CHAPTER 52

Assure Accountability

As we learned in Chapter 16, customers fear few things in customer service more than being abandoned by an organization. It’s one of the most common and resonant of the Seven Service Triggers. Yet no matter how much you try to avoid it, you’ll have to disengage from customers on occasion. You may need to pass the issue on to another department, to research the issue further, or to elevate the issue to a supervisor or manager. In the real world, it happens.

For many customers, the moment you say you’re going to disengage from conversation is the moment their states change. The customer who is already upset that the issue is not being resolved at that moment now becomes concerned that he will be abandoned. He has ...

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