Survey Feedback

Survey is one of the means the company tend to improve their product or their system. In a call center, this is represented by Voice of the Customer (VOC) or Customer Satisfaction (CSat) survey.

The survey customer answers are usually related on how an agent handled their concern and how willing are they to recommend the product to their friends and how long or how many times did they call before their concern was resolved. But of course, not all concerns can be resolved over the phone. There are instances wherein they have to be physically present at the store to have their issue resolved.

When I was interviewed before in a call center, the question the recruiter ask me, “What is the difference between customer service and customer experience?” My answer is, “Customer service is how you handle their concern while customer experience is how they felt after you have process their concern.”

Companies are competing one another to endorse their product. Because of this, they have to lure customers to knock on their doorstep and ask for their service. One Telco company is offering the same product as the other but why is the other Telco company has more customer than the other? It could be that the advertising is better or the customer service is better.

But Starbucks didn’t spend money on advertising yet their coffee is selling like hotcakes. The reason for this is because their customer service is better. For a coffee that has a price of 100 pesos above, well, it really make sense that the customer service will be that superb. They represent money leaving your pocket! This is how our brains are being tweak to buy something.

It is also on that “tweak” process where you can get good customer service feedback. “People prefer to hear lies,” tell them the truth and they won’t accept it or the worst part, it’s like you open a “Pandora’s box” and release all the evil within it thus you will oftentimes hear in a call center, “You are opening a can of worms.” But it is also on that “sugar–coated lies” that a cell center is surviving its operation. Customer will continue to call back because that is the easiest way to resolve their ignorance, frustration and manipulation. Thanks to that part of the brain that is prone to manipulation. To survive in this industry, primary requirement ang makapal ang mukha mo magsinungaling!

But all of us are customers. In fact one call center is named as “All People Are Customer” prior to their merger and acquisition. And when you comprehend a lie suddenly you have an insecurity within your armpit already. You know that one of this days you will be comprehended a lie too. Si Ate, nakapila sa Jollibee at biglang umeeksena na rin ng mga banat na, “that doesn’t make sense” na attitude. Or si Kuya tumatawag sa Globe, at umeeksena na rin ng “I know your job so don’t fool me.” Ginagawa mo eh, ginagawa din sa’yo. Karma is truly digital nowadays!

Building rapport is a taboo if you are working in a call center in the 90’s. “Transactional” is the norm. If you are transactional nowadays, you are labeled as stiff and uptight. It is also in this “building rapport” that you get the customer “buy in” or it will get you. You will get the customer’s buy in to give you good customer survey or the customer will get you by saying, “I like your accent, you have the same accent as my boyfriend.” Flattered by that statement, you are now being conned and the next thing is, can you waive this charge on my bill? But if you are transactional, they wouldn’t be able to request you that.

I once get a zero score from a customer and the customer states that I wasn’t able to resolve her concern. My TL was then mad at me because I pull the score of the whole team down. She then made a return call to that customer and tried to satisfy her. At the end of the call, hindi niya na–resolve yung customer issue dahil imposible yung pinapagawa ni tanda! Did the TL gave me a feedback? Of course not, kasi kahit siya walang magagawa. There are incidents like this na aalatin ka talaga kahit ginawa mo na lahat. Those who are getting good surveys, tignan mo din kung san yung deficiency nila sa metrics. It could be that their AHT is high or their NCH is low or their Transfer rate is high and the reason why they are passing the metrics is because the percentage either for VOC or CSat is high thus it tends to pull their scores up. Those who have Popular Sanguine personality, 99% yan na nakakakuha ng matataas na survey. This are the so called “customer service material.” If you want your site to have good CSat score, hire ONLY those who have Popular Sanguine personality, bubulusok yung scores ng Site mo diyan. On the other hand, papatayin naman niyan yung profitability nung site mo sa absenteeism, AHT and Incentives. These are CSat champions na nakakuha palagi ng incentives and if you are giving away incentives as a primary motivator, palabas ang pera diyan!

There is also an incident in another call center wherein there is no week in a row that they are losing their grip as number one when it comes to VOC survey. Palagi silang number one. Even the site abroad, hindi sila matalo. Until the secret was revealed! Hmmmm! Nagde–delete pala ng disposition ng calls na mga pangit para hindi ma–survey. But of course, no secret is forever a secret. The next thing you know, the account was pulled out. There are also agents who are deleting disposition in their call history if they could already sense that it will not result in a good feedback. As one of my colleague says, “that’s the only way to survive.”

There are also some calibration that is being made when it comes to VOC or CSat survey. In one of the calibration that I have listened to, it was participated by one OM, three TL, one SME and one agent we listened to one call then the OM said, what is the best part of the call? What could have made that call even better? And when everybody provided the score and the average of those scores was just barely passing, the OM then said that that call made a perfect score on part of the customer. The customer doesn’t want “beating around the bush” and he found a representative who is uptight and transactional and they are a perfect match.

There are also instances wherein during a calibration or coaching your TL will tell you, “you would have scored higher, if you sound perkier or if you just credited this amount or you build rapport” but those “hypothetical” statements doesn’t really translate or quantified to be the real factor behind a survey. There isn’t one single recipe to ace a survey because different people has different demands. Those demands could be mundane to hilarious.

When Feudalism was replaced by Capitalism, “producers of goods wanted to have less service at a higher price while consumers of goods wanted to have more service at a lesser price.” And the Father of Capitalism is the United States. Callers who are calling a call center are all consumers thus they wanted more service at a lesser price. It is of no wonder that if their bill is high, they will call. If there is an outage in their area, they will call. The psychology which is indelibly written in their neuron is “somebody will fix that for me” is there as always.

Now, producer of goods and consumer of goods must meet in between in order to resolve the opposite direction they are moving in. That is when VOC or CSat will take place. Capitalist (i.e, businessman) will pass to another person the “risk of the business.” Consumers on the other hand would toss away “risk of the business.” Someone should absorb that “risky business” then. That is where you are going to enter the scenario as Customer Service Representative. You are the “shock absorber” of the business. It is of no wonder that those giant Telco companies, Media providers and investment banks are all outsourced here. See the picture!

There was once a parable. A villager wanted to sell his donkey to a market. The market is a bit far from his home. On his way to the market, the villager rode on the donkey and the people criticize the villager because he is too heavy for the donkey to carry. So, the villager then strap the donkey and pull him on their way to the market. The people who saw the donkey again criticize the villager because it mess the hair of the donkey. When the villager finally got to the market, the donkey looks tired and messy thus nobody wanted to buy it. Moral of the story, “You cannot please everyone, IF YOU DO, you lose yourself.” That is the same feeling you will feel if you are in this industry. Sometimes you will find yourself lost as to where you are going to further position yourself.