5 Reasons Customers Hate Calling Support (And One Really Bad Excuse)

Its intensity might not rival that professed in a comedic article by CRM professional John Burton, but the notion is absolutely real.

For some customers, 15%, in fact, the prospect of interacting with—or holding for–call center support is so unappealing that they would rather go to the dentist.

Other startling findings from the new survey, which was released this week by Corvisa Cloud: 13% would rather deal with Black Friday crowds, 7% would prefer to go to the DMV and 4% would willingly give up sex for a month.

Such sentiments might not be shared by the majority, but the idea that they exist at all, given the fact that customer service’s paramount objective is to satisfy customers, is troubling. It is blatant proof that businesses are not making good on their supposed commitments to customers.

Worse, the failure has multiple manifestations and is thus more symptomatic of systemic shortcomings than individually flawed process. Negative perceptions of customer service come not from one particular element of the process being ruined by a lapse in innovation; they come from a holistic breakdown in how businesses translate their promises into practice.

The five greatest drivers of customer rage include:

• Having to repeat the same information multiple times on the call.
• Waiting to be helped by an agent.
• Communicating with an agent who is not knowledgeable about the issue.
• Being required to deal with multiple agents.
• Dealing with a rude customer service representative.

Common issues associated with the most cynical vision of the call center, none should come across as surprising.

And that is the surprise. Regardless of how vehemently an organization buys into the age of the customer philosophy, how could it possibly justify letting long-standing customer service issues—issues which take a notable toll on business results—linger? Dismissing an isolated issue as an anomaly is one thing, but when issues continually reach a manager’s doorstep, how does he justify a continued exercise in willful apathy?

Such a question should be rhetorical.

Shockingly, an organizational psychologist actually offered an explanation. Even more shocking? His explanation places the blame on customers rather than on businesses and their support agents.

“When you are calling, there’s a chance you’re calling because you’re frustrated,” explains Michael Woodward, who wrote “The You Plan.”

In carrying such negative emotion at the onset of the call, customers, Woodward argues, risk poisoning the entire experience.

Driven by emotion rather than logic, frustrated customers tend to obscure their messaging, which makes it harder for the customer service agent to understand and diagnose the problem. And insofar as their anger often escalates into accusation, the tone customers invoke might further “anger the customer service rep.”

Because neither scenario is conducive to a satisfactory outcome, a customer’s anger will likely steer the conversation on an unsuccessful course. Customers might instinctively blame that failure on the business (and its agent(s)), but insofar as it was their anger that caused the problem, they would be doing so unfairly.

The call failed because of them rather than because of the brand.

“You catch more bees with honey,” the core of Woodward’s messaging, is not inaccurate. The agents to whom they are speakingare people with real feelings, and as such, it makes sense to engage them the way one would prefer to be engaged. Behavior that risks taking a customer service agent’s eyes off the prize is irrefutably damaging to the customer experience and, as such, irrefutable proof that the customer’s demeanor plays a role in the outcome.

But practical accuracy is not the same as fundamental correctness. By discussing the customer’s role in the process, Woodward is ignoring the fact that the business has a unbreakable obligation to satisfy the customer. The customer, who has already rewarded the business with his money, time, interest and loyalty, owes the business nothing.

In suggesting that the interaction between customer and agent is an equitable back-and-forth, Woodward is providing business with a fundamentally inaccurate vision of the customer support dynamic. It is always the business’ job to please the customer and never the customer’s job to please the business.

An angry customer might render himself unfit for the agent’s friendship in a personal context, but in the customer support context, his emotion cannot have any bearing on the quality of service. No matter how loud or quiet, rude or polite, confusing or articulate, the customer is entitled to express his true self and his true feelings on the line. The agent, regardless of how appealing he finds that true self on a personal basis, must accept that customer for whom he is—and rigorously pursue resolution. And he must do so with sincere expressions of kindness, sensitivity, courtesy and acceptance.

If an agent is unable to put the customer’s satisfaction above all else and consequently unable to separate his professional commitment to that customer from his personal opinion of the customer’s tone, he should not be answering the business’ calls. If management tolerates fighting fire with fire, the organization needs to reconsider whether it truly wants to do business in a customer-centric world.

But Woodward’s explanation is troubling for more than its executional incompatibility with the concept of customer-centricity. It also encourages businesses to adopt an impersonal, robotic, inside-out vision of customer service.

And it is that sort of vision that dooms call centers to perpetual failure.

In highlighting the impact a customer’s emotional state can have on the efficacy of a call, Woodward provides two examples of inquiring about a cable outage.

• A level-headed customer would simply explain that his cable is out.
• An emotional customer would complain about his inability to watch the season finale of “Modern Family”

According to Woodward, the first caller is better positioning himself to receive a satisfactory experience. But when considering what customer service is all about, society should actually be encouraging customers to behave more like the latter.

One of the greatest inhibitors to satisfactory support is the agent’s lack of empathy. Because the agent is inclined to reduce individual issues to static, generic commonalities, he precludes his ability to understand the impact on the specific customer. He blinds himself to why the customer is truly mad and thus dampens his sense of obligation to that customer.

He thinks about the issue from an entirely internal perspective—the cable is out, we need to get it up and running again—and thus neuters his ability to accurately tailor his response to the needs of the customer.

The customer, however, does not care about the technical issue behind the cable outage (unless it was unique to his subscription). He does not care about the business’ standard policy for resolving outages. All he cares about is missing “Modern Family.”

If a business does not commit itself to understanding the real reason a customer is upset and the real purpose of the interaction, how can he properly resolve the customer’s issue? How can he properly frame his response? How can he possibly satisfy the customer?

Since customers do not think about their problems from a dissociated, impersonal, robotic perspective, they should not frame their issues that way. And since agents are supposed to solve specific customers’ specific issues on the customers’ specific terms, agents should not want them to do so.