If you’re familiar with the strategy PC gaming series “Civilization”, you probably know that it’s only slightly less addictive than crack. I’ve never tried crack, but the “word on the street”, so to speak, is that it’s a bit hard to let go of. I recently purchased Civilization 4, which is the latest in the Civilization series. That in itself isn’t so interesting, but what happened to me at my job as a result of it most certainly is. I work as a network administrator for a large insurance company in Illinois.
Part of my job is to repair PC’s as needed, which is quite often considering how many there are around this place. I informed my coworker, also a big civilization fan that I had the game and he suggested I bring it in for a little test run. Against my better judgment, we decided to play a hot seat game during work. “Hot seat” means that one player takes a turn, followed by the other, which is only possible with turn based games such as Civ. We both figured that there would always be one of us to answer the phone in our little repair-shop cubbyhole so we didn’t see how we could possibly get caught. Boy were we wrong! About four hours into a game things started getting interesting.
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I work for a large insurance firm in the northwest, in an office with over 500 other employees. Management recently decided to replace our existing phone system as the old system was no longer meeting our needs. I and my co-workers were under the impression that they were going to update the system, as in “make an improvement”, and that we would have late model phones with technological advancements galore. Boy, were we in for a surprise.
One day a few weeks ago, we all came in to find new phones on our desks. These were not the state-of-the-art communication devices we had in mind. Instead of the sleek, sophisticated, caller IDing, multi-line handling, LCD displaying wonders of the modern age we all dreamed of, there was a simple phone with a keypad on the receiver…not unlike what you might have had at home 15 years ago. In addition to the new phone, there was a sheet which explained in graphically painful detail exactly which series of buttons one would have to push in order to make this thing function properly. We had to now enter a digit to put someone on hold, enter a three digit code to transfer someone (one digit, dial tone, two digits) and enter a ridiculously long series of numbers to access our voicemail.
Needless to say, we were in shock. I knew it wouldn’t take long before the roars of complaining would drown out the usual office din. Sure enough, by lunchtime our office manager came in to tell everyone that we were simply going to “try it out for a while” and that the company had saved thousands by choosing this option. I and the other employees were fairly certain that we had already lost thousands in reduced productivity that morning alone. Oh, well…it’s their company, we just bring in the money for them.
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As a broker, there is an unwritten rule that you don’t steal clients from a co-worker because we all work on commission. Our office phone system works in such a way that if a desk is unmanned, the call will be transferred to another desk until it is picked up. When I get a call of this nature, I can pull up the investor’s information and see exactly what has portfolio holds and who he normally deals with. If the client is long term and has a preference for a particular broker, I simply tell them that I’ll have their broker call them right back. The one time I decided to ignore this rule, it ended up causing a big scene.
Although we all have stocks to push, there is a degree of flexibility in what we recommend our customers buy that differentiates each of us. Therefore, what I recommend may be in stark contrast to what the guy sitting next to me might recommend.
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If you’ve already read Part 1 of “Battling with Customer Service: How to Win the War,” congratulations! You’re halfway to becoming a pro. Follow these last five steps and you’ll be on track to bending the minds of customer service representatives everywhere. Without further ado…
6. Don’t drink and dial.
It seems like a good idea at first; the mind says no, but the six-pack says yes. You’ve had a great relationship for years. Why throw it all away over a silly dispute? You decide to pick up that phone, one last time, and see if they realize what they’re missing. Has this logic ever worked? Here’s a hint: no. Calling customer service in an obviously altered state of mind will cause your pleas to fall on deaf, yet slightly amused, ears. If you want customer service to take a complaint or concern seriously, save the six-pack for when you call your ex.
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