Customers are Volunteering Their Time For You

Those of you in the non-profit sector have lots to teach those of us in the for-profit sector. One important lesson is the value of volunteers - without them a non-profit can’t survive. Here is a customer service story that teaches all of us to value our customers as ‘volunteers’.

The customer had her eye on a very specific machine - a new PC with all the bells and whistles and rumored to even be capable of cutting the grass! The features were unbelievable. The price was absolutely phenomenal. An amazing value when you combine the features and price — all in time for Christmas. A loyal customer in the making and we all want those!

“No problem” she said upon hearing that the PCs were on back order. “I waited 4 months for the PC because it was an amazing deal”. How loyal of a customer? When the back order came in and she was notified to pick up the machine - she bought TWO of them! A long time loyal customer in the making until she called the call center - your call center?

Once the new PCs were unloaded, setup and running a ’software’ problem emerged. Time for a call to the manufacturer’s service call center to tap the brain trust of the computer fix-it types who could help guide this new loyal customer to solve the problem. The first twinge of trouble came when they couldn’t locate a toll-free number in all the paper that came with the PCs. “Ah well, since I did get an amazing deal I will call directly.” She did call - four times waiting no less than 30 minutes each time and on one occasion waiting 50 minutes. She called on her nickel.� She did not count how many songs she listened to while on hold. She did not count how many times she heard the Interalia message play something like “Thank you for waiting oh most loyal customer. You are important to us and we will get to your call within the next calendar day. Please continue to hold as we play our top five favorites over and over and over …”

Call center operations people� listen up! We have a serious problem. How many times can we allow our customers to have this experience? How many times can we allow our customers to ‘volunteer’ their time because of service level problems in our centers? How many times can we afford to create a customer story like this so that this ‘loyal’ customer now tells this nightmare story over and over and over …

Let’s take this apart and explore the real cost of customers volunteering their time and how it can help you!

Customer initial perception: features + price = real value therefore customer buys

Customer reality: feature + price + hidden cost of volunteering hours of time on the phone = bad deal therefore customer tells stor�

“Had I realized the service from this company, was going to be this bad, I would never have bought the machine. Never.”This customer teaches all of us a critical lesson about our operations. Let’s say customer time equates to $20 per hour, which is a value some non-profits place on their volunteers time. Take the price of the product and add to it the cost of the customer’s volunteer time, would this be deemed a good deal by the customer? Probably not. In this story the customer invested a total of about $90. How? Time on phone (say 4 calls with an average of 45 minute waits in queue) + long distance charges (say $30) equates to about a hundred bucks. Big deal?�

Calculate this for your operations

((average number of minutes customers waited last week * number of customers who called)/60 minutes)*$20

What was the cost, paid by the customer for volunteering their time in reaching your call center? Compare this to the total amount paid to call center agents in your operation on an average week. The closer to zero you are the better. Show this to the boss in a business case for more staff. Show this to the boss in a business case for some staff and the right technology product (web-based self help?) to better service your customers. Counting the volunteer investment of customer’s time may alter how the person who holds the budget dollars perceives the strategic value of your call center and your customers.

Outcome: when the customer got through to the computer fix-it type, the words were colorful and not too polite - by the customer that is! Agents love this part of the job - Mr. Screamer in the Service Queue! The agent repeatedly said some magic mantra like, “sorry about that”. The PC manufacture did ask for the customer to send in the phone bills as they would pay for the long distance charges - a very generous offer. Nonsense. Who wants to wait until the next phone bill arrives, remember to write up a nice and polite letter, buy a stamp and mail it and meanwhile the customer is volunteering their time to do so! Not me, not you and definitely not this customer. The customer has fun berating the company. Loves the PCs. Absolutely loves the PCs but that doesn’t matter. This customer is saying “don’t buy the PCs from this company”. “Buy from the competition” — she has heard their call center service is better!

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Customers are Volunteering Their Time For You

Calculate this for your operations

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