After the chore of moving all my remaining possessions to a new place comes the chore of changing all my addresses (and getting off of lists). Now it feels like I have more addresses to change than I had possessions to move.
So I began the daunting task yesterday. I found that although it’s 2011 and the corporations and banks I give my business to have had, oh, a few decades to work out all the kinks in online self-service, many have a long way to go. Half of the time, I had to call an 800-number to change my address, which is ridiculous and time-consuming.
Let’s discuss one finance company in particular that I had to call. I had a perfectly nice transaction with with the phone agent. We treated each other like human beings, and the call was mercifully brief. Then today, I get a “caller ID blocked” call and although as a rule I never answer blocked calls, this time I did, figuring it could be related to my move. It was a satisfaction survey, following up on my address change experience. The nice gentleman on the other end of the line had to ask me about 30 questions, most on a 1-7 scale, with a few on a 1-10 scale (why?), and I kept telling him “that question doesn’t apply to me” or “I don’t understand how I can rate someone’s product knowledge on an address change, since that’s not a product”, but he kept plowing ahead anyway.
About halfway through, I realized the conversation had gone from frustratingly strange all the way to relationship-damaging. It would have been better if they’d never called me at all. They had done a perfectly fine job of taking care of my original call, and as a result I liked them as a company. But this satisfaction survey was downright unsatisfying. It had the opposite effect of making me feel like they cared. I felt like the left had had no idea what the right hand was doing. I doubted their operational abilities. I felt like a nameless, faceless cog in their satisfaction-measurement machine — a feeling that was reinforced when, after we had finally slogged through all the questions, the last question I was asked was “what is your first name”? Then he thanked me for not hanging up on him halfway through, which was the most human moment in the entire call.
Question 27 was “on a 10-point scale, how likely are you to recommend us to your friends”. Well, it depends. Minus 5 points if you’re going to bother them too.
Lessons to learn from this: You’ll learn more by simply asking “How satisfied were you with the call? Is there anything you’d like to tell us to help us do a better job for you?” and see where the conversation goes. Structured, scripted customer interactions are so last century. The extra effort of acting human will be worth it.