The Best Customer Service?
It’s definitely the time of year for parties. The economy being what it is, it’s also the time of year for stories about employers. Some of the interactions are more amazing than others.
The names are withheld to protect the silly.
Someone, we’ll call him “Ivan Tadeov,” was talking about how the firm he works for provides cell phones to several thousand of its employees. The firm, a large, well-known New England company, will be referred to as the “Einstein Company.”
The Einstein Company provides these cell phones so that key employees, particularly in sales, can be available 24/7. However, in order to save money, they recently decided to restrict the use of these phones to business only. In other words, employees are now being expected to carry around two cell phones: one for business use and one for personal use.
The net result: at least some employees are (gasp!) leaving their work phone at work. How unreasonable of them!
A psychologist in the room, we’ll call him William James Hall, asked why people need to be available 24/7. Ivan replied that this way customers can always reach “their” sales person.
Dr. Hall: “Even at 3am?”
Ivan: “Even at 3am.”
Dr. Hall: “Why?”
Ivan: “It makes the customer feel good to know that they can always reach their sales person.”
Dr. Hall: “Psychologists deal with suicidal patients and we aren’t available 24/7.”
Ivan: “Well, I guess the tech industry just has better customer service.”
Let’s look at this for a moment. We’ll leave aside for the moment the concept that restricting the phone usage to business calls only will save money. Most phone plans are fixed price for a given number of minutes. So long as people aren’t exceeding those minutes, it shouldn’t be a problem. Of course, I suppose the Einstein Company could be paying by the minute. Then again, if a large corporation that is buying thousands of phones can’t cut a deal with the phone providers, they really do have a problem. But let’s move on.
The first problem is that the Einstein Company apparently forgot why they provided people with cell phones in the first place: accessibility. By making the phone convenient and free, they removed the barrier to getting people to keep them on all the time. Sure, most people carry cell phones all the time; but most spouses take a dim view of having dinner, or other activities, interrupted. Also, people will generally turn off their phones when attending a movie, concert, fancy dinner, and so forth. By providing employees with free phones, Einstein Company successfully created a sense of obligation on the part of the employees to keep those phones on all the time.
And then, in one fell swoop, they removed that sense of obligation and made carrying the phone inconvenient. What next? Fire anyone who doesn’t answer the phone? What about people who travel outside of the coverage area?
Even more interesting, though, is the concept of what constitutes good customer service.
I can accept the concept that it might make some CEO feel good to know that he can always reach a particular sales representative at any time, but is that really going to help him? Wouldn’t it make more sense to talk to someone wide-awake and coherent, able to analyze his problem and help generate a solution? I would think that a company of several thousand employees world over can maintain a night shift.
Fact is, getting your doctor at 3am or your psychologist or your massage therapist, or, for that matter, your car mechanic, child’s teacher, or ski instructor just isn’t going to happen. You’ll get a doctor at 3am if it’s a genuine emergency, but it’ll be whomever is on duty that night.
Do you really want people short on sleep making critical decisions or attempting to solve a complex problem? People talk all the time about staring at a problem for hours and then solving it in five minutes… after they’ve had a good night’s sleep.
Of course, if the problem isn’t that complex, or the situation isn’t that critical, why the 3am call?
The real point here is whether or not this 24/7 availability is actually benefiting the client. Are they getting the best possible help this way? Or are they getting an illusion of responsiveness that will actually delay their getting what they need?
A final thought… the reason you won’t get the psychologist (or the massage therapist) at 3am is that they’ve learned something critical: “you can’t give what you don’t got.” In other words, if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t be of much use to anyone else.
Something to think about.
