Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Blur
In order to respond to the first part of your post, I have to point out that every company that has a script requires you to follow it in order to make sure that people are doing their jobs. If there is no measure of quality control that can be quickly put on paper, then there is no way to effectively make sure that the pawns at the bottom are doing their jobs well. Without a script, there is no way to rate agents. Without rating agents, you end up with really bad customer disservice. You might think that customer service sucks now. Imagine customer service agents who cuss back. There are some very angry people doing that job, and you really don't what to hear their opinion of their callers after 8 hours of abuse.
The second part of your post makes perfect sense. I wasn't trying to say how it should be in my first post. That's how it is. Someday, it might change based on the company and their clientele, but customer service is a messy chain of command. Allow me to attempt to draw it in the forum.
On top, there is the upper hierarchy of management of any given company. They set priorities, design products, and make things happen.
Beneath that, there are division heads. These are all parallel, so they don't interact much. Here is where the problem lies. Customer service is separate from any particular portion of the company. Even if Chevrolet had its own customer service line, the guy who oversaw your car being built does not work for customer service. He works for the plant. The agent that takes your call can't transfer you to talk to this guy because the agent doesn't have your number and the guy at the plant is paid to oversee the plant, not talk to you. Different responsibilities are organized into these divisions, so the guy at the plant and the agent receiving your call will never be working together.
At the bottom are the workers. These guys work in teams and cooperate among one division. They don't communicate with other divisions at all.
As you can see, there is no way to organize the structure in order to make the process more efficient. The best way for efficient business is for everyone to do the job they were hired to do. If they talk to you when they should be making cars, the process goes slower. Instead of waiting 3 months for you Camaro, you'd wait a year. It would suck, you'd buy Japanese, and all we'd have for manufacturing in American is Boeing. We don't want that.
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Well again, let me say that I've worked customer service. I actually got promoted through the ranks of customer service a long time ago up to management. I know all about how you evaluate customer service, and on call time, and scripts, etc. All calls are recorded and timed. You start your script but if the customer shuts you down, then so be it.
I STRONGLY disagree with your last paragraph. There are lots of ways to organize for better information to customers, including realtime.
A possible scenario: every vehicle gets an RFID tag at the moment the vin is assigned. Every step in the process has an automated RFID reader that records it. If a vehicle is pulled off the line for QC, it's RFID is tagged QC and what the issue is and where it's located. The RFID tag can be monitored anywhere on premises so if it's moved it can be located again. It also logs when it's put on a truck and which truck it's on. Similar to the information available now but more detailed and real-time.
With today's technology you can enhance that so the computer system takes a snapshot at each RFID station. People get to watch their car in process.
When you have a preorder vin, you can track it anywhere in this process. This isn't even new technology or horribly expensive. This would mean that you'd have fewer calls to customer service because it's more detailed then the current system and available online. Calls that get through to customer service can point people to the tracking site. It would basically leave you with only cars that get pulled for QC as being difficult to handle. If you put in QC codes for cars that get pulled, customers would even know why-eliminating that first worried call.
You then hire a couple people at the plant to take these higher level questions. They know right where a car is so they can go to that car and ask the tech working on it what's wrong. They then respond to the customer service call with minimal interruption.
But once a car gets pulled now, it seems to sit there for months with no positive interaction with the customer. The car gets "black holed". That's not acceptable anywhere.
edit:
"Beneath that, there are division heads. These are all parallel, so they don't interact much. Here is where the problem lies. Customer service is separate from any particular portion of the company. Even if Chevrolet had its own customer service line, the guy who oversaw your car being built does not work for customer service. He works for the plant. The agent that takes your call can't transfer you to talk to this guy because the agent doesn't have your number and the guy at the plant is paid to oversee the plant, not talk to you. Different responsibilities are organized into these divisions, so the guy at the plant and the agent receiving your call will never be working together".
and
"As you can see, there is no way to organize the structure in order to make the process more efficient."
Are mutually exclusive. You are saying things are poorly organized and the vertical organizations can't work together. Yet they can't be organized better. Companies are developing better ways of organizing every single day and I guarantee there are systems out there that can make GM better at CS without hurting manufacturing. And EVERYONE works in customer service, nothing will make the fragile rebirth of GM fall apart faster then some wanker thinking customer service is someone else's job.