I don't think customers are the problem...

[Rageaholic]

as much as management and some of their utterly stupid business policies.

I've been reading some of CS archives and noticed that while many of the customers are assholes, they tend to have a point. Their problem is that they overreact and blame the wrong person for their problem. However, the front line employee is unable to help them because corporate has some dumbass policy forces them to play some game. Either they end up being forced to ask all these stupid questions, enforce stupid rules, push some store credit thing, or jump through a shitload of hoops just for a simple transaction.

Just an example of this is this Dell Customer Service call: WARNING LANGUAGE. To summerize, customer had to go through their "automated crap" and an hour later finally gets through to a rep only to then be forced to give more unnecessary information. As someone who has been on the other end of this, I can sympathize with this guy (even if he was a total asshole to the rep). All he wanted to know was how to turn off his computer and he did get the answer in the end. It took mere seconds to resolve, but because of following policy to the letter, the employee was unable to solve a simple problem as easily as it should have been solved.

I can't blame the customer for being irate at this point. I'd be irate after jumping through all these hoops (though I hope I wouldn't take it out on the clerk). I'm not saying I blame the employee either. After all he's put in a rough spot where he probably wants to just get this guy off the phone. He could just give the employee the answer, but then he'd get chewed out for not following policy (no matter how unnecessary it was). But because he followed policy, the customer only ended up getting more irate.

So to clarify, I'm not saying customers are justified in chewing out reps, or that all customers are perfect. But if management wouldn't have such assine and unnecessary policies, there would be less sucky customers.

[bara]

A good point to be sure. One Ive attempted to explain to many to help them not be so mad. Some understand and some dont.

One of my theories is that some companies institute stupid policies in an attempt to always have a reason to get rid of employees, especially if theyve been there to long and are making more money than the rest.

If they keep changing rules or adding new ones then they will almost always have a reason to fire someone.

[tropicsgoddess]

A good point to be sure. One Ive attempted to explain to many to help them not be so mad. Some understand and some dont.

One of my theories is that some companies institute stupid policies in an attempt to always have a reason to get rid of employees, especially if theyve been there to long and are making more money than the rest.

If they keep changing rules or adding new ones then they will almost always have a reason to fire someone.

Oh you're so right about that, Bara! Some companies will fire an employee no matter how minor the violation was, no pleas no nothing.

[HYHYBT]

If you're trying to get an argument going over whether management ever puts in place policies that anger customers or employees alike, good luck finding anyone to take the other side

[BrenDAnn]

Well I definitely know C-store is that way. I mean, the intro paragraph to our training papers goes on about how customers are the "lifeblood" of the company, and we should bend over backwards, kiss their asses, and perform miracles to keep the customer happy. Yeah...not many people going to take the other side of that argument at all, HYHYBT.

[Gravekeeper]

So to clarify, I'm not saying customers are justified in chewing out reps, or that all customers are perfect. But if management wouldn't have such assine and unnecessary policies, there would be less sucky customers.

But conversely, the other end of the spectrum is management that capitulates to sucky customers and teaches them they can get away with whatever shit they're trying to pull.

Regardless though, if a company's policies are pissing you off, its still no excuse to disrespect another human being thats just trying to do their job. It also tends to be counterproductive as you're abusing the one person that could help you and ensuring that they're likely just going to do the absolute bare minimum to assist you as a result.

As a CSR myself, absolutely nothing floors my willingness to assist a caller then having one who is pissed off and taking it out on me even though I have nothing to do with it. I will do the bare minimum my job requires to assist you, and likely pass along your attitude and behaviour to the person or company in question you're trying to reach. So they're not likely to want to deal with you much either.

[Andara Bledin]

Just because management has insipid policies in place is no excuse for other people to behave like raving assholes to people that they know have no power to change the things that are pissing them off.

Especially when, more often than not, the SC in the equation was the one that caused the problem in the first place, and the management-created hoops are part of damage control.

^-.-^

[Rapscallion]

One of my theories is that some companies institute stupid policies in an attempt to always have a reason to get rid of employees, especially if theyve been there to long and are making more money than the rest.

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained through incompetence.

Rapscallion

[HYHYBT]

Sometimes, it depends on how much incompetence is plausible.

[Anthony K. S.]

If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem.

First of all, I agree with the folks who have said that even if customers have legitimate complaints, it does NOT, in any way, excuse them for taking their frustrations out on front-line employees who had nothing to do with it.

As far as I'm concerned, the moment that a customer does that, the customer loses ANY and ALL right to be viewed with any kind of sympathy. Why should I sympathize with somebody who's acting like a jackass?


That said, there is actually a deeper fault with customers who behave this way.

To borrow a couple of pieces of wisdom from the famed Norm Feuti :

Corporate makes the rules, and the employees take the heat.

Corporate doesn't listen to employees, but they do listen to customers.

Take note of what Stuart says in the first strip :

"If that's the case, then why isn't the home office inundated with complaints?"

Part of the reason why Corporate thinks that these asinine policies are a good idea is because they don't get enough negative feedback from the customers to make them believe otherwise.

And the reason they don't get that negative feedback is, as Marla pointed out, that customers usually direct their anger at the front-line employees and not at the people who have the power to make a difference.

Not only are they making the employees miserable, but these customers are actually contributing to these policies happening through their failure to voice their complaints to the right people.


So a customer was "legitimately" aggravated by his experience with Dell Customer Service?

Yeah? Well, as far as I'm concerned, it was his own damn fault.

If people like him weren't too stupid to complain to the right people, this sort of thing wouldn't be happening.

(Can you tell that I've been stewing about this for a while ... ?)


That's where the second strip comes in, by the way. A thousand employees could complain about something, and Corporate wouldn't care. But just one customer pitches a fit, and everything changes.

If just a small percentage of the customers behaved more intelligently and fairly, the situation would be a lot better.

[Andara Bledin]

Yeah. But then they'd have to get off their complacent asses and actually care about someone and something outside their own petty lives. And even if it would make those lives better, it's too much effort. It's far easier to just be a complete asshole to whoever is most convenient when you get bitten by said policies than to make any sort of effort to let someone who could possibly have the power to do something about it know that they're a problem.

As an aside: Those of us who don't use the dark forum color scheme have to highlight all of your pretty colored text to even see it.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

I tried, for a while, getting customers to direct their complaints (the ones caused by higher-ups) somewhere more appropriate. I started giving them the office number or showing them the 800 number on their bag. It got results, too!

No, of course they didn't fix anything. Instead, I got "we're getting a lot of complaints on your shift lately..."

[bara]

I will say this.. my worst customer service experiences always came when the customer was actually right and there was a policy in place that prevented me from helping them. It was rare, but it did happen a few times. The really bad part about it is the customer was nice about it which made me feel even worse that very little could be done to help them.

[Rageaholic]

But conversely, the other end of the spectrum is management that capitulates to sucky customers and teaches them they can get away with whatever shit they're trying to pull.

Regardless though, if a company's policies are pissing you off, its still no excuse to disrespect another human being thats just trying to do their job. It also tends to be counterproductive as you're abusing the one person that could help you and ensuring that they're likely just going to do the absolute bare minimum to assist you as a result.

As a CSR myself, absolutely nothing floors my willingness to assist a caller then having one who is pissed off and taking it out on me even though I have nothing to do with it. I will do the bare minimum my job requires to assist you, and likely pass along your attitude and behaviour to the person or company in question you're trying to reach. So they're not likely to want to deal with you much either.

No no no no.

I don't condone being an asshole to anyone no matter how annoying the situation is and I don't think management should have to bend to customers will. But there's instances where what the customer wants is something simple and reasonable, but some dumbass policy makes the thing ten times more complicated. As someone pointed out, they are an unnecessary pain for both the employees and the customers.

I remember reading one thread where the employee was not allowed to get a supervisor unless the customer specifically says so. So until customer said the magic word "supervisor", they had to keep them on the line. Even the supervisors thought it was stupid, so what's the point of such an unnecessary hassle?

Then there was the McDonalds chicken nugget 911 call. I'd say she was an SC... to the 911 operator who had to waste his or her time with such a non emergancy. However, she was still wronged by McDonalds. When she found out they didn't have Mcnuggets, she wanted her order canceled, but they would not give her the money back. I think this is a perfect example of this. The customer overreacted big time, but that's not to say she didn't have a point.

So to stop myself from rambling and get to the point, I don't think any of the employees are to blame, but neither are the customers, AT FIRST. They start out with a pretty reasonable request, but some annoying policy gets in the way, and THAT is when the customers become raging assholes.

[smileyeagle1021]

Hey, you think you have it bad as a CSR in the middle, try being the relay operator. You get the brunt of people's fury about the automated menu when you finally talk to them, I get it the whole way through.
T-Mobile has gone from the best to the worst in the last two weeks, it used to be that if someone had a mobile data device they could get through to a technical support person without knowing their "mobile number" (who the hell remembers the mobile number to a device that no one can call or text), now if you don't have it the system will either dump you or send you to sales, and who do you think the mobile data user blames when they are going through relay, do they blame T-Mobile's management for their utter stupidity and lack of care for customers (I notice they are no longer JD Power and Associates top rated btw), no they blame their relay operator for being too "stupid" to not find a way to do what was possible two weeks ago.

ftr- I route the calls through to the activations department which I know sucks for the csr in the activations department having to deal with someone who has no interest in activations and isn't happy about getting routed there, but at least they have the authority to send the person directly to the department they need rather than going through all the bullshit that sales does. But I don't doubt that back door will be closed soon as well.