Some companies focus on their contact centre – it is considered a competitive differentiator. I think that customers like to do business with companies that have front line employees projecting a positive, even happy, image. Tomorrow, I’ll write more about Virgin Mobile, a company in this category.
And then there is the firm that I have been trying to talk to for the past two days.
It started with me trying to respond to an ad for a colour laser printer from yesterday’s National Post. No phone number in the ad, just a web address. Problem was that the website was broken. I found a toll free number (1-800-name of company), but the IVR routing was broken. Argghhh! Push 1 for English, 3 for computer equipment, 2 for printers, 2 for business and then “Please hold while I transfer to our service partner…”. Finally, one ring to reach “your call did not go through…”
Don’t you hate that?
After trying a couple more phone numbers, I spoke to their third party PR firm – the only shining light in the past 24 hours.
The IVR routing has since been repaired, but the agent at the end of the phone is from a third party hardware maintenance company and he routed my call to another queue that simply dropped the call after 5 minutes of on-hold music.
The ad for the printer had a circle around the brand name and said that this label was the most important part of the printer.
I agree.
The problem is that the company’s name is not projecting the same image as they might have hoped.
What is your contact centre doing for your brand’s image?
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IVR, call centre