The power of the call centre

Mr. Alan Millin.

Alan Millin explains how call centres can alienate your customers from getting the good service you promise them.

You wake up one morning to find that your apartment is rather warm. The fan coil units are blowing air but there’s no cooling. It’s a problem you’ve faced before and the last time it happened, the problem related to the chilled water pump operation.

You take a quick tour of the building and confirm that there is cooling in certain parts of the building, but not yours. You’ve paid your service charges so you call the FM help desk, which we will refer to as a call centre as you are certainly not going to get any help…

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Ring, ring… “Good Morning, Elm Street FM, Freddy speaking, how may I help you?”
“I have a problem with my air conditioning, there is no chilled water.”
“I’m sorry sir, we don’t do apartments.”

Notice the immediate sidestep of any potential responsibility here. Freddy didn’t even try to find out what the problem is. You try to explain.

“The problem is not in my apartment, it’s on the building chilled water side.”
“Oh you will need to call the district cooling company then. They’re responsible for chilled water.”

You explain that it is not the district cooling company that is needed; the problem is on the building side of the chilled water system.

Freddy: “And how do you know that? What do you know about air conditioning?” (Yes, this actually happened).

With a lifetime of HVAC knowledge at your fingertips you are now ready to take the gloves off and let Freddy have it full force. But, still you don’t get anywhere. Freddy asserts that as the building is out of its Defect Liability Period (DLP), Elm Street FM has no responsibility. After three days of battling with Freddy and demanding that he escalate the issue, you still have
no air conditioning.

In desperation you start calling round to find the name of someone higher up the food chain within Elm Street FM who you can speak to.

Finally you get the name and contact number and make the call. Your air conditioning is back on within the hour. Two hours after that your new contact calls you back to ask if everything is okay. Amazing, this is a whole new level of service from Elm Street FM.

A week goes by and you get up one morning to go to work. You go to take a shower and find that there is no water pressure. You’ve faced this situation before too; it’s the booster pumps that have failed, yet again. You place the dreaded call to Elm Street FM.

“Good morning, Elm Street FM, Freddy speaking, how may I help you?”
“I have absolutely no water pressure in my apartment.”
“Sorry sir, we don’t do apartments, we only do common areas.”
“The problem is not in my apartment, it’s in the pump room.”
“How do you know that sir, are you a plumber?”
Notice again how Freddy immediately sidesteps Elm Street’s responsibility and tries to fob you off.

You haven’t had your corn flakes or coffee yet, you are tired, unwashed and grumpy. You let Freddy have it yet again.

A couple of hours later there is still no water pressure so you call again and torment Freddy’s pals and resolve to do so until you get the water pressure back.

Finally the water pressure returns.

Sounds funny doesn’t it? Yet this is what I faced recently and I’m sure that others who live in the same development fact the same problem. But why should things be like this?

Remember the guy that came to my rescue and restored my air conditioning immediately that he knew there was a problem? He is Elm Street FM’s ambassador, the company’s future. The technical and customer service he provided was excellent. But, the call centre agents are preventing him from doing his job by their immediate alienation of Elm Street’s customers and refusal to process required work.

So here’s the question for you.

Are you sure that you know how your help desk / call centre agents really treat your customers?

If you are not, you have a serious problem waiting to bite your rear end.

Alan Millin is an independent consultant, coach and trainer, based in Dubai. He has over 35 years’ experience in the HVAC industry, and has led the consultancy mission of two major Dubai FM companies. He can be contacted at: akmillin@hvacandr.com