As many of us are doing at the moment I have started scrutinizing every penny that leaves my bank account – thank goodness for on-line banking, where would we be without it!
Over the weekend I noticed a mysterious direct debit of £9.99 leaving my account every month, to a company name I didn’t know – and my investigations led me to realise that this random company had been pinching this tenner every month since January!
So, I called my bank to find out a little more information about the company of which they had nothing except their name and number, so I cancelled the direct debit. (Thinking ooooh what can I spend that £10 on next month – those of you who know me well will be thinking ‘Probably chocolate, clothes, handbags, shoes or curry!’)
One day later I receive a text message from ‘Policy Admin Services’ asking me to call their free-phone telephone number as my direct debit had been cancelled, so I call them this morning thinking oh god, how long will it take to sort this out as I type the numbers in their automated service.
A lovely girl called Kacey answered the phone and began investigating… it turns out, that when I renewed my mobile phone contract in January the salesman in the unnamed 3rd party phone store added insurance to my account without me asking or agreeing too it! Kacey asked me to read out the documents I had and investigated it further, before asking very politely if she could pop me on hold whilst she discussed it with her manager.
I was on hold for just over a minute before Kacey came back to me, saying she was still discussing it with her manager, but didn’t want me to think she’d forgotten me. The calming hold music continued for another minute before Kacey came back on the line, thanking me for waiting and asking if it would be ok for her manager to chat to me and ask a few more questions.
Enter ‘Manager Steven’ to the conversation… Steven asked a few more questions, building rapport instantly with me, before apologising for such a mix up. He then gave me two options:
1) He could transfer me to a different department, explain this situation and they would ask more questions to decide whether or not I could get a full refund– which would take more of my time OR
2) He could authorise a 50% refund for my inconvenience and cancel the policy straight away.
Not wanting to be on the phone for much longer I gratefully appreciated option number 2.
I thanked Steven for his service and explained that in my role I work with regularly with call centres and by far this was one of the best calls, as a customer, I had experienced. Steven asked me more about my role and we chatted for a few moments – he was generally interested and chuffed that he and his advisor Kacey had made such an impression on me.
I told him I’d blog about him too – so who knows, maybe he’ll comment on this one day!!!
So, what made this customer service experience so great:
I could talk about the skills they used to deliver such great service:
Yes their product knowledge was great, they clearly navigated the systems well enough and used exceptional questioning and listening skills to understand my situation and build rapport…
BUT IT WAS MORE THAN THAT!!!!!
From the moment Kacey answered the phone, both her and Steven put me at the heart of the call. They genuinely demonstrated to me that they cared about my situation and wanted to make it better. They were exceptionally professional and personable – and do you know what, they actually sounded like they enjoyed their work!
It was very clear that Kacey and Steven’s internal motivation to do a great job was so high, that the skills came naturally to them, because they truly wanted me to leave my call raving about them and the service Policy Admin provide.
So tips from this blog would simply be:
Check your internal motivation – how much do you desire to be the best you can be in your role?
Check your team members internal motivation – would all of your call centre advisors want to deliver (and go ahead and deliver) such great service that the customer is compelled to blog about it and if not why not?
Enjoy it – the call centre industry has taken a few knocks in its time with people talking about bad service – now more than ever people need to enjoy what they do, so customers can enjoy being served by them. As a manager working in this industry what 3 things can you do to enjoy what you do and build the internal motivation of each of your team so they can enjoy too!
Carly
Nice conclusion Carly.
Two things:
1. Tell me where you can get chocolate, shoes, a handbag and a curry for £10
2. Working with a very experienced team of call centre advisors yesterday I realised that despite their experience and knowledge they sometimes lapsed into dealing with the incoming enquiries and forgetting to deal with the emotional needs of the customer.
I think that this is a really easy trap to fall into, especially when dealing with the similar call types.
It was a quick win for them to improve their personal satisfaction as well as customer satisfaction by remembering to serve the customer as whilst servicing their enquiry.
It sounds like your insurance company did just this
Like you Carly I’ve been scrutinising the pennies and for the first time used a price comparision website before automatically renewing my car insurance. Not surprisingly I found a cheaper one, haggled with my old company who genuinely did their very best to reduce the cost. I wanted to stay with them but the lure of an additional £50 made me decide to switch. Even after making my decision the advisor made me feel valued as a customer. To cut a long story short it turned out the new insurance didn’t cover travel to and from the workplace – and the extra premium meant the differnce was now down to £20. So I switched back. My decision was based purley on how I was treated – in the 2 calls I made to each the old company seemed to genuinely care, the new one did nothing to try and keep my business. In an instance I made a decision based on emotion not logic which was reinforced with genuine thanks when I made the call to renew my old policy. So I’m happy to give a big thanks to Direct Line (not as good with names as you are Carly
)and agree with Ally – there are an awful lot of peole like me that will make that decision based on how they feel not what they think.
Very interesting comments, recently I was on holiday and my card had a stp put on it as I was abroad. So I thought lets try calling the number on the back of the card well to cut a long story short I was left hanging on the phone on two separate occasions was left holding on for over 45mins each and this is a long distance call (fyi and that wasnt my business phone it was on my wifes phone).
Finally someone answered the call only to tell me they now have to transfer me, so i asked can someone call me back and guess what-they cant make outgoing calls! I am now in dispute with my bank Lloydstsb and lets see the result-but we are now questioning why are we paying what we pay each month to the bank when they cant even call you back-so it looks like change is coming! Will let you know how this is resolved.
Yippee!! We’ve found the advisor and team leader who took my call from Policy Admin (who are part of the lifestyle group).
I do have a confession to make… Kacey is actually Kaley!! And I have now been informed that Kaley is a new starter with the business and had recently come out of induction! So well done Kaley for such a great call! Thanks for making the service you provided so personal.
Hi Carly, its Steve the Team leader who took your call thanks for the kind words in your blog! internal motivation from employers does play a huge part in producing great customer service also would like to point out other agents around you can motivate a huge amount so we all get the high levels of service we all expect! Again thanks from myself and Kayley for keeping your word and blogging!! Steve
Hi Steve!
Great to hear from you and thanks for commenting on the Blog!
Say hi to Kayley for me, and thanks again to you both for such great service!
Please check out some of our other blogs about managers (I have a feeling that your influence and leadership style is also helping to produced great service – so would love to hear you thoughts or any of your colleagues thoughts on some of our other topics on here!)
Thanks Again! Keep up the great stuff!
Carly
And continuing with my good news story – I’ve now had yet another great call with Direct Line and as a result renewed my home insurance without even bothering to go to the price comparision website. My premium wasn’t reduced but a really empathetic advisor (reminder to self – write down their name next time!) talked me through various options and genuinely seemed to be doing all he could. I’m sure I could have got it cheaper – but he said all the right things to build loyalty so whatever I might have lost money I saved in time and peace of mind. There must be lots of ‘Steve’s’ and ‘Kayleys’ in their business too. Totally agree with Steve that when you can get everyone to motivate and support each other it goes a long way to making work a great place to be – which in turn rubs off on the way advisors respond to customers.
Great stuff everyone this has now spurred me on to find another bank as LloydsTSB have paid no regard to my emotional state at the time and have decided to treat me as a number-no empathy, no rapport! After 25 years of loyal service and they are just prepared to let me go-i wonder how many others there are out there?? Anyway can anyone recommend a great bank? -thanks Dil
Another angle on this thread – last year I was planning to swap energy companies. I got a call from a member of the win-back team of my current supplier who was brilliant. She told me about a new product that was due the following week, promised to call me back when it became available (which she did) and demonstrated why I didn’t need to swap companies, just products. I was so impressed I tried to contact the company to give them feedback. Here’s the thing -if you want to complain, no problem. There are email, telephone and letter options BUT no-where is there a place to say well done. I left messages, I sent e-mail – no-one responded. So “contact centre industry”, we agree motivated staff can be the difference that makes the difference; so do you make it as easy to praise you as you do to complain? And if not, why not?
Hi Carly, Its so refreshing to hear a success story – contact centres get such an earbashing, and its so frustrating for those who really try to make a positive difference to someones lives during the few minutes they spend speaking to customers, and then theres those who really dont care and those tend to be the minority who bring the industry down. Well done Kayley and Steve!
Love the blogs Carly, keep up the good work!
Lou
Hi Lou,
Thanks for your comments!!
You’re absolutely right – there are lots more people out there just waiting to make a difference to their customers lives in the few minutes they speak to them… so come on guys let’s make sure we shout out about the great customer experiences we have to showcase how great the call centre industry can be when people get it right…
And please continue to comment on our blogs – it spurs us on when we know they’re hitting the mark for you all!
Blimey, this comments thread has moved on a bit – it’s fab to hear from Steve. A big well to you from me Steve
Ages ago I worked with Croydon Council, and they chaned their ‘feedback forms’ to say “Complaints, Comments and Compliments” during a Customer Service programme I was involved in. It was surprising how many people filled one in to say say ‘thanks’. It was a great opportunity to recognise, praise and reward great staff in an environment where they previously only captured complaints.
I think it’s time to pick this up again! We love celebrating success so if you’ve had great service recently then please tell us about it and we’ll endeavour to ask the company the secret to their success.