I’m frustration! Why are you trying to sell me something!
Today I called AT&T to report a problem with my telephone. I got caught in a loop between two automated systems. The repair “guy” routed me to billing and billing routed me back to the repair guy. The loop repeated and I called the operator. She immediately connected me to the automatic repair “guy” and the loops started all over.
On my second call to the operator I begged her to connect me to a real person. After 10 minutes on hold I got to talk to someone. For the ‘nth” time I was asked for my telephone number, this time by a person. The next questions whether I was interested in getting an Internet connection through AT&T. A sales pitch. Bad, bad timing.
Since I called a repair number it should have been obvious that I was having a problem. The agent may not have known that I had just gotten the run-around. He should have known that I was frustrated because my telephone wasn’t working.
When a customer is frustrated, anxious, confused or stressed, they are closed-minded and not receptive to a sales pitch. In fact, what the sales pitch signal is AT&T doesn’t value my relationship. Sure, they want to keep my business but their actions make it clear they are not interested in a win-win relationship.
Clearly, if anyone at AT&T is concerned about the customer experience, they were asleep when the sales pitch got inserted in the script for the repair guy.
AT&T is not alone. Many companies are all too eager to seize every opportunity to SELL. A call to customer support is an opportunity to build trust in the relationship. They should be putting all their efforts into alleviating the customer problem and they should do so with empathy.
