This morning I called AA Insurance to enquire when my vehicle insurance renewal notice would be forthcoming, being that I knew the current annual period expired in either January or February.

Learn to Articulate

The guy that answered mumbled something unintelligible and I immediately found myself entered into a phone queue.

After a few minutes, another, equally inarticulate operator answered, and in repeating what I thought he’d said his name was (Simon), he inelegantly corrected me (Not Simon).

I went on to explain (patiently) that it was important that call centre representatives be understandable to callers. Maybe their name isn’t that critical, but the other content of the call probably was.

Not Simon responded: “Is. That. Better.  …… ?”

Don’t Mock the Customer

I told him that I was making a reasonable and serious point, and that I didn’t appreciate being mocked.

He told me, disingenuously, that he was simply “changing his speech pattern” at my request.

I responded that I didn’t require him to change his speech pattern, merely to articulate sufficiently as to be understood. By way of example, I pointed to the fact that I had thought his name was Simon (and there’s nothing wrong with my hearing; I’m neither an old person nor am I deaf).

His response to that indicated that the conversation was likely to degenerate into further disrespect and/or defensiveness. So I informed him that I was a customer service commentator, told him I wasn’t prepared to continue the call, told him that I assumed the call was being recorded at his end, and left my phone number such that – should any management member of AA Insurance give a stuff about my points – they can call me to discuss.

I’ll make a further post at some point to let you know if they did.  Or. Not. 

Two Weeks Later . . .

A couple of weeks later, and no, predictably enough, no-one had called.

So I decided I better try my luck at getting a slightly more respectful operator, as I still hadn't achieved the objective of my original call.

The first operator was - to say the least - extremely curt in her phone answering manner. I pushed on, regardless, and achieved the first half of the objective with her. The second half of the objective required me to be transferred to another department.

The operator at this next department was everything a call centre representative should be:  polite, efficient, helpful . . . and affable. So - when she posed the template question with which all call centre reps appear to be instructed to end a call ("Is there anything else I can help you with today?") - I took the time to (and the risk of) telling her of the experience I'd had with the previous call to AA.

She was appropriately unimpressed with my experience, and looked for any notes that had (or should have) been made about the call, by the operator in question. She found none. Not good. Especially since I'd requested a call back from someone who cared.

She insisted that she convey the situation to her customer service department, who would call me to discuss my feedback.

She did, and they did.

And I was very impressed.

'Room for Improvement'

When the customer service department or management representative called me the very next working day, she had taken the time to listen to all calls associated with said feedback. And she agreed that, most certainly, there was "room for improvement" in the communications performance of their call centre operator.

With a mutual background in brand and marketing management, we ended up in a long and impassioned conversation about the importance of an organisation's first point of contact in the preservation of its brand reputation.

Our points of agreement are worth noting, for any enterprise - large or small - that values the investment it has made in its performance, its reputation, and its brand.

LESSONS:

1)  "Brand" is the total experience a customer has with the enterprise in question. It includes - but is not limited to - all points of interaction the customer has, at any time, with that enterprise.

2)  Chief amongst these influencing experiences are those interactions the customer has with the organisation's frontline personnel - whether in person, by phone, or online.

3)  Unless the customer has a long track record of positive associations with the brand, it takes far fewer negative experiences - proportionately - than positive experiences, for the customer to have an overall negative feeling towards the organisation and the brand.

4)  Where the customer is a relatively new acquisition for an enterprise, that enterprise's "brand" is only as good as the customer's most recent experience with it.

5)  Further to (3) and (4), a household-name brand has an invaluable asset in that brand, and simply cannot afford to have it tarnished by unseasoned or poorly trained frontline personnel.