Flashlight

Thank You for Not Calling - If automated customer service lines could talk

2007-02-27T19:56:00.000-08:00

If your company is automating and offshoring customer service for cost savings and "efficiency," or that some customers just don't spend enough to deserve getting personal service from a human being, spend a few minutes with this tongue-in-cheek look at phone system damnation. In fact, why not read it the next time your are in the "eternal time vortex" on hold?

Then think about what your customers are saying about your company...

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Thank you for calling customer service. Your call is only important to you. For English, please allow us to penalize you by making you press 1. Para espanol, oprima el numero dos y good-o luck-o getting-o our-o uno-o Spanish-o person-o.

For Rotary-dial callers please hang up.

I'm sorry. When you press 0 it pisses us off and we have to pretend to accidentally disconnect you after finally reaching a representative that was hired and trained moments before you picked up the phone.

Again, you ass, for English, please press 1. Para español, oprima el oh who gives a shit, press dos if you're not from around here, and I know there ain't no Rotary-dial caller still on this line. Hang up 1952 or I'll send some of my boys over to...

Thank you.

Please listen closely as we pretend to constantly change our menu in order to route calls to India where you'll talk to a native named Kevin or Bobby.

To add more crap you don't need onto your existing account, press the dollar sign or 1. To remove essential services which make you a better person, press 2. To pay your bill by phone because you're too late to mail in a payment or e-bills still seem like a Jetsonian feature, press 3. For perceived trouble with your fantastic service, press 4.

Thank you.

For trouble with our platinum services that are really our gold services with more marketing, press 1. For trouble with our gold services, press 2 if you must. For trouble with our silver services, you're already not good enough, but press 3 anyway. For trouble with our bronze services, well, you get what you pay for so press 0.

Now see here, I told you what pressing 0 does to us, but no - no, you had to test us again. No problem, no problem at all. We just removed all your discounts and found the address of someone with your name, but worse credit, and attached them to your account. You wanted to be funny, but we're going to ask for a deposit when you finally reach a representative.

Thank you.

In order to prevent you from reaching a live person, please enter the last four digits of your high school locker combination…backwards…twice.

Are you still there?

Thank you.

Please hold while fake electronic sounds are played to make you think we're accessing your account.

Here they are again.

Thank you.

You have been randomly selected just like everyone else to participate in a survey. After you've spoken to a representative in your lifetime, ask them to transfer you to the survey and enter for a chance to win an absolutely unregulated contest prize for the whole family.

Transferring.

All customer service representatives are busy eating lunch or searching for jobs on Monster.com. Please hold while we assist the two customers from yesterday who made it through.

Muzak version of La Bomba(y) plays

Do you have trouble sleeping? Researchers somewhere said something about sleep we thought you might want to know, but we're going to break in during the really good part, you know, the part where you learn something useful, and tell you...

Thank you for holding. We are currently assisting other customers by making friends with them, laughing at their jokes, giving them a false sense of accomplishment before we tell them their account is being closed and that we are coming for their children.

...and that is the secret of life.

Your wait time is infinity. Infinity squared.

Thank you for holding. All customer service representatives have gone home and left you here to languish while your cell phone burns a hole through your brain. Our night janitor is currently listening in on your huffs and puffs as well as your conversations while on hold. If you hear panting, press 0.

Oh damn. It's on. This time I am going to crawl through this phone and shove that meaty zero-pushing finger up your…

Ello. This is being Bobby. How is it that I may be servicing you today?

Feedback Improves Communication

2007-01-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

Here's a great piece from HealthLeaders Magazine on how senior managers can be more effective communicators. While written for the healthcare industry, the lessons can apply anywhere.
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/survival/view_article.cfm?content_id=85732

COMMUNICATION - Give and Take
Peer-to-peer feedback can facilitate efficiencies and innovations

Even when you give peers feedback with the best of intentions, people can become defensive and unreceptive. Unresolved conflicts can fester and become roadblocks that keep an executive team from achieving its goals.

Executive coaches and behavioral scientists recommend that senior leaders acknowledge the potential for communication problems and provide the resources and environment to support peer-to-peer feedback within the executive ranks.

"Often organizations will bring in coaches from the outside to work with individual leaders on these types of communication issues," says Doug Reynolds, Ph.D., vice president of assessment technology at Development Dimension International, a human resources consulting firm headquartered in Bridgeville, Pa. "We've found that the effectiveness of these efforts is not so much dependent on who the coach is as much as how willing peers are to give feedback."

Set the tone from the top

A CEO should convey that sharing ideas and feedback - both corrective and motivational - is expected and valued.

"An effective way to do this would be for the CEO to share a story about a time when he found feedback to be very helpful, even if it wasn't pleasant to hear at the time," says Susan Keane Baker, a New Canaan, Conn. -based speaker on healthcare service quality and author of Managing Patient Expectations. She also recommends that executives make an effort to solicit feedback to encourage ongoing communication.

Reynolds points out that just because someone has elevated to the ranks of senior leadership doesn't mean that he cannot improve his capacity for giving and receiving effective feedback.

"The good news is that if you don't have these skills, you can train yourself to get better at interacting effectively with others," says Reynolds.

What is effective feedback?

Reynolds notes that regardless of one's management style, the core elements of appropriate feedback should be the same for everyone on a team. Here are some traits of effective feedback:

Accurate and specific - Avoid generalizations that can be interpreted as an attack on someone's character. These approaches will trigger the receiver's defense mechanism and your message will not get through. Make sure your comments are about a particular behavior and that they are fair and on target.

Timely and in proportion to the behavior - Don't wait for "the last straw." When we repress issues we have with others, they often come out in disproportion to the most recent incident. Better to deal with a single undesirable issue quickly and appropriately.

Forward looking - Remember that the whole point of providing feedback is to reinforce or change future behavior. When providing feedback, explain your expectations for future behavior. Better still, ask your colleague how he could improve going forward.

Helpful and sincere in tone - During our careers, sometimes we need a coach and other times we need to be the coach. Receptive and adaptive teammates help each other reach goals. Patient and sincere coaches relate to individuals on a human level because they want them to succeed.

A synthesis of ideas

A better flow of information across the leadership ranks can facilitate efficiencies and innovations, says Reynolds. At the opposite end of the spectrum, leaders who cannot effectively deal with each other create silos; therefore, disruptions more often need CEO involvement.

"Generally the team will work better if issues do not rise to the upper levels of the organization, and conflicts are dealt with at the lowest possible level," notes Reynolds.

Culture Clashes At Root A Comm Problem

2006-12-05T14:00:00.000-08:00

This link -- http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,1954097,00.asp -- will take you to a very interesting article I pulled from CIO Insight magazne on work being done by two professors regarding teams from different cultures working together more effectively. While geared to the technology sector, the article has valuable lessons that cut across industries. Whether you’re dealing with a co-worker in the next cubicle from a different background, coordinating projects with team across the globe, or merely trying to get a deal done with someone in another country, it should come as no great surprise that quite often the problems we encounter boil down to wrong assumptions and POOR COMMUNICATION.

Unhealthy Communications

2006-11-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

Back in September 2006, I spoke at Medtrade (a national educational and trade show for the home healthcare/durable medical equipment industries) on how to build smarter marketing communications programs. Here are just a few of the troubling things I heard from the participants in my session and that I saw while walking the exhbit floor:

- The majority of participants did no audience research prior to implementing their communications programs. Many said they knew titles of the types of people they were selling to but when pressed for gender, age or regional breakdowns all I got were blank stares.

-Nobody surveyed their audiences on a regular basis as to their informational interests. How could they capture attention if they had no idea of what their audiences want to see or hear?

-There were no crisis communications plans. For companies dealing with highly sensitive issues surrounding personal health and wellness, and running the risks of product liability, I was blown away that nobody had given any thought to preparing for a crisis.

-The exhibition floor was loaded with poorly designed, poorly worded and downright amateurish marketing materials. These companies are asking for sales ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars, yet it appeared that they could not be bothered to invest in their image.

There were some wonderful hidden gems of products and personal stories among the exhibits. I had a great talk with a rep from a company that sells the most amazing, colorful and creative parts for wheelchairs. He was funny, personable and knew the products inside out. This was a company that could really have a dynamic presence in the market with the right marketing communications investments.

One company CEO and sales director embodied a warm, personable approach to marketing. The CEO talked with me about the family atomosphere of the company and made it abundantly clear that it was more than just a slogan. The smile on his face and the enthusisastic affimations of his sales directior let me know that this was a company that had confidence and a great story to tell, not just tired gimmicks. They were living and communicating the true essence of their company.

The bottom line of this show was that too many companies are out there with products that lack any kind of significant image or message that stands out from the crowd. Many of them had spent little or no time on professional quality marketing and it was clear from the sad lack of traffic at their booths that potential customers were unimpressed. It was only the few with the truly differing spin on their outreach that I could see winning the day.

Powering Up

2006-10-29T17:07:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Flashlight Marketing Communications' news, views, announcements, opinions and tidbits. This is your idea area - a spot to dip in and grab some new possibilities for your own business activities. Have some thoughts of your own to share? Great! That's the power of blog technology- it's all for one and one for all!

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