Raise your hand if you haven’t had at least one bad customer service interaction within the past year. Exactly.
By: Tanzina Vega – Boston Globe
Many of us have been there. On hold for the third or fourth time trying to fix a problem with the cable bill. Looking for a document to upload to a hospital portal before an important medical procedure. Scanning an item at self checkout when the machine stops working, forcing you to call an attendant. Begging an AI chatbot to understand why your food delivery mishap requires more than a refund. OK, that last one may have just been me, but raise your hand if you haven’t had at least one bad customer service interaction within the past year. Exactly.
Customer service across the United States has been in flux since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Forrest Morgeson, an associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University and director of research emeritus at the American Customer Satisfaction Index. After COVID, satisfaction plummeted, and has only recently begun to improve with more people going out, more places being staffed, and fewer supply chain issues. But even small gains are precarious. The slight increase in happy consumers “may have been a honeymoon effect … we don’t know yet,” Morgeson said.
