Just Solve

I just spent 40 minutes on the phone with an Orbitz rep trying to book a flight. Their site wasn't accepting my credit cards. The very kind rep immediately ignored my concern and began to try and book the flight for me. This wouldn't have been a problem, except that she could not get the city (Seattle?), flight, or even month right.

After trying to be patient for fifteen minutes, I started to become a bit more coarse saying that I really just wanted to know why my order wasn't going through. The rep then put me on hold for 10 minutes and came back and told me that I was using a debit card.

Um. No.

I'm on the other side 40 hours a week. Lately at work, we are becoming more and more sales-focused. We're constantly being pressed to get people to open up new accounts and to bring in more money. Someone calls in for their balance? Ask them about their 401k. Password reset? Tell them to send a wire. Of course our offer stats are recorded, so that leads to weak attempts and awkward conversations on almost every call.

The point is, customer service should be about fixing what's broken. Customers will be most satisfied if you just solve their problem. Period. Not find a substitute. Not solve and then solicit. Just solve.

2 comments:

Michelle said...

That's like Aetna telling me that Jenna is on Select Health's insurance when she is not. And then making me wait 30 minutes just to get it fixed in their computer. And I don't even want to get into it about social security. I guess we just have to have compassion and patience for people on both sides, eh? Doesn't make it easy!

Holly said...

Amen!!!!!