On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score • Hacker News Board

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#101

Post by function_seven » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

swarnie_ wrote: post #18

soneil wrote: post #13

How's this a secret? I used to work in retail/service. Not something with data and metrics, just a mom'n'pop. But we knew our customers. We especially knew our regulars. And you did try not to piss off a regular. But from this I learnt that people will try to play their 'value' as a trump card when they want to complain. Do you know who I am, do you know how much I spend here, I come here every day, blah blah blah. T…

I get what you're saying but this seems to miss the point of the article. In your service job did you serve each customer in the approximate order they arrived? I'm almost certain you would have to the best of your ability. The article points to a system which all seem to think is first come first serve but actually inst.

Several years ago I used to frequent a sandwich shop about twice a week for lunch. It was literally a mom 'n' pop. The wife worked the counter and dining area, the husband made the sandwiches.

After a few months (and me ordering the same damn thing every time) it got to the point that I'd walk in and—if there was a long line—one of the owners would just point me to an empty booth. It was awesome.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#102

Post by mehrdadn » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

newnewpdro wrote: post #95

mehrdadn wrote: post #91

> Zeta Global, whose clients include wireless carriers, generates scores using data points such as the number of times a customer has dialed a call center and whether that person has browsed a competitor’s website or searched certain keywords in the past few days. Wait, so this means I dial a number and they link my identity to my browser to tell whether I've browsed a competitor's website in the past few days? Is th…

Did you think they weren't going to leverage your phone number in other ways when you furnished it for "improved security"?

No, but that doesn't imply they've also pulled off the above.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#103

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #88

kenneth wrote: post #57

The most obvious example of this in daily life is through airlines, where the difference is pretty transparent and you get night-and-day better service by being a loyal customer. With top status with AA and UA (EXP and 1K), you connected to U.S.-based very senior phone agents right away, who always make sure to take care of any issue that arises. 50min delay on your AA flight? No problem, sir, we are rebooking you on…

> The cheap seats have very low margins, oftentimes negative… so it just infeasible economically to give everyone good service. An empty seat costs the airline more than a paid ticket. They can’t exactly fly just 189/233rds of the plane.

An empty seat costs the airline more than a paid ticket.

As stated, you seem to be implying that selling a ticket for 1 cent is better than flying an empty seat. But that's not guaranteed to be true. If they put someone in that seat at a ticket cost of 1 cent, does it cost more than 1 extra cent in fuel to move the now-increased weight of the aircraft? If there's a free soda or something offered, does the extra one they serve cost more than 1 cent? Does the extra time it takes to board that passenger cost more than 1 cent? Does the sum of all of those things cost more than 1 cent?

There absolutely are circumstances in which flying the empty seat is better than selling that seat at the price the market would have borne. And we know this, because we know that airlines routinely fly planes that aren't full, instead of going to extreme lengths to auction off ever-cheaper tickets in hopes of getting someone in every seat on every flight.

(and that's without getting into the fact that not all seats, tickets, aircraft and routes are equal in terms of what they cost to operate and how much money they can make, and all the other things that go into the arcane art of airline yield management)

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#104

Post by wpietri » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:14 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #56

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpreted the parent comment differently. Basically, I think they are agreeing with you, that fairness shouldn't necessarily factor into a (private) business transaction. However, many people do feel that their should be some notion of fairness factored into what have been historically governmental responsibilities (e.g managing roads, prisons, etc.) and that the push to privatize many of these functions is dange…

OK, but I don't know that the comments on an article talking about using LTV to manage help desk call volume is a relevant place to discuss public v. private responsibilities. It seems unrelated. "Some companies use LTV to determine how long you wait on hold." "This is why we shouldn't have private prison."

It seems relevant to me.

When we look at topics like transport, education, and communications, we're in an era where those things are tilting private, often due to companies discussed here and that employ people who participate on HN.

As an example, the US Postal Service, which has a universal service obligation, has made a huge difference in how the country developed. Everybody was in an important sense equal. The Internet started out with that spirit, but its implementation on mostly for-profit infrastructure means that isn't guaranteed. With the loss of net neutrality, we've taken a further step away from fair infrastructure. Is that a good idea? This article is an example of why it might not be: because companies tend to optimize for short-term revenue gains and to wildly favor rich people.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#105

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:15 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #96

kenneth wrote: post #57

The most obvious example of this in daily life is through airlines, where the difference is pretty transparent and you get night-and-day better service by being a loyal customer. With top status with AA and UA (EXP and 1K), you connected to U.S.-based very senior phone agents right away, who always make sure to take care of any issue that arises. 50min delay on your AA flight? No problem, sir, we are rebooking you on…

Tangent: Are there other people here who just refuse to sign up for any of these programs? I have family members who are super into frequent flyer programs, credit card points, etc, etc. But I don't like the cognitive load they introduce, and I don't like having to figure out how much I'm being manipulated in any given interaction. I get that I'm missing out on goodies, but they're paying for those goodies somehow, s…

I avoid store programs, but for travel it’s a no brainer.

Ditto for credit cards. Given the model of credit cards, it doesn’t make sense to leave money on the table. If you shop at Amazon or Target, leaving 5% of you business on the table doesn’t make sense.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#106

Post by Rescis » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #98

azinman2 wrote: post #6

“Not all customers deserve a company’s best efforts,” says Peter Fader, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who helped popularize lifetime value scores. I feel like this is a succinct argument against the idea to privitize everything — there’s no accountability nor notion of “fairness” baked in whatsoever.

I presume you're making a distinction between services from private businesses and services from the government, and I feel like there are also nearly equivalent succinct arguments for how terrible government services are for certain groups of people (particularly poor people and minorities). So, yes, you can call that a succinct argument against privatizing everything , but very few people actually advocate for that…

I really appreciate your statement that even us crazies who want to privatize everything generally want to do it slowly, and don't think that just abolishing the government today would be beneficial at all from a humanitarian perspective.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#107

Post by njarboe » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

kenneth wrote: post #57

The most obvious example of this in daily life is through airlines, where the difference is pretty transparent and you get night-and-day better service by being a loyal customer. With top status with AA and UA (EXP and 1K), you connected to U.S.-based very senior phone agents right away, who always make sure to take care of any issue that arises. 50min delay on your AA flight? No problem, sir, we are rebooking you on…

So if you aren't in the top tier, fly Southwest as much as you can. I do. All the same seats with minor differentiation possible. There are many reasons they have been the only airline to be profitable for decades, but having good service for everyone is definitelty one of the reasons.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#108

Post by arebop » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #96

kenneth wrote: post #57

The most obvious example of this in daily life is through airlines, where the difference is pretty transparent and you get night-and-day better service by being a loyal customer. With top status with AA and UA (EXP and 1K), you connected to U.S.-based very senior phone agents right away, who always make sure to take care of any issue that arises. 50min delay on your AA flight? No problem, sir, we are rebooking you on…

Tangent: Are there other people here who just refuse to sign up for any of these programs? I have family members who are super into frequent flyer programs, credit card points, etc, etc. But I don't like the cognitive load they introduce, and I don't like having to figure out how much I'm being manipulated in any given interaction. I get that I'm missing out on goodies, but they're paying for those goodies somehow, s…

Also: does anyone see these programs and think wow, this airline UX is so awful I want to show them my loyalty so that eventually they'll stop trying so hard to make me unhappy?

I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, where this decision costs the shareholders a little bit but only the employee who's traveling will notice. Then it makes perfect sense: the employee directs a little extra money from the treasury to the airline, the airline provides a kickback to the employee in the form of a little comfort or attention, and that explains the whole miles phenomenon.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#109

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #96

kenneth wrote: post #57

The most obvious example of this in daily life is through airlines, where the difference is pretty transparent and you get night-and-day better service by being a loyal customer. With top status with AA and UA (EXP and 1K), you connected to U.S.-based very senior phone agents right away, who always make sure to take care of any issue that arises. 50min delay on your AA flight? No problem, sir, we are rebooking you on…

Tangent: Are there other people here who just refuse to sign up for any of these programs? I have family members who are super into frequent flyer programs, credit card points, etc, etc. But I don't like the cognitive load they introduce, and I don't like having to figure out how much I'm being manipulated in any given interaction. I get that I'm missing out on goodies, but they're paying for those goodies somehow, s…

[deleted]

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#110

Post by sandworm101 » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #90

sandworm101 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It could be elderly consumers who consistently get bitten by a rough edge in the UX. Or the elderly customers who call just because they want someone to talk to. I used to do some PCI compliance work and occasionally had to listen in on customer calls to call centers (to verify procedures were being followed). They don't want service. They want to chat. They may have some small issue with the UI, but then they wan…

Those questions don't seem consistent with just wanting to chat. Aren't a lot of people concerned about delivery times?

And those legitimate questions can be answered elsewhere. The elderly person wanting to chat is looking for an excuse so to do. They take one issue that justifies calling customer support and then once they have someone on the line throw in every other little detail. Younger people, who don't like talking to customer support, seek to limit their call to as narrow an issue as possible. Elderly callers enjoy expanding things. Whether they will admit so or not, what they really want is to keep the conversation going as long as possible.