“Sorry! Our policy doesn’t allow us to do that”. Every time I hear this phrase during a service interaction I somehow feel cheated. As if the organization simply wanted me to buy its product and then couldn’t be bothered to provide a decent service experience. Worse, I really don’t feel like going back to buying the organization’s product ever again! Although a lot of policies exist for regulatory or legal purposes, there are some policies that simply exist because the rule book has not been reviewed in a long time.
Outdated and irrelevant internal policies and procedures often handcuff reps and prevent them from providing tailored, low-effort service. These obstacles hinder reps from customizing service and flexing to meet customer needs. In fact, 65% of frontline reps feel that they are not able to exercise their judgment in their jobs. Furthermore, 78% of customers reported that reps were mainly concerned with adhering to company policies and didn’t focus enough on resolving the customer’s issue.So, how can contact center leaders identify unproductive policies that increase customer effort? Progressive organizations use the following tactics:
- Capture the “No’s” Program: Ameriprise Financial has devised a simple tracking program to enable its escalation staff to record the policies and circumstances that requires them to say “no” to customers. This process is more reliable, and less biased than simply brainstorming which policies are irrelevant and unnecessary. Contact center executives then filter the list using targeted questions such as:
- Is this policy negatively impacting the customer experience of a large enough sample of customers?, or
- Will its removal pose regulatory or legal risks?
- Prompted Barrier Recollection System: Agilent Technologies leverages rep experiences to identify and prioritize barriers to judgment, and then uses rep insights to create low-cost, easy to implement solutions. Agilent asks its frontline reps to think sequentially about each of the steps in a particular type of service interaction and the obstacles they face in providing a good customer experience. This prompts reps to recall specific barriers that they might have not otherwise recalled. The resulting barrier map is reviewed annually.
CEB Customer contact members can read the full case-study here.
What steps have you taken to remove barriers to rep judgment at your organization ? How do you proactively identify policies that are alienating your customers? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments box.
Related CEB Customer Contact Blogs
Related CEB Customer Contact Resources