A recent incident raised again the issue of supporting the people who speak directly to people. The systems that support them are exceptionally important, but all too often are difficult to handle. Here is the incident as it happened:

I walked into a facility locally to pay a bill. Went to the customer service desk where I had been directed and a charming person got my information efficiently and started to enter it into her computer. All well and good so far EXCEPT that a mistake was made … a minor one … she got one of the numbers on the payment mixed up. Now comes the fun part. Can she just undo the error and make the correction? No. Can she just undo and redo the transaction? Maybe. Was there a simple way for her to handle it? No she had to get help. Suddenly, a 2-3 minute transaction is taking MUCH longer.

Not typical you think? That’s where the problem REALLY comes in. I’ve been with this organization for years and this sort of problem has happened over and over again. Not just with me, but with other people when I’ve been standing nearby waiting to be serviced.

The problem comes down to a user interface that may be beautifully conceived and designed, but is confusing enough that people make mistakes and then need help to correct them. I’ve run into this over and over again in working with systems both online on the web and offline in customer support systems. It’s not just the interface to the system which is usually at fault, there are in fact fundamental blind spots where the system overlooks the people who will actually be using it and doesn’t provide for them to correct mistakes. Transactions that get committed too quickly, complex ways to deal with common problems, easy normal procedures backed up by obscure recovery procedures. The list could go on and on.

Too little attention is STILL being paid to making systems useful. Too much attention is being paid to coming up with new interfaces that wind up confusing people rather than helping them.

Categories: Customer Service