Originally published March 5, 2010

Communication Mishaps

We all know business is about generating revenue.  In today’s era of social media, instant gratification and self-service, customer communications have a dramatic impact on revenue (just ask Toyota). Arguably, communication is the key to happy customers and a thriving business. And communication mishaps can ruin customer relationships!

I observed an example of a communication mishap at lunch yesterday.  Being one of those busy people with an overloaded to-do list, I decided to go through a “fast food” drive-thru.  The line was long but I expected it to move fast.  It was a “fast food” restaurant and they should be prepared for a lunch rush, right?

After a 5 minute wait (5 minutes = 1 hour in fast food time) the voice from the speaker said, “We are only taking cash right now… is that OK?”  I thought to myself “What if it wasn’t OK?  What if I didn’t have cash?”  Clearly the 2 cars ahead of me didn’t have cash evidenced by the way they squealed out of the line!  I even watched one of them go across the street to a competitor. 

Think about the goodwill this company could have created by having an employee walking through the drive-thru informing customers about the issue.  Maybe those customers could have gone into the restaurant to use the onsite ATM instead of squealing away. I know the next time I’m in a hurry and I don’t have cash, I will pass by this place for sure.

Since I work at IQ Services, this of course got me thinking about communications technology and the importance of first call resolution objectives.  Some companies put a lot of effort into making sure customers know what they need to know in order to successfully complete a transaction the first go around — whether they hit the call center or just the IVR app. 

But I wonder if these same companies realize the frustration customers feel when they can’t even get to their expensive, well-designed apps and technologies.  A few nights ago, my husband was working on a budget and needed information from the bank.  He called numerous times throughout the evening and repeatedly heard an “All circuits are busy…” message.  Why didn’t they know their system was down?  What good was their first call resolution strategy when my husband couldn’t even get his call through?  Like the fast food place, why didn’t they have a backup plan to alert customers to the issue?  To re-route them to the info they needed or at least to an agent? I wonder how long it took them to find out about it.  I know it was at least 5 hours because that’s how long my husband tried before he gave up.

I wonder how many transaction fees and other revenue generating and customer service opportunities they missed in those 5 hours.

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Kristy Buddensiek

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