I'm perplexed how common inhumane customer service is among large companies. While I'm raising the issue to generally encourage people to design their systems and policies to be human-friendly there are two specific contexts that compelled me to write this today.
The first is due to a horrendous experience I had on a phone tree. You know, you call some monolithic company's customer service and they put you through a gauntlet of menus before you can talk to someone. Even if you KNOW your issue will require human interaction they force you to go four levels deep, and if you try and guess to get around the system by dialing zero or nine or what you otherwise might think is the number for an "operator" you are chastised and sent back even further?
"I'm sorry, but the number you entered is not a valid option. Please listen to the options again."
At this point that is becoming my most-hated phrase in the English language: scratch-out-my-eyes, howl-at-the-moon irritating.
Of course, it is no secret why companies do this: it is the scourge of capitalism, optimization.
"We can pay $xx,xxx for this phone system that will allow us to reduce our call center costs by yy% per year!"
Indeed, companies can and do make this choice, and we - the consumer - suffer for it. Today I lost exactly 2:53 seconds. That was the point on the call when I could simply hit "0" to "Speak with a live agent." Not only did I lose time: multiply 2:53 by all the people calling this number even just today - the so-called "24 Hour Customer Service" number - and you are talking about a spectacular waste of human capital. But Bank of America doesn't care; this is how they optimize their profits. The result is not just a lot of wasted time, but frustrated and irritated customers. As long as their costs are reduced they think this is a fine policy.
In the end, it is completely dehumanizing. I expect to be jerked around now when I call customer service. I am feeling trepidation before I make that call, seething anger during it, and a feeling of exhaustion by the time it is over. While certainly not every user is so adversely affected as I it bears asking: is this the kind of relationship Bank of America wants with their customers? Is this how they want their brand to be viewed? While they may benefit from being just one of the many corporations that have adopted this trend - hiding among the masses of incompetent - perhaps eventually they will all pay for it. I'm ready to sign up with a nice, small, local bank - today!
Of course, the obvious design solution is to start the call by letting someone choose the operator. Yes, they would get some percentage of people who could have been handled in an automated way taxing their human operator instead. But it would be an intermediate solution that would allow them to pursue efficiencies of the technology while still being kind to the people who keep them in business.
Another example of terribly inhumane services are the contract models at large corporations. Many of these companies have teams in place whose job is to block contracts from being signed, delay money being approved, and/or to negotiate ridiculous discounts with the vendor in order to start doing business together. As someone who has worked at the top of my field for over a decade, I've worked with many of these large companies. And some of them - who will remain nameless - have particularly gruesome gauntlets they put you through.
I remember one customer of mine was literally begging and pleading with purchasing to release his PO that already had the CEO's signature so he could hit a deadline. But their policy was a five day hold, minimum. No exceptions. The reason for the five days? To provide time for somebody to change their mind, so the project may not go off, or would only go off at a lower price level. Their job responsibility - and indeed, the measure by which many of these employees are measured for their performance - is if less money is spent, or more contracts are killed. They are literally incentivized to throw a spanner in the works and prevent employees from doing business.
Another example, which was more of an old trend but still shows up from time-to-time, is a mandatory discount for paying on time! That is, the company attempts to write into their agreements that they can take, for example, a 2% discount if they simply pay their bills by the date we've agreed! Really?
I've had myriad dealings with these kind of shenanigans, and the good news is that all these grey hairs keep me ahead of most of it. I know how to take on the system and, if not always win, at least protect our interests and those of the people who are trying to use us as a partner to move their company ahead.
The bad news for these sort of companies and the people who work with them is that this sort of policy is a classic "penny-wise, pound foolish" tactic. The company becomes known as hard to do business with. Their "vendors", instead of feeling valuable and inspired to do great work, are demoralized and feel duress. Rather than work in partnership with these companies the vendors are compelled to worry about CYA (cover your ass!) and wasting time navigating the morass that ostensibly accompanies these Draconian policies. As opposed to, y'know, focus on doing the work they claim to be engaging you for!
These are policies and processes without design. They are strictly bottom line optimization techniques that are micro-economic in nature: they create very narrow and targeted savings at explicit points in the supply chain. They are Unfortunately, while they might seemingly save money in these tactical ways they ignore the human component to business and partnership.
How do you think my client felt who couldn't get our project started because of a policy that exists only to undermine his authority? Terribly. He vented privately to me at some length about being treated like a dolt and not being empowered to get his job done. What percentage of his potential contribution do you think they were losing out on by making him feel like Dilbert?
How do you think we felt the first time someone tried to give us a discounted payment because they were kind enough to pay on time? Angry, an anger which resulted in an enormous shitstorm that involved not just our client contacts but, on their side, legal, purchasing and AP. Not only did their ridiculous "discounting" practice end up costing them money in human capital, it changed the relationship from being one where we were excited about helping them transform their business to a "This project, and never again" dynamic. They were stunned to be told, after a hugely successful project that was well-received at their highest executive levels, that we were not interested in continuing to work with them. I bet this particular company hasn't heard that very much! It takes courage to stand up and fight against corporate inhumanity - especially when there are hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake. But for us, it is more important to be treated well than to cash in.
Of course, this is a stream that runs both ways. There was a designer we very much wanted to partner with and, when the opportunity arose, his engagement model and expectations were so inflexible and full of self-entitlement that we hadn't even started the project and we knew, no matter how well it went, "never again!"
What kind of a partner do you want to be? What engagement or service model do you want to have? Which do you think will yield the greatest long-term returns?
My choice is to take the long view: to try and design our policies, processes and service model in a humane way. To make the people in and around our company feel like they are more rather than they are less. While we don't always succeed, we typically do. I'm convinced it is how we survived the abyss of 2009, and why we're doing better than ever.