Part of the art and science of customer support is understanding how you can lose money on *every* transaction that customer support gets involved with and still have things work out for you at scale... contingent on *very* successful execution both inside and outside of CS.
Human attention is much more expensive than people expect.
People expect human attention immediately if they ever need it.
People think human attention is built into your price.
These are not easy constraints to satisfy, but they are satisfiable at least some of the time.
People expect human attention immediately if they ever need it.
People think human attention is built into your price.
These are not easy constraints to satisfy, but they are satisfiable at least some of the time.
An example of this: no single transaction involving a retail customer below approximately a mortgage would have positive contribution to a bank's bottom line if a person talked to you about it.
The bank doesn't employ people so you can talk to them. The bank employs people so that you use that bank when you *don't* need to talk to anyone.
A useful number to keep in your head, from a US-based call center a long time ago: seven dollars. Seven dollars is the cost of picking up the phone.
(I earned $10.25 an hour, and was confused as to how that math works, and was told "overhead." It took years before I understood.)
(I earned $10.25 an hour, and was confused as to how that math works, and was told "overhead." It took years before I understood.)
$7 blows away all the contribution margin from a $N million domestic wire, about a $500 to $1k credit card transaction (for the issuer), a middle class American's primary banking relationship for about a month or so, a month of B2C SaaS, etc etc etc.
Note that $7 is *very much not* the top end of e.g. "How much does it cost to respond to a ticket given that the ticket will be touched by e.g. a San Francisco-based engineer multiple times?"
Anyhow:
Hug your customer support professionals close.
Understand that this is the math dictating why it is difficult to get a human on the first ring in many places.
Understand that most places with sucky CS didn't say "Strategy memo: humans, who cares what they think."
Hug your customer support professionals close.
Understand that this is the math dictating why it is difficult to get a human on the first ring in many places.
Understand that most places with sucky CS didn't say "Strategy memo: humans, who cares what they think."
Second thoughts brain: "I mean banks sell a lot of things, right. Auto loans, HELOCs, wealth management products, some specialty derivatives to retail..."
Third brain: "OK OK technically inaccurate."
Second brain: "Which means INACCURATE."
Third brain: "OK OK technically inaccurate."
Second brain: "Which means INACCURATE."
