{"id":11120,"date":"2017-04-27T13:27:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T13:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/?p=11120"},"modified":"2017-04-28T18:21:28","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T18:21:28","slug":"lose-the-customers-confidence-and-you-lose-the-customer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/lose-the-customers-confidence-and-you-lose-the-customer\/","title":{"rendered":"Lose the Customer’s Confidence and You Lose the Customer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following a poor customer service experience with his bank,\u00a0Shep Hyken discusses the importance of customer confidence.<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Bank\n

My wife and I were on the phone with our bank. They take care of our checking accounts and credit cards for our entire family, and we were having a problem transferring money from one account to another.<\/p>\n

The frustration began with fifteen minutes of hold time. Once the customer service representative came on the call, Cindy briefly described the problem.<\/p>\n

The rep asked a number of security questions, which included her full name, address, where she was born, mother\u2019s maiden name, social security number and driver\u2019s license number. While more than the usual questions, I understand they are for our protection. That said, the entire interaction, including fifteen minutes spent on hold waiting for the rep, was now approaching twenty minutes and thus far nothing had been resolved.<\/p>\n

At the end of the \u201cinterrogation,\u201d the bank\u2019s rep said he didn\u2019t have what he needed to verify Cindy\u2019s identity, and he was transferring her to another rep. What do you think happened when the new customer service rep came on? She asked the same questions.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now been almost 30 minutes and the reason for the call has not yet been addressed. We asked to speak to a supervisor. After a few more minutes on hold another agent picked up. Calm, cool and definitely more knowledgeable than the last two support reps, he resolved the problem \u2026 in under six minutes. He was able to take a look at several of our accounts and discovered why we were having our problem, and he fixed it.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s look at the numbers. Total time on the phone was 47 minutes. Total time to get to a person that was capable of resolving the problem was 41 minutes. And, I\u2019ll categorize that 41 minutes as a waste of time, never to be recaptured. 41 minutes of our life gone due to long hold times and two customer service reps who were not properly trained or had not been empowered with the authority to get the job done.<\/p>\n

So, what was the cost to the bank? I\u2019m not sure what they pay their people, but there was wasted payroll when the first two support reps couldn\u2019t answer my question. But what is the big cost? Shattered customer confidence.<\/p>\n

Even though our last customer service rep got the job done, the other two couldn\u2019t. 87% of the interaction was on hold or talking to people who couldn\u2019t help us, which made us frustrated, if not downright angry at the bank.<\/p>\n

After the call, we had a short conversation about switching banks. We chose to give them one more chance, but will a similar experience in the future push us to find a new bank? How many positive interactions will we need to have to forget this debacle and have our confidence in the bank\u2019s customer service restored to normal?<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s competitive business environment, a company can\u2019t afford to lose a customer\u2019s confidence. Maybe the customer will give the company a second, or even a third chance. A bank is \u201csticky,\u201d meaning it\u2019s not easy to close an account at one bank and open a new one at another. It takes time and effort. It\u2019s not like deciding to buy shoes at a different department store.<\/p>\n

The bottom line..<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every employee who comes into contact with a customer must recognize that in addition to the job they were hired to do, they are also there to create confidence. Lose the customer\u2019s confidence, and you will lose the customer.<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shep Hyken<\/a> is the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations. As a professional speaker and best-selling author, Shep helps companies develop loyal relationships with their customers and employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following a poor customer service experience with his bank, Shep Hyken discusses the importance of customer confidence..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11120"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11129,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11120\/revisions\/11129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}