Five reasons why companies with automated phone centers don’t really want to be bothered.

Until recently I’ve found it difficult to explain how otherwise fine, reputable companies can come to a conscious decision to provide anywhere from adequate-to-very-good face-to-face counter service to customers, compared to down-right awful telephone service to everyone else.  I cannot recall ever walking up to a counter at an airline, car rental agency, or hotel—or for that matter any other kind of vendor—and being treated any way but just fine!  Yet routinely I’m disregarded, delayed, and implicitly told that my patronage of their services is of no particular consequence to the firm by the company’s automated phone service, or call center.  So the question is raised, why is it that telephone customers [or prospects] of a firm are treated so differently [read poorly] compared to counter facing customers? 

Last week I needed to, upon taking a trip from Boston to Los Angeles, rent a car in California for four days.  To get the most favorable rate I phoned three car rental companies:  Hertz, National, and Budget.  Dealing with the first two was aggravating in that their customer service phone center was entirely automated; apparently, they would have preferred—and, indeed, by the recorded messages on their system tried to get me—to complete my exploration of the rates and details of renting a vehicle from them…entirely by non-human means.  Only after I “stood” on the “O” [for Operator] on the Hertz and National calls did I get a live person—and then received a comparatively high price for a vehicle of theirs in southern California.  By contrast, when I dialed Budget, I only had to make an early choice in the process as to whether my call pertained to pressing “1” “to make a new reservation” or pressing “2” “to change the terms of an existing one.”  After that I was told approximately how long I would have to wait to have an agent handle my call.  [Incidentally, not only did I get the best service, I got the best rental offer from Budget:  $188, compared to over $300 from Hertz, and about $280 from National!]

Don’t companies like these know that I’ll never walk up to their counters for the superb, thoughtful service that might await me there—if they don’t offer me the kind of service and terms I need by telephone in the first place?  I’ve come to the conclusion that firms which use automated reservations and service centers are attempting--by failing to deliver good customer service right from the start--to send prospects and buyers one or more important messages.  Here are those messages I think firms are trying to send when they use toll-free, automated service and reservation systems:

[1] We’re not really interested in new customers!  Frankly, taking care of people’s questions or requests for rates, services, or terms is something we’re not really interested in being bothered with—we’ve got enough customers the way it is without you.  Thus, we decided to dedicate a few computers instead of people to handle the calls that come from prospective customers—if those who call are willing to persevere by talking to robotic systems—we’ll take them on as customers, for they’ll be likely to settle for not-so-hot-service were they to choose to become full-fledged customers of ours. 

[2] We don’t care about serving old or new customers very well, because frankly we don’t see that as very important.  In truth, we think that customer service is a matter that is too hard to deal with—to do it right—so we think that the best and most honest policy is to signal that right from the start of any and all transactions.

[3] Our firm is driven by technology first, and people come after that.  We’ve got smart IT people and a lot of the latest software; to be perfectly honest, we’ve found that it’s easier let the equipment and the gee-wiz technology handle the questions and service needs of our customers—when a company gets real, live people involved in delivering customer service, well, that get’s not clean and frequently can be very messy—sometimes it cost a little more.

[4] We’re too busy to figure out how to cultivate truly happy, contented customers.  We’re more comfortable acquiring and maintaining our tangible assets, or overseeing our sophisticated financial strategies, or expanding strategic options.  To be perfectly honest, we’re completely clue-less about understanding how customers think, what they want in the way of a service process system to begin with, so why get started when, well, we have other things that are more important to do.

[5] We think it costs more money than we're prepared to pay, to have real, live humans talk to the other humans who call in.  We've heard that having human-beings actually doesn't cost more money, but we're just too cheap to figure out the right costs and constellation of benefits our customers are prepared to pay for--and then reward us by their loyalty when we treat them right.  In other words, money and efficiency is more important to us that you are.  

So my latest car rental experience with Hertz, National, and Budget really taught me an important lesson:  companies with automated call centers really do understand what they’re doing—I’ve just been a naïve customer all these years who was not smart enough to see what they were trying to tell me in the first place.  What are the answers, if you’re a manager in a firm that wants to re-think what it’s doing and the messages it’s sending—well, there are remedies, but that’ll have to wait to another day. 

In the meantime, I understand a lot better what’s going on—and I’m prepared to see these companies I might do business with in a new light—and change my call and patronage patterns in the process.  For now I’m keeping better score:  Budget, 2, Hertz & National, 0. 

To make sure you get a "tweet" with every new blog, follow "keithmurrayblog" on Twitter!  Think others might like to read this?  Re-TWEET it to your followers with the SHARE ARTICLE tab below!