Nick Cole

Scotland

Director

This is an interesting subject. But most of the protagonists don't really understand what the issue is.

The reality is that it is the success of the interaction that defines whether or not a customer is satisfied. And an unhappy experience with lack of local knowledge, local customs, over reliance on scant and often wrong knowledge of consumer laws, misunderstandings due to accent or misinterpretation and above all the lack of empowerment to offer a constructive solution do far more to increase the elevated distress of an already distressed caller.

Few people who initiate call-centre outsourcing realise that a caller is already miffed about something and the usually negative experience (especially with call routing menus and 0870 systems) merely exacerbates the problem.

Customer services are a cheap way of keeping a customer on side, much cheaper than trying to woo them in the first place. Penny-pinching in relation to someone who has already committed to that product or service while simultaneously increasing advertising and marketing budgets doesn't improve the long term bottom line.