The Customer Service Department Isn’t Broken – The System Is

I’ve been monitoring my customer service experiences with the brands I do business with a little more closely than usual. And I’ve made numerous calls to airlines, mobile phone carriers, electronics companies, and more. I’ve found that people are typically friendly and do their best to support me. To clear my conscience, I admit that my recent call to my cable provider was tense due to my frustration with a faulty router, but that tenuous conversation was my fault, not theirs. I was obviously upset with the product, but my rep remained calm and did everything in her power to resolve the issue. She gets an A for effort, attitude, and knowledge. 

It’s not the people. It’s the system.

My point is that I hear so many people complaining about customer service, but in many cases, it’s not the people. It’s the system. Some of the reasons customers complain about customer service or experience due to broken or poorly created systems are: 

1. Hard-to-find contact information for customer support – While most websites provide information about customer support, sometimes it’s not clearly visible. When a customer wants to contact you, don’t add to their frustration by making it difficult.  

2. Inability to connect with someone from customer support – Some companies are still betting that a 100% AI-fueled self-service option can replace live agents. In almost every case, they are wrong! 

3. Self-service options are not provided – Just as some companies make the error of going “all in” on digital self-service support, some companies don’t provide any self-service options. There is a percentage of customers who demand the option, or they will choose to do business elsewhere. 

4. Self-service options are provided, but they don’t answer the question or offer a solution – While this alone can be frustrating, imagine if the self-service is not working and the company makes it difficult or impossible to connect to a live person. This is adding fuel to the fire. 

5. Long wait or hold times without the option of a call-back – In this day and age, it is very inexpensive to add a feature that informs the customer how long their hold time will be, with an option for a return call when it’s their turn.  

6. Nobody will return my message – If one option for customer support is to leave a message, the expectation is that the company will respond to the message. And, I’ll add that it should be done in a timely manner.  

7. Poorly trained reps – One might argue that poorly trained reps are a people problem, not a system problem, but I disagree. A lack of training or poor hires is a function of how the company operates, not the fault of customer service agents trying to do their best.  

Here’s your assignment:

Sit down with your team. Then use this list to ignite a brainstorming session to discover if your organization is guilty of these or other “system failures.” This first step is about awareness. From there, take action and fix what’s broken. In summary, most bad experiences are caused by internal friction and broken or poorly designed systems, not front-line behavior.

Shep Hyken is a customer service/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep’s customer service and customer experience keynote speeches and his customer service training workshops at www.Hyken.com. Connect with Shep on LinkedIn.