Ran across this post from Tim Stevens and his rant about service being provided by service centers.

http://www.leadingsmart.com/2011/05/i-dont-want-to-press-1-for-english.html

He has a few points which are typical of the problems which still effect  our service centers everywhere (his examples are from  the US but I see the same around the globe). Now whether it is good business in the US to prompt the caller for their preferred language or not isn’t my interest. I have customers where more than 8 languges may be serviced and customers are typically accustomed to this process.

There are two people involved here, the caller and the agent handling the incident. Each of them need to have been provided the proper information to do their part. The caller deserves to be informed of their call state, how long they may have to wait, asked to provide certain information while waiting assuming this will speed up the handling of the issue. The agent receiving the call must have all this information at their fingertip as well plus; has this caller called or contacted the center recently for a similar or same issue, how long have they been waiting and perhaps what else might they be looking for which was not found.

The cost of inactivity will rise.

Now in 2011 this is really not rocket science. Back in 2000 when the method of the day was CTI (basically poor grade glue) clients were excited every time a call transfer actually sent all the collected information along. Today more integrated systems and the advent of SIP have removed the need to apply this “glue” but it is not being applied often. Clients who will pay dearly to have their cars repaired will not pay to fix their broken customer service systems. The “cost of inactivity” is a phrase I picked up from a wise person not long ago. Calculating that cost now in the world of social word of mouth communications is going to rise.

Photo credit: Danilo Rizzuti