Last week I fell prey to a scammer and my card was fraudulently used to purchase a Netflix subscription. I heard the ‘ping’ on my phone from an SMS message and abstractly looked down. The moment I saw the message from my bank that my card had been used, my heart went into overdrive because of course, I hadn’t purchased anything.

Fortified with all the bank warnings, I immediately contacted the call centre. My first attempt resulted in a dropped call, the second was fruitful. The very pleasant young man took my information and suggested I also contact Netflix.

While my Bank Agent went through all the necessary steps, I decided to connect on-line with Netflix using their live chat feature. Within 5 minutes Netflix had resolved the issue from their end – the fraudulent account was cancelled, my card blocked and a refund put in motion. The offer of an emailed transcript of the interaction was received within a minute of completing the call. I was completely in awe! All this happened while I was still holding to complete the complaint transaction with my Bank Agent. Yes, it did eventually end well and my card was restricted – thank you – but that was followed by a trip into the branch office and a painful wait of 2 hours to get my new debit card! Sigh! While some aspects of customer service have improved, we still have a long way to go to compete at the international level.

Recent studies show the importance that customers place on their time and therefore the clear correlation between long waiting times and customer satisfaction.

73 percent of customers want their time to be valued. According to Forrester, the most important factor for customers feeling satisfied with their service is feeling that their time is valued. Being stuck on hold, waiting forever for a response, and getting dismissed would run counter to this need.

33 percent of customers cite their biggest frustration as waiting on hold. According to Hubspot research, one of the biggest concerns for customers is having to wait on hold to get a representative.

90% percent of customers rate an “immediate” response as “important” or “very important” when they have a customer service question. 60% of customers define “immediate” as ten minutes or less. [Source: HubSpot Research]

Tackling these issues effectively is not only about recruiting the right talent and training them although, of course, these are critical. It’s also about the internal systems and procedures that often slow down the process of service delivery. It’s about actually demonstrating the too often seen ‘hanging on the wall’ company values, of, for example,  ‘delighting our customers’.

I leave you with two questions: (1) when last did you amaze your customers with the speed of their complaint resolution? And (2) if you can’t remember when, what are you doing to ensure that you do?