What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?
There are a lot of ridiculous names people have been giving their customer service agents lately…
Customer success, customer happiness, support heroes (complete with capes), even ninjas.
And at some level I get it. They’re trying to make an otherwise crappy, low paying, unrewarding job seem exciting.
If they hire stupid enough people it might even work.
But let’s go back to the original, non-ridiculous term, customer service agent.
Anyone who isn’t trying to get fancy is still using that basic term.
We all use this term, but we don’t think about what it really means.
To put it simply, an agent is (or should be) someone with agency.
The ability and authority to make a decision. To take action. To fix what’s wrong and prevent it from happening again.
Maybe that’s why so many of these conventional businesses are switching to other ridiculous titles now.
Success Hero Ninja
Because real agency is the farthest thing from what these NPC’s have. They operate on scripts. Procedures manuals.Schedules and timed piss breaks.
If customer asks about X, follow procedure 12x and copy/paste template 19b
A robot could do it. And it will be doing it soon enough.
But what about real agency? What about when a thing happens that isn’t covered by the procedures?
The typical NPC breaks down. It begins reading the next closest script, which makes no sense. Or it panics and runs off to find a “manager.”
Someone with agency to make a decision, unlike the actual “agent.”
You know where I’m going with this…
It doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be that way.
The 80/20 system puts the agency back in customer service agent.
Not to be nice. Not so that people like their jobs more. But it does have those effects.
And not entirely because it results in a better customer experience. Although it does that also.
In fact, a pure 80/20 reason to empower agents to make decisions is going to sound lazy and selfish at first…
Every decision made by your agents is a decision they don’t have to bother YOU with.
You’re running a business. Developing products. Making sales.
These things take time. Time you shouldn’t waste approving a $7 refund for a middle-aged woman in Missouri who didn’t know what she was getting into.
You hire your customer service agents for a reason. They talk to your customers all day. They have the experience.
And whether you know it yet or not, they’re probably more than capable of making most of the day to day decisions themselves, without bothering you.
This can be difficult to grasp at first, but when you do, the improvements are huge.
Agency for agents is one of they key pieces of my 80/20 System. It’s what makes this stuff so powerful.
Learn more here: https://gumroad.com/l/rkbth/VIP
— Mark
