Unclear communication results in a bad customer experience When a customer contacts a service representative, they expect to have their issues solved efficiently. This does not happen for many customers, however, as a new study has found. The majority of consumers cite unclear communication as the main reason why they have bad customer service experiences. According to a survey from consulting group Tolero Solutions, 53 percent of respondents said that they regularly had a hard time understanding and being understood by a customer service representative. In a follow-up report to the survey on Business 2 Community, Scott Span, Tolero’s CEO, said that companies need to do the following to improve customer service problems: Follow-up quickly – Some customers have immediate needs that need to be responded to quickly. Call center agents should be trained to know the correct point of contact for specific issues and to reroute a client to them as soon as possible. Know your core competencies – “We don’t all have all the answers all the time,” Span wrote. “Don’t claim to either. Don’t promise things you can’t deliver. If you make a mistake, take accountability – own your mistakes and make good on resolving them. Don’t try and shift blame. Make sure someone is accountable to the customer. Make sure those people are trained on what processes to follow to resolve such customer service related issues.” Listen – Experienced call center agents have heard many similar questions and concerns from customers. This doesn’t mean, however, that each caller has an identical set of needs. Service representatives need to take the time to listen. The process to help a person may vary from customer to customer. Businesses that outsource some or all of their customer service program to an experienced inbound call center can more effectively meet the needs of their customer base by having multiple sets of customer experience data to compare and act upon.