Thursday, July 13, 2006
Just read it!
When issues come up that require a customer's attention, we let them know. We don't call them, because it's cheaper to notify them in other ways. We'll make use of email and a proxy redirection. The latter is a source of frustration for some people.
A proxy redirection works by having a customer's Internet browser pointed to an alert from the company. The alert will generally explain the problem. For example, you might read that your credit card was reported stolen, and so we'll need new billing information, or your annual account is about to run out, and we'll just need to know if you want to renew or not. The important thing is that this is an alert about something, and consequently, if you read the message, you will find out what the problem is.
Now, admittedly, in some unusual cases, the notices won't display properly, and in those cases, the customer is a bit stuck unless they give us a call. Proxy redirections will require a user to respond to the notice before it'll take the notice away. Even so, a healthy number of the calls we get about the alerts are from people who didn't check them.
"Hi, I'm calling because I got some kind of message from you guys."
"OK, what did the message say?"
"I dunno. I just figured it was something about my account."
Yes, excellent deductive work. If you think about it, pretty much any message sent from us is going to somehow relate to your account.
What really grinds my gears is the fact if the customer had just read the message, then they wouldn't need to call us at all. For example, if your credit card had expired, you're prompted to enter the new number. If we've changed something about the service that requires you to know some specific information, you just need to click a button indicating that you've seen the notice.
Instead, some people see the alert and our logo and then shut their brains off and just call us. Yes, you can address the problem that way, but in most cases, you can address the problem much more quickly by just reading the issue and clicking the appropriate response. The whole reason we alert people that way is so that they don't need to give us a call. It lets them address the issue directly and quickly, and it means we don't need to expend resources dealing with something that we don't need to. That sounds selfish, but ultimately it means we're able to focus on more important things and keep costs down, which I think benefits the consumer in the long run.
At least, it would if they would just read it.
A proxy redirection works by having a customer's Internet browser pointed to an alert from the company. The alert will generally explain the problem. For example, you might read that your credit card was reported stolen, and so we'll need new billing information, or your annual account is about to run out, and we'll just need to know if you want to renew or not. The important thing is that this is an alert about something, and consequently, if you read the message, you will find out what the problem is.
Now, admittedly, in some unusual cases, the notices won't display properly, and in those cases, the customer is a bit stuck unless they give us a call. Proxy redirections will require a user to respond to the notice before it'll take the notice away. Even so, a healthy number of the calls we get about the alerts are from people who didn't check them.
"Hi, I'm calling because I got some kind of message from you guys."
"OK, what did the message say?"
"I dunno. I just figured it was something about my account."
Yes, excellent deductive work. If you think about it, pretty much any message sent from us is going to somehow relate to your account.
What really grinds my gears is the fact if the customer had just read the message, then they wouldn't need to call us at all. For example, if your credit card had expired, you're prompted to enter the new number. If we've changed something about the service that requires you to know some specific information, you just need to click a button indicating that you've seen the notice.
Instead, some people see the alert and our logo and then shut their brains off and just call us. Yes, you can address the problem that way, but in most cases, you can address the problem much more quickly by just reading the issue and clicking the appropriate response. The whole reason we alert people that way is so that they don't need to give us a call. It lets them address the issue directly and quickly, and it means we don't need to expend resources dealing with something that we don't need to. That sounds selfish, but ultimately it means we're able to focus on more important things and keep costs down, which I think benefits the consumer in the long run.
At least, it would if they would just read it.
# posted by Terry @ 6:52 AM 
