Fact is, in today’s world, I think people are squeezing every ounce out of their dead time (like in traffic or a long commute) to avoid having to take time away from critical office activities or family, etc…We simply don’t know WHY people still call, be it choice or necessity. IMO, all we can really do is try to understand them better, and offer choices to other lower cost channels IFF they are “easier for the customer”. But then it’s the customer’s choice…and at that point (assuming we have good info and the right CRM mindset), we should assume the customer made the choice of that channel for good reason.

Many CS organizations haven’t taken the time to understand why and how customers make these choices. If we understood the behavioral dynamics a little better, there would be many things in this transaction that would look different, starting perhaps with a process that was “designed” to better deal with that kind of call medium.

You make some excellent points hear; but, I would offer a little different perspective.

1. Processes (scripts) are (should be) logical steps to achieve a specific goal. Not all scenarios require all steps of the process to be completed to accomplish the goal. Unfortunately, it is drilled into the practioners of the process that they will follow every step or suffer some sort of consequence (remember this call may be monitored for quality purposes).

2. The consumer in this story played a part in the lack of goal accomplishment also. Remember, in any transaction there is always a supplier and customer. As the conversation goes on, the role of supplier and customer is reversed with each transaction. Was the consumer a good supplier by using a potentially tenuous cell connection?

Lee Silverstein