your watches and stuff have free return shipping like your Zapatos?
Timmy: in case Timmy wants another one or something
Jonathan: And if it does� t work out, as long as the watch is in its original condition and in the original packaging, Timmy has 365 days to return Timmy�s order. We will even pay for the return shipping! As always, our shipping to Timmy will be free.
Timmy: Timmy thanks Jonathan for good help
Jonathan: Jonathan welcomes Timmy.
Jonathan: It�s Jonathan s pleasure!
Jonathan: Can Jonathan do anything more for Timmy?
Timmy: no that is all timmy needs
Timmy: timmy happy
Jonathan: Good. Does Timmy have an account set up with Zappos yet?
Jonathan: Jonathan will upgrade Timmy�s account.
Timmy: yes timmy is repeat shopper
Timmy: but Timmy is my alter ego and not my actual name
Jonathan: Well, what is Timmy�s email address? I�ll hook you up.
Timmy: Timmy has placed orders using txxxxxx@gmail.com in the past
Jonathan: Alright TODD!
Jonathan: :)
Jonathan: I m going to upgrade your account to VIP status! This will ensure that all future orders go out with 1-business day shipping free of charge!
Just place your future orders at http://vip.zappos.com.
Timmy: Timmy Likey!
Jonathan: Good. Good�
Jonathan: Let Jonathan know if there is anything else that Jonathan can do for Timmy.
Timmy: Ok, Timmy ok now. Timmy time to go shopping!
Jonathan: Have fun!
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Re: Randomly checking in ;-)
http://blog.makais.com/2010/09/28/zappos-live-chat/
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