🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (22 tweets)
I have many thoughts on this thread, but it also stands on its own. https://t.co/bKOvfPP15x
Any customer service process you create, where the nature of the product sold does not radically exclude most of the population, needs to be robust against substantial diversity in capabilities of the general population.
Many people, when they are told a narrative of a sequence of events in interacting with a corporation, will default to believing that that narrative is a basically accurate recounting of history. People who have worked in CS are less likely to default to this understanding.
Some people who are in positions of societal esteem, well-credentialed, etc, are as capable of being immune to understanding relatively simple concepts as other customers who lack proficiency in reading the language the disclosure is written in.
A customer who fundamentally does not understand the concept of insurance is likely not someone who has literally never had the concept of insurance explained. It just… did not successfully reach them the last N times. What is your expectation that the N+1 time will land well?
In a situation where an individual reports procedural history X, where procedural history is in fact ~X, do you think a company will say “Oh ~X; I keep records.” or do you think they will carefully say nothing as a considered policy?
Suppose you are the CS rep dealing with a customer who is making disordered choices in a disorganized fashion with a seeming inability to think strategically in their own interests. Pause to consider that they have had many, many interactions with complex systems in their lives.
Many recoil at the notion that some customers are making disordered choices in a disorganized fashion with a seeming inability to think strategically in their own interests. That is not a fun reality to *have to plan for.* Some orgs adopt rich euphemism cultures. Some don’t.
“I disagree that users can be fundamentally a-strategic. That is elitism.” Again, a) there is a policy for what to do if customer threatens to kill you, b) customer knows that policy because check the file, c) customer just threatened to kill you.
Many people may be imagining customers whose challenges are effectively fixed. I would like you to instead envision someone who is approximately a peer to you, with a long and positive history with an institution. Now, one day, that customer has a significant inflection in life.
Suddenly, the institution is dealing with someone who… may not have full continuity of experience with the previous customer, where that fact may or may not be legally legible yet. You’ve got some choices to make in how to respond and how to craft policy.
Gradual deterioration: also a thing that happens, also extremely unpleasant for everyone involved, also not something you can overlook, and complicated by the individual possibly presenting as uncompromised and extremely confident they are uncompromised despite notes on the file.
“But don’t we aggressively filter employees.” An attempt was made. “And so can’t we be extremely, extremely confident that there are no employees who are in fact illiterate in the language business is conducted in.” An attempt was made.
(A long time ago in a place far far away I realized a manager, who was a very good manager by most prevailing standards, was likely extremely low literacy despite being a professional supervising professionals. Then some conversations started to make much more sense.)