{"id":25669,"date":"2021-05-26T08:56:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T06:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/?p=25669"},"modified":"2024-03-21T11:13:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T10:13:40","slug":"do-your-customers-abuse-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/en\/customer-service-3\/do-your-customers-abuse-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Do your customers abuse support?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than one manager have told me\u00a0<em>&#8216;I think that we&#8217;re giving away too much to some customers who don&#8217;t deserve it.&#8217;<\/em> You may think that that&#8217;s a negative approach, but sometimes it&#8217;s just the result of multiple agents feedbacks. They&#8217;ve felt frustrated because they&#8217;ve realized that some customers abuse support. As this is a thorn in many organizations&#8217; side, let&#8217;s see what it exactly means and what you can do to prevent it.<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The &#8216;all you can eat&#8217; bad habit<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>When you purchase a service you want to know what&#8217;s included in the price you pay. That&#8217;s normal. While most people though just want to be aware, a small number of customers may act as in an all you can eat restaurant:<em> &#8216;since everything is included I can abuse it.&#8217;<\/em>\u00a0Want examples? Think about customers who:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Get in touch with your support team <strong>(too) many times<\/strong> even though they have no specific needs to do so.<\/li>\n<li>Keep asking for support even <strong>upon<\/strong>\u00a0getting the information they were looking for.<\/li>\n<li>Read your marketing email with latest offers, then they start stalking you trying to snatch an<strong> extra discount.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Leverage an issue they&#8217;ve had to obtain <strong>what they are not entitled <\/strong>\u00a0(e.g. upgrading at the same price \/ getting refund when it&#8217;s not due).<\/li>\n<li>Constantly <strong>threaten to switch<\/strong> to competitors regardless their customer experiences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All of the above toxic approaches affect your front line staff productivity, their morale and most of all, also your business goals.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Related: 3 frequent personalities brands adopt when it comes to <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/en\/digital-customer-service\/3-frequent-approaches-to-digital-support\/\">digital support<\/a><\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2><strong>How to prevent it<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As I still see many organizations underrating risks and consequences of tolerating such bad habits, let me be outspoken. If you don&#8217;t measure <em>how often<\/em>\u00a0your customers abuse support, you&#8217;re not aware of the <em>extra costs<\/em> that weigh down your overall results &#8211; as part of your budget is absorbed by all you can eat customers! That&#8217;s why I suggest you to <strong>use this check-list<\/strong>\u00a0to detect cases, numbers and consequences in a timely fashion.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-25697\" src=\"https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Check-list-231x300.png\" alt=\"Check-list\" width=\"173\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Check-list-200x260.png 200w, https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Check-list-231x300.png 231w, https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Check-list.png 395w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 173px) 100vw, 173px\" \/><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>First off, define those cases that you consider unacceptable. Get inspired by the above provided examples and integrate where necessary.<\/li>\n<li>Track and measure: how many cases? How often do they occur?<\/li>\n<li>How much time of your support agents&#8217; is being absorbed due to these customers&#8217; abuses? .<\/li>\n<li>Then analyze results. What are the concrete consequences of such abuse? How much money are you spending? How could your customer service team better se that wasted time?<\/li>\n<li>Last but now least, what goals extra results with same efforts you may achieve just by stopping such bad dynamics?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2><strong>Let&#8217;s share our experiences<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Be fully aware of risks and opportunities to successfully drive your business through these digital, ever changing times. As you are a customer service manager and I work with various organizations and industries feel free to book to<strong> share our mutual experiences<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/en\/a-conversation-with-paolo-fabrizio\/\">Let&#8217;s get this 1-to-1 informal conversation started<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Have great conversations.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\"><em>Image credit: Unsplash.com<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than one manager have told me\u00a0&#8216;I think that we&#8217;re giving away too much to some customers who don&#8217;t deserve it.&#8217; You may think that that&#8217;s a negative approach, but sometimes it&#8217;s just the result of multiple agents feedbacks. They&#8217;ve felt frustrated because they&#8217;ve realized that some customers abuse support. As this is a thorn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[805],"tags":[635,766],"class_list":["post-25669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer-service-3","tag-check-list","tag-customers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Do your customers abuse support? - Customer Service Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Like it or not, a limited number of customers may act as having dinner in all you can eat restaurant: they abuse support just because everything&#039;s included.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/customerserviceculture.com\/en\/customer-service-3\/do-your-customers-abuse-support\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do your customers abuse support? 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