2024-03-05 2238  -  Customer Service Stooges


My friend Grok is the employee in this story.
Grok's manager sides with the customer.
The manager grants the customer an exception and gives the customer a lower price, against policy, just because the customer is complaining.

Grok the employee has worked at 5 companies in 20 years, and so recognizes this pattern.
The pattern in hindsight reveals something that is a sore point for Grok.

Many american businesses, in a way value their customers over their employees.
And businesses don't train their employees enough to empower lower level employees enough to be able to make customer service exceptions.

And so it's so frustrating for Grok.

How to move forward?

* Dreamy idealistic music starts *

As a low level employee in a company.
Grok shouldn't ever find Grok's self in this position.
Grok should be empowered, from week one, to make Grok's own decisions what is 
1.) Best for the customer 
2.) best for Grok  
3.) best for Grok's immediate colleagues 
4.) best for Grok's company as a whole. 

And Grok should use common sense combined with reality combined with Grok's personal principles and also Grok's company's business principles too, and, Grok should be able to make the right decision every time.

And then Grok's manager, and the manager's boss, and all the way up to the CEO/Owner of Grok's company, all should FIRST STAND BEHIND GROK their employee and then SECOND STAND BEHIND THE CUSTOMER.
This is the proper order of things. Always stand behind one's employee first then put the customer second.

* Dreamy idealistic music ends *



* Angry rant music starts *

Put otherwise, Grok HATES it and Grok becomes SICK AND TIRED of Grok reacting a certain way to customers because it is natural/realistic, and more importantly HOW GROK WAS TRAINED TO RESPOND, then only to find that the customer then goes over Grok's head to Grok's manager/boss/owner and then the result is finally that Grok's manager/boss/owner sides with the customer and not with Grok.

* Angry rant music ends *



* Calm music plays and we come back to reality and get ready for a moral of the story *

In other words, the front line customer service support folks constantly are the 'stooge' or the 'fall guy' for the sales/management/owners of a company.
And you know what, after many years, and many companies, Grok deduces that, this pattern is by design. 
The insidious thing though, is front line employees only ever learn and are taught how to act this way, not why to act this way.
The 'why' is never spoken, the 'why' is never written. 
Because if it were then it would be obviously unethical.
And so at some level between the executives and the front line. 
At some level.
There is a disconnect.
The motives of the customer service practices are disconnected from the actions of the customer service practices.
And the transparency disappears.

* Calm music ends and the objective moral of the story ends*



*Rant music starts up again *

So many American companies, maybe even 90% by some estimates, use a 'customer service' paradigm, which is 90% of the time LEVERAGING also could be called BAIT AND SWITCH.
In other words market and sell a load of promises to the customer. 
Then have a barrier line of 'customer service' STOOGES to minimize the probablility of needing to fulfill those promises.
But then finally behind the front line of "customer service STOOGES" have a line of middle managers who are instructed to throw their front line stooges under the bus at a moment's notice to grant customer service exceptions as needed.
My friend Grok has literally lived this 1000's of times at AT LEAST 5 DIFFERENT COMPANIES.
It makes my friend Grok sick, Grok WANTS TO BARF.
Grok told me all this, so this is 'based on a true story'.

* Rant reaches a climax here, drums and bass riffs abundant. *



* Rant music continues *

My friend Grok can't sleep at night, how many years of Grok's life Grok wasted trying to fulfill customer service standards only to have Grok's customer service manager THROW GROK UNDER THE BUS dozens and dozens and dozens of times over the years at different companies.
And so but you know what?


* Rant music fades out once again, reality sets in again.*
* Dream sequence music starts but still mixed with a semi-ranting tone *


You know what?

SHAME ON GROK.

I tell my friend Grok at this point, shame on you, Grok.

I tell Grok it is Grok's job to stop doing a LEVERAGED CUSTOMER SERVICE ROLE. any more.
Not only that. 
Beyond that. 
Grok needs to pay attention, and Grok needs to look and see how Grok's next company does customer service interations.
And if it is siloed and leveraged in to a separtate team of support stooges like this, like it is in 90% of American companies, then, my friend Grok needs to STAY AWAY FROM EMPLOYMENT or partnership or ownership with that company.


* Dream sequence fades and turns more philosophical *


*** end story of Grok, start musings of Morgan ***


This above fictional (but based on a real story) story is an extreme view.
You dear reader may have noticed this turned into a rant.
welp.
I guess my friend Grok still has some demons about this.
Looks like Grok needs to work some things out.
Grok's not wrong.
So then but how to proceed?

One way how to proceed is, in past blog or in past blog draft, I posed a solution or solutions like the following:

- Sales organization in a company/team is ALSO RESPONSIBLE for ALL SUPPORT INCLUDING POST SALES SUPPORT too. 

- All employees in a company/team get paid pretty much the same inside the company. So lowest janitor and lowest support person, still get paid nearly the same as the (corporate + sales + executives + owners) of a company. This would really flatten things out and make folks have skin in the game AT ALL LEVELS and force collaboration at all level in a company.


In conclusion, this has been a story of my friend Grok living through leveraged customer service paradigm where stooges are the fall person for a company, followed by some philosophizing and musing on how to do better.




See also:
Previously Unpublished Rant from a Few Years Ago on Support Not Being a Thing













By author Morgan Jassen on lemonmama.com/lemonmama



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