You work for a major American bank, and you are in the "escalations" department. Your department handles all customer service issues where the customer cannot be satisfied by normal reps and supervisors.
You are the direct boss of the front-line escalations team. Your employees directly interface with customers who want their case escalated. Your employees are also empowered with full visibility into customer accounts (with customer permission), as well as the ability to make exceptions and solve problems.
You do not typically interface directly with customers. Your job is to manage the escalations team. The level 1 escalations specialist directly calls the customers, and the level 2 specialists will speak to the customers if a supervisor/manager is requested. You only speak to customers if recommended to do so by a level 2 specialist.
--------
In this situation, a customer named "John" applied for a business credit card, and is very unhappy.
The Chain of Fail
- It has been 6 weeks since he applied, and he still does not have the card yet.
- After applying, John was inundated with numerous and repeated e-mails, phone calls, and letters requesting "more info" in order to approve his application. However, when he would call back, nobody would know what he was talking about. Customer service reps told him conflicting stories regarding whether or not his card was approved, and what (if anything) he needed to do further.
- After several weeks passed without the card arriving, John found out it WAS approved, but sent to the wrong address -- his parent's house, where he hasn't lived in decades. However, even his parents did not receive the card.
- When John called to complain about this entire situation, he was directed to the escalation team, and was told he would get a call back. John repeatedly provided the correct phone number to reach him.
- Despite giving the correct number, Francisco, the escalations specialist, called the other number and reached John's mother. After his mother was confused by the call and was suspicious it was a scam (since she wasn't expecting it, and they were asking for John who didn't live there), Francisco allegedly got agitated and nasty, and berated her for doubting the call was real.
- When John called the number Francisco gave his mom, he alleges that Francisco was rude and belligerent with him from the start, and in fact blamed him for the long delays and incorrect address.
Escalating the Escalation
John demanded Francisco further escalate the situation, which he did. Alice, a level 2 escalations specialist, took over at that point, and called John. She heard John's gripes, and investigated the entire matter, from both customer records and recorded phone calls. The findings were as follows:
- John's entire account of the situation was correct. Everything he alleged turned out to be true and verifiable.
- Records on the account indicate numerous e-mails, phone calls, and letters claiming that John had to take further action in order to get his card approved, yet these were all erroneously sent. These communications went out repeatedly over a period of 2 weeks.
- Notes on the account indicate that customer service reps were very confused about these communications, and John was told different stories regarding whether or not his card was or would be approved. This ironically caused a further delay in processing the card, as cases were opened which had to be closed before it was sent.
- A glitch in the system inexplicably cleared all of the address and phone number information from John's application, and the system erroneously filled it in with the first address and phone number it ever had on file for John, which was his parents' address and phone number from the 1990s. This is what caused the address/phone number confusion.
- John gave the correct phone number for escalations to call three different times. However, the customer service rep still forgot to send that number to the escalations team, resulting in the specialist (Francisco) initially reaching John's mother.
- Believing he was calling the correct number, Francisco got annoyed that he was put through the third degree by a suspicious woman, and lost his temper. Francisco was unprofessional and was disrespectful to an elderly woman who was reasonably worried about identity theft taking place against her son.
- When John reached Francisco, it seemed that Francisco was already bitter about the conversation he had with John's mother, and no longer wanted to help him. Francisco was clearly belligerent and confrontational from the first minute of the call, and repeatedly interrupted John when he tried to explain. Francisco also blamed John for the card going to the wrong address, stating, "If you didn't want it to go there, you shouldn't have put that on the application." When John denied putting that address, Francisco scoffed and told him he didn't believe him.
- Francisco refused to do any investigative work on the matter. When John asked him to look into the numerous contradictory e-mails, phone calls, and letters he received, Francisco simply stated, "That was our bank doing due diligence and security checks", and stated that "the notes show everything was routine." However, even a cursory look at the notes and the excessive number of communications with John would show that this was anything but "routine", and that something highly abnormal had occurred. It is reasonable to assume that Francisco either refused to look at the notes/history, or saw them and lied about the obvious conclusion from them.
- Francisco told John that a new card had just been sent to the correct address by express mail. When John said that he was happy to hear that, but lamented that 6 weeks worth of errors and hassles preceded it, Francisco angrily snapped back, "I said we sent it to the right address, and it will be there in 2 days. What more do you want?" In the 20 minute call, Francisco never once conceded the bank made any errors, never apologized, and aggressively blamed John for all delays. When John asked again specifically what caused the 6-week delay, Francisco said, "That's company private, and you are not allowed to know that."
- Francisco has been written up, and disciplinary action against him for both phone calls is pending, as he violated numerous company policies during both calls.
- The various customer service reps who dealt with John in response to the letters/emails/calls have also been coached regarding how to handle matters like these. While it appears they all tried to help solve the problem, several did not understand what was going on, and inadvertently made things worse.
John was polite when speaking with Alice, but she revealed that John was requesting customer service credits, which she is not authorized to give. Alice recommended you calling John back, as indeed there were extensive failures in this entire process.
What is it worth?
You call John, and reveal to him that you have researched everything, and that his account of the situation, including the very negative interactions with Francisco, are all 100% correct.
John then asks for a "customer service credit" for all of his trouble, as he already had with Alice.
There were several independent points of failure here, and the escalations specialist (Francisco) in charge of solving the problem seemingly vindictively refused to do his job and made the situation worse.
John's customer profile is that of a middle aged man, typically has $10k-$60k in the bank, but does not ever incur any fees or interest charges on any of his accounts. He has been with this bank for more than 20 years, and has never asked for a customer service credit before. He also has never escalated any calls to our department before.
Given that all of his claims were verified as accurate, what is the appropriate credit to give John?
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Spookygook
