When Rules are Meant to be Broken

Moderated by: Elaine Cascio, Vanguard Communications

My partner’s son was in a horrible accident several weeks ago and is still hospitalized out of state. My small bit of assistance in all he’s going through is to deal with airlines and car rentals as he’s been forced to extend his stay several times.  The good news?  Delta airlines has been understanding, accommodating and compassionate. They’ve changed, cancelled and rebooked his reservation several times and waived any fees because of the circumstances. Unfortunately, the agents I spoke with at the car rental agency were trained to do everything by the book.  In the course of speaking with six agents and supervisors, only one agent extended the rental without demanding to speak to the “primary driver.”

Did these agents miss the training on compassion and helping customers, or doesn’t the company give them latitude to work with customers in difficult times?  Empowering agents is one of the keys to customer – and agent satisfaction. Treating employees like children who are unable to make decisions is a huge mistake in a world where the customer experience is a competitive battleground. 

All customer facing employees should receive clear training on dealing with customers in difficult circumstances and understand when it’s appropriate to bend the rules.  Giving employees the power to make these decisions on their own makes them feel more valued and valuable.  Maybe we should all revisit our new agent and refresher training to make sure these messages are clearly spelled out. While we’re at it, let’s think about reminding agents they are empowered to work with customers to make each contact a positive experience. Finally, let’s make sure agents have the tools that enable them to really help customers, like a knowledge base with real life examples, Unified Communications to enable quick, seamless exception approval, and last agent routing so customers like me don’t have to repeat the tragic story over and over again each time they call (it will reduce call handle time, too).

What have you done to empower your contact center agents lately?