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Why customer service ratings are getting worse A new survey shows Americans are
unhappy with the service they're getting — and are not afraid to let people know
about it.
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MAIN CHARACTER OF THE DAY

The people and things making headlines - and the stories behind them


PRESS 1 FOR MORE ANGER: AMERICANS ARE FED UP WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE

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March 15, 20236:01 PM ET

Manuela López Restrepo

PRESS 1 FOR MORE ANGER: AMERICANS ARE FED UP WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE

Listen· 5:145-Minute ListenPlaylist
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This you? RichVintage/Getty Images hide caption

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RichVintage/Getty Images


This you?

RichVintage/Getty Images

A recent survey shows Americans are more unhappy with the customer service
they're getting than ever. The poor guy above has been on hold for 24 months (we
assume — it's a stock photo).

Who are they? The thousands of Americans voicing their discontent with customer
service. You can find them on basically any Yelp page out there.

 * Plenty of industries have been upended by the pandemic, and it turns out that
   customer service and hospitality at large have declined in the eyes of many
   Americans. 
   
 * 74% of Americans say they've had product or service problem in the past year,
   according to the 10th edition of the National Customer Rage Survey, which
   tracks satisfaction and incivility. The incidence of problems has more than
   doubled since 1976. 
   
 * And on the other side, consumers are described as increasingly vocal about it
   — literally. The survey found 43% of customers yelled or raised their voice
   to express displeasure about their most serious problem, up from 35% in
   2015. 
   
 * If you've spent any time on the rage-inducing side of customer freakout
   TikTok, you've probably seen enough to know things feel... off. 
   
 * The survey is conducted by Customer Care Measurement and Consultancy, in
   collaboration with the Center for Services Leadership/W.P. Carey School of
   Business at Arizona State University.
    




LIFE KIT


HOW TO TALK TO CUSTOMER SERVICE – AND ACTUALLY GET WHAT YOU WANT

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Carol Yepes/Getty Images


Turn that frown upside down.

Carol Yepes/Getty Images

What's the big deal? Well, there's a lot of unhappy people out there.

 * There are a number of reasons why customer service may feel worse, like a
   shortage in workers in some industries, the proliferation of tech as a part
   of the process, and a lack of incentive for companies without competition.
   (Have you ever tried to contact your internet provider about anything?) 
   
 * Amas Tenumah wrote a book on the subject of customer service, and he cites
   increased customer expectations not being met as the biggest part of the
   problem. 
   
 * "Today, we live in a society where the expectations are rising by the brands.
   Just think about the commercials. They promise you the world ... and then the
   objective reality hits. And you try to reach customer service. And you are
   met with a bot. You are met with wait times ... that's really where the chasm
   is. This gap between expectations and objective reality just continues to get
   wider and wider." 

What are people saying?

Tenumah is the author of Waiting for Service: An Insider's Account of Why
Customer Service is Broken and Tips to Avoid Bad Service. He's also the founder
of a management consulting firm, and spoke with NPR about what everyone seems to
be unhappy with.



On how tech's role often frustrates more than it optimizes:

> I'll tell you, Americans are incredibly gracious when they start. If it's on a
> scale of 1 to 10, most people start at nine or nine and a half.  
> 
> But then you start this interaction and you're met with an automated system —
> press one, press two — or a machine you're trying to communicate with. They
> can't understand you, or you're met with a chatbot on the website, and then
> you get past that and then you give them your information.  
> 
> And then you finally get to a human, and the human asks you to repeat your
> information. Now, your grace started at nine. At this point you were like a
> four, and then, God forbid, they transfer you.  
> 
> By the time you are transferred, after dealing with the machine, repeating
> your information, you are at zero and lots of people are in the negative. This
> is now where the abuse and the rage really intensifies on the part of the
> customer.

On how worker empowerment makes a better experience for everyone:

> It's still a human to human business. And so what I tell clients is first and
> foremost, your first customers are your service employees.  
> 
> Making sure they have the right tools, they are compensated appropriately, and
> your policies and procedures do not put them in the middle of you and the
> customer.  
> 
> So this is why I encourage these organizations to empower that professional.
> You've trained them. You've invested in them, so that when the customer makes
> a reasonable request, they can just fulfill it and they can be a hero. And the
> customer doesn't have to ask for a manager and escalate in the calls and the
> emails get transferred in power.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Want to hear more from Tenumah? Listen to the NPR interview by clicking or
tapping the play button at the top.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



So, what now?

 * Despite the increase in AI chatbots and automated customer service systems,
   Tenumah says customer service is a business that is extremely difficult to
   calculate with a formula or algorithm. Improving that system starts with
   valuing workers.
   
 * "I usually say customer service is harder than rocket science. And the reason
   it's harder is while there are formulas they can calculate [to] put a rocket
   on the moon, there is no formula for putting two strangers on the same phone
   call to resolve an issue."  
   
 * Tenumah says we need to change the social contract and not think of these
   employees as "low skill workers." "These are complicated requests, because if
   they were easy, a bot or a machine could do it. And the quicker we evolve as
   an industry, the better off we will be," he said. 

Read more:

 * There were 100 recalls of children's products last year — the most since
   2013   
   
 * The unexpected American shopping spree seems to have cooled 
   
 * Credit Card Nation: How we went from record savings to record debt in just
   two years 

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