Most customer service organizations have successfully built layer upon layer of supervisors and managers to handle customer service exceptions. For the most part, barring extreme exceptions, they are ready to handle problems and reach resolutions. However, once in a while, a problem is so extreme, has such dire consequences to the customer or has caused irreparable damage. The answer to these problems (which are less than 0.5 percent of interactions) is what sets world-class customer service organizations apart from common customer service organizations.

Traditional customer service organizations escalate problems up to supervisors, usually through two to three layers of supervisors, until the customer gives up or customer service is no longer empowered to help. These organizations expect the customer to eventually give up and move on (that is, put up with the problem or go to the competition). Yet, some customers just won't go away. They demand that the company take corrective action beyond what the supervisors and, potentially, even a manager can approve — they demand to get to the president or CEO of the company.

At this point, ordinary customer service organizations will tell the customer the address where they can write to the office of the CEO to complain — again, hoping the customer just moves on. In rare cases, where the customer writes a letter, a form letter is usually sent back with explanations as to why the customer's demands are not possible. A few world-class customer service organizations do allow customers to reach the executive level (either a chief corporate officer or another executive), so they can hear first hand, from the customer, what happened. These executives can also help customers and bring relief to a complex situation. Their most-important contribution is the ability to regain the customer — if he or she ended up satisfied (which usually happens 95 percent of the time) — and to create a hard loyalty base by letting customers know that the executive team in the organization is not only aware of problems, but also working hard to resolve them. The simple act of talking to a customer on the phone has the capability to defuse the worse situations — and convert almost-gone customers to loyal ones.

Is your CEO ready to talk? Let me know how you handle those top-level escalations.

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At Dovetail Software, our support policy is that customers are allowed to escalate to our CEO. See http://blogs.dovetailsoftwa... for details.

Great article.

My suggestion, have the staffed equipped and properly train to avoid these situations altogether.

Suggested Training Topics:
*Organization and Efficiency
*Problem Solving
*Communications (Customer Service, Attitude, Trigger Words, etc..)
*Balance the needs of the business and the client to find a solution.

If you can not provide this training, I suggest outsourcing a trainer. One I highly recommend ANROMA Consulting Group, based in the U.S.

Best of Luck,
Margaret Hernandez