Untying Their Hands: Free Up Your CSRs to Solve Subscribers' Problems

Published September 13, 2006 by the Newspaper Association of America
By Bob Davis, president of Robert C. Davis and Associates

Recently a circulation director asked me how to get CSRs to apply more common sense to solve problems on calls. My answer is that CSRs by and large have plenty of common sense. They simply need more room to apply it.

Over the years I have found three reasons that CSRs are not able to provide what seems to be an easy, logical solution to a problem. First, they've been disempowered. Second, they are just the messengers. Third, the call center has a staffing and overflow capacity problem. Let's go through these issues one by one.

Disempowerment

The first reason is that CSRs are disempowered because they do not have enough authority to solve problems that they are capable of handling.

For example, let's say a CSR at a major daily newspaper has the authority to give only three days' credit. Yet many problems require more than three days' credit. Let's say a one-week vacation stop is not entered properly and the papers get delivered anyway. Perhaps someone with an ongoing delivery problem has missed a total of more than three days. Maybe a new start doesn't begin until a week after it is supposed to. The list of potential problems goes on and on.

In this situation, if more than three days' credit is required, CSRs would likely put in a remedy report that goes to an accounting clerk who decides whether or not more credit is warranted. The CSR never hears another thing about it. Why would a clerk in accounting be more qualified to apply credit than the person who has talked to the customer directly?

Additionally, I have seen CSRs with no authority to correct billing problems. Let's say a customer calls and wants to extend the promotion. Or perhaps the bill the customer received does not correspond to the promotion they thought they were getting. The CSR's only course of action in these scenarios is to print the screen and give it to the supervisor. Not only is the CSR disempowered, but this policy creates unnecessary work for the supervisors. CSRs are capable of fixing these kinds of issues themselves-they need only the authority.

Finally, when the situation calls for it, CSRs should be able get off the phones to fix problems and then call customers back. For example, if the customer threatens to quit unless delivery improves, the CSR should get the customer's contact information, call the carrier to clear up the problem, and then call the customer back to report what has been done. Taking the time to do this will not only please the customer, it will make the CSR and the carrier feel better about their jobs!

Just the Messenger

Often I hear exchanges between CSRs and customers that could be handled much more effectively if the CSR was more than just the messenger:

Customer: "This is the third incorrect bill I have received!"
CSR: "I will be sure to tell my supervisor."

Customer: "If you can't deliver my paper every day, than just cancel it."
CSR: "I will send another note to the zone manager."

Customer: "You said you would redeliver my paper over an hour ago. Where is it?"
CSR: "I will send another note to the carrier."

It would be much more powerful for the CSR to say, "Mr. Jones, do you have a pen and paper handy? Please write this down. My name is Susan and my extension is 8431. I am going to fix your problem myself. And if you ever have any other problems with the paper, I want you to call me personally so I can take care of it for you!"

Staffing and Overflow

Call centers often receives several calls to fix one problem for a subscriber because the issue doesn't get handled with the first call. Constant pressure of the next call coming in is leading the CSR to think, "I don't have time to fix this problem with all these calls coming in. I will file the report, hope for the best, and take the next call." Clearly, this problem indicates the need to examine staffing and include automatic overflow capacity for unexpected spikes in call volume. This way, CSRs will be able to take the time required to fix each problem once and for all on the first call.

In my experience, CSRs have as much common sense as anyone I know. They are tremendous asset for a newspaper company and can be of even greater value if you take the right steps. Empower them to do what it takes to satisfy the customer. Let them complete the feedback loop so they're more than just the messenger and know whether or not a problem has been solved satisfactorily. And last but certainly not least, allow them enough time to fix it right the first time.