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Call centers can be expensive as well as the source of lots of consumer angst. But companies can get more bang for their buck by doing a better job of coordinating marketing decisions that drive customers to call centers with operational ones about handling them once they get there, says a new study from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.
The study, co-authored by Professors Philipp Afèche and Opher Baron in the Rotman School's Operations Management and Statistics Area, and Mojtaba Araghi, an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, provides an integrated marketing-operations framework to help companies design more effective service policies for their call centers and other service channels.
[...] Getting things right at the call center has been shown to be vital to businesses. Previous research has shown that companies use call centers for 80% of their customer interactions and 92% of customers base their opinion of the company on what happens during their call. Four out of ten customers who end their business with a company place the blame squarely on a customer service call that went badly.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171002112343.htm
[Source]: How much is that call worth?
[Abstract]: Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Service Access Quality:
When quarterly results matter the most, do you think that companies will follow this advice ?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:51PM
If you have to call customer service, things are already bad. The product or service is not working, possibly defective. Or, there's some problem with the bill, some sort of double charge, overcharge, bill padding, or just a plain old price hike. Too often, it's a billing problem.
Seems the billing department's first purpose is to extract more money out of you, not correct mistakes. I find especially annoying AT&T's habit of forcing you to listen to a pitch for more service while waiting on hold. I've only dealt with Comcast once, years ago, and yeah, they were poor. That was in the days when they insisted in installing software on your Windows XP PC, and tried to give you bull about how you could only have one computer hooked up to the Internet, unless of course you paid them more money. I set up a dummy computer with Windows just for that, then wiped it and hooked up my own equipment.
Over time, I have become more and more sensitive to their trickery. They project this aura of business competence, to suggest their billing couldn't possibly be wrong. They'll try to say that's the way the system works, and it is correct. Or, tell a flat out lie: "that's what everyone does." They'll play the helpless, hapless call center monkey who hasn't the power to do anything, and there's some truth to that. One place's collection department even tried debt collector tactics on me. Asserted that I was being emotional and rude, calling them names, when I was not, and that they would hang up on me if I didn't behave. One of them did hang up on me, and I immediately called back and reported her.
All this wastes a great deal of time, and I think that's somewhat deliberate. They're also trying to wear you down so you'll give up and just pay, because a few dollars isn't worth the time a call takes.