Alexandra Binder
“Companies do everything until the prospect becomes an actual customer. Existing customers are then, however, second-class customers. "
Do you know that? You speak to customer service and ask politely: “May I still ask for your name?” A short “I don't have to say my name” comes back. Another variant of the same game: you get an email. Your service provider will inform you about serious changes that also affect your product. If you want to know something else, click on Answers, but you can't. This bad habit is called no-reply emails and it is spreading. Is that customer service? Do you still feel like a king or queen customer today? No? You shouldn't either.
“There is no entitlement to the best possible care,” says Barbara Bauer, legal expert at Association for consumer information (VKI). And in principle that is the answer to the question of what it is like today with companies and their customers. She also knows why their customer service is getting worse and more anonymous: "Every step that can be automated does not cost any personnel," she says. Maria Kubitschek, Head of Economics in the AK Vienna sees it similarly: "Good customer service means I have to invest in people and companies usually want to do the opposite, namely to save personnel costs." more flexibility. For this, only standard questions are answered there, no value is placed on quality and, in the worst case, simply referred to other options.
But isn't that too short-sighted? Definitely, says management thought leader and keynote speaker Anne Schüller. For them, however, the dilemma is an age-old problem: “Companies do everything until the potential customer has become an actual customer. Existing customers are then, however, second-class customers. "
Hunter mentality
Then Schüller throws the term hunter mentality into the running. “The man chases the woman until he has her and does everything to win her. After that it's everyday life. It's similar in a customer relationship too. ”Sounds logical, but in this case doesn't make any sense. Because we no longer live in a time without InternetWhen there were no third-party opinions, no testimonials, asterisks or ratings, and companies could make themselves comfortable.
“On the web you are seduced into infidelity every minute,” says Schüller. "If I am only an existing customer, a customer journey will start again immediately." How is that? You research whether you have really caught the best provider, what experiences there are, what price comparison portals say. "If there is a better offer, I'll be gone again," explains Schüller. And the companies? Often they do not even notice that customers are jumping off and therefore do not question their behavior. If there is no corresponding software that shows that a regular customer has not bought anything for months, this simply bypasses companies. "Then they make themselves comfortable, work on their efficiency and insist that the customers should kindly conform to their processes," says Schüller. “Instruments such as no reply e-mails are also super practical. You don't have to worry about it and you don't have any annoying customers who keep whining and don't give in. "
The EU intervenes
The EU says no and will set the future Omnibus Directive opposite. "It stipulates, among other things, that the entrepreneur must ensure that a means of communication that he makes available is efficient", says Bauer. How this will go with the Indian call centers remains to be seen. If a customer service employee refuses to disclose his name, if his statements can be legally assigned to the entrepreneur, the guideline is once in force. But if a problem were to end up in court, one would have to prove it.
The fact that consumers receive answers to complaints from large companies and it is not clear whether the company or an outsourced call center is the sender - that will also no longer exist in the future. Name and address must be disclosed. As a customer, you also have good chances if the nature of a concluded contract means that a permanently available service for support with regard to incidents must be available. This is the case with telecommunications companies, for example. If only one employee could solve the problem efficiently, but there is no longer any human support, then you are entitled to a reduction in pay.
Reopen the human channel
Management thought leader Schüller is certain that the problem with poor customer service will resolve itself. Even today, she says, customers are less and less willing to endure it. “Every customer-unfriendly behavior is a gateway for disruptors. Young companies that use these weak points and offer the same service, the same product as a start-up with better service. ”Not to mention the influencers, who more and more often pull their whole network along if they report a bad service experience and thus real waves of customer losses triggered.
What do you think a company that wants to survive in the market from a customer perspective must be able to do? Simplify automated processes and put competent people in the right places again. For Schüller this is the crux of the matter: “If I want to speak to someone as a customer, I have to be able to do so. And people have to be better than any automation process, any bot and any text module. "
Photo / Video: Shutterstock.
