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3 Internal Disconnects That Lead to
Employee Frustration and Customer Angst
by Adele Sommers
Have you ever noticed how our public faces often reflect our private ones -- and how difficult it is to hide our challenging issues under the rug? It's probably no surprise, then, that customers also can be quite sensitive to disconnects within an organization that personnel may be experiencing.
After all, employees (and any consultants and contractors) in your organization must work together through a variety of essential hand-offs and interrelationships.
 When these interactions leave something to be desired -- when they aren't smoothly and seamlessly interwoven -- customers and prospects can easily notice the effects at every juncture, such as during marketing and support calls, service visits, and even in voicemail, e-mail, and Web contact systems.
This article suggests three places to look for less-than-perfect hand-offs that can cause high employee anxiety and customer concerns, distress, or a lack of interest in doing business with you. Eliminating disconnects through creating or strengthening internal systems increases personnel competence and morale, as well as bolsters consumer confidence and desire to work with your organization.
Disconnect #1: Weak or Missing Capture Point for Prospect Inquiries
The prospect your account representative has wooed for a year finally makes the momentous decision to sign up for your company's services. It occurs during a long, frustrating weekend of working on a project where having your services would have been ideal. Making the move on a Sunday evening while his emotions are still fresh, he calls and gets your company's voicemail.
After listening to all of the options, he tries to remember the name of the person who's contacted him faithfully month after month. The voicemail directory lists the names, but none rings a bell. So, he decides to pursue his only other option -- the general voice mailbox. After leaving his message, he hangs up and assumes he'll hear back the next day.
 What happens? No one returns the call. The weak point is that the general voice mailbox has no "owner" -- no one checks it regularly or promptly acknowledges that the message was received and has been forwarded to the right person. After waiting a few days, the prospect assumes your company isn't interested in his business, and signs up with a competing service.
Alas, when your representative makes her next scheduled call to that prospect, she learns he's already selected another option -- all because of a hole in the system for intercepting messages that's beyond her control! The episode spikes her frustration about losing yet another sale due to a poorly defined internal protocol.
Instead of voicemail, the prospect alternatively could have used your company's general-delivery e-mail address or a Web contact form. When prospects contact you during off-hours, you don't want to leave a hole in your net that encourages them to swim away. On the next business day, any replies (or lack thereof) may be the first and most memorable experiences your prospects have with your business. So you'll want to work diligently to "wow" them with the exceptional responses they'll receive under these circumstances.
Disconnect #2: Inconsistent Team Interactions
These disconnects occur in many different ways, for example:
- A hot prospect expresses interest in having an account representative present a quote for a copier. A significant delay occurs because of non-systematic hand-offs among the team members. At this point, it's not clear who "owns" the prospect.
 The team member who made the initial contact completed his end of the bargain, but there's no procedure to track whether another team member is following up. Later, he might learn that no one did, which robs him of his share of a potential commission and equally frustrates the prospect, who expected prompt action.
- A new customer is finally on board after having built a solid relationship with the new accounts team. Her next interactions are with the technicians who install the copier equipment. The technicians are perpetually late and disorganized because there's no system for prioritizing their appointments. The customer quickly senses this and wonders if she's made a mistake by choosing your company.
Disconnect #3: Weak Method for Handling Customer Concerns
A customer who's been with your company for a while with no complaints finally has a reason to contact customer service because of what appears to be a billing mistake. She assumes the problem will be promptly corrected and she'll go on her way.
Instead, the customer service rep recites a convoluted procedure she'll need to go through to rectify the issue, to the customer's astonishment. The representative explains by saying, "I'm sorry but that's our policy and we have to follow it." The customer tries to offer other suggestions, but is rebuffed by the equally frustrated employee who seems unreceptive to her proposals.
The customer thinks, "Why aren't they open to my ideas? Don't they believe my opinions are valuable? My complaint is valid, my suggestions are good, and if they don't want to listen to them, I'll take my business elsewhere!"
 Finally, at her wit's end, the customer asks to speak to a supervisor. The representative resists the request and even argues against it. When the customer threatens to end her relationship with the company, the representative reluctantly summons her manager. What's gone wrong in this situation?
Let's face it -- holes in our procedures can surface every day. In those situations, what our policies allow personnel to do can make the difference between keeping and losing a customer.
Those things include: 1) sympathizing with customer concerns and apologizing for inconveniences, 2) actively recording concerns for ongoing system improvements, and 3) making complaint escalation quick and painless.
In conclusion, we can minimize employee and customer frustration by continually fine-tuning procedures and hand-offs within the organization. By making it easy to conduct business with us, we'll dramatically increase morale, customer loyalty, and profitability.
Copyright 2006 Adele Sommers
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Today's issue is about reflections -- how our internal and external business lives can mirror one another. 
I'll bet you have at least a few stellar performers in your organization who don't cease to amaze your management, colleagues, and customers. (Or, maybe that performer is you, wearing every hat in your solo enterprise!) 
