I am not a meek person.

I am demanding, exacting and have high expectations. I have a low tolerance for ineptitude and intellectual laziness.

And I’ve experienced a few customer service failures recently that have particularly frustrated me.

It’s not that I don’t accept that things can deviate from plan; I’m actually a firm believer that it is not so much what goes wrong, but more how a situation is dealt with, by organisations demonstrating positive reaction and resolution, that influences customers’ loyalty and shapes their impression of that company.

People are human, and will make mistakes, however robust your recruitment, training and ongoing development may be. And unanticipated (and unanticipatable!) things will also happen from time to time, often way outside an organisation’s sphere of control or influence, to throw things awry.

Neither of these things is the issue. It’s when things go wrong despite or particularly as a result of everything being done right that I seethe. Processes that are planned in isolation, that don’t drill down further than the most superficial of customer needs and wants, and that are even sometimes designed purely for the convenience of the organisation itself.

For example, I recently needed to request a standard form from my bank. Everyone I spoke to was polite, friendly and helpful, and would rightly have scored very highly on whatever quality metrics were applied, but yet I was not satisfied with the experience*. If I complained, I’m sure it wouldn’t be referenced as such, as nothing actually went wrong.

Isn’t there a case for organisations examining these non-compliant complaints further as indicators for process or procedural conflict? The assumption that all customer service failures are as a result of people or circumstances would be staggering organisational arrogance. Progressive organisations listen to customers, speak to staff and adapt and grow.

This isn’t to say that everything customers want will ever be deliverable, and there is perhaps a case that customers are becoming more difficult to satisfy; what delights them today, they expect as standard tomorrow. We just need to ensure we are looking in the right places for problems.

Zoe

*I called the number listed against my branch in the phone book and was told I had come through to the national call centre, I needed to call my branch on the number they would give me as they were unable to send out the form. But because it was (just) after 4.30pm on Friday they would not be available until 10am Monday. On Monday I called and my branch staff were unavailable, so I was routed to the cluster support team, who were also unable to send me the form, but took my details to pass a message to the branch to put one in the post. 10 days later, the form arrived. Grrrrrrrrrrr. And don’t get me started on everything else!