Asking for Kudos

[yduras.livejournal.com]

In the sort of tech support I do we deal with sales reps nearly as often as out direct customers.

Sales reps, being largely the spawn of the devil, like to blame any customer dissatisfaction on tech support (no, it's not that you promised something we don't support, it's that we're recalcitrant and refuse to help the customer), so any of us winds up with a few complaint letters in our account. The thing is, sometimes we also save a sale or give a rep that little extra, which makes them happy. Unfortunately, human nature means that someone is more likely to write a letter of complaint than a letter of compliment.

When callers say things like "You're great - this was really above and beyond" or mention that they always arrange their support calls to make sure they get you because "You're the best support person we have", is there a good way to say "Great, could you write a note to my boss saying that?" I don't want to sound desperate for praise, or pushy, but the occasional compliment letter really can help during those performance reviews (not to mention merit increases).

So, anybody have any clever ways of asking for praise without, you know, sounding like you're fishing for praise?

Comments

[nirvanaqween.livejournal.com]

I know certain call centers have that in there closing script weather or not they performed outstanding service or not at the end of the call, and usually followed up by an automated telephone or email survey.

In my call center we had a fax number, and an email address, we called them "happy faxes" i recieved quite a few, and everytime we got one, we got a bouns, if you have a client that is truely excited that you fixed his/her issue, than i would say "ma'am/sir if you are satisified with my resolution today, please let them know at email/url/fax whatever, again my name is , and your case number is .. Who cares if you sound like you're fishing, when they're happy, they arent even thinking about it anymore.

[gravito.livejournal.com]

I've never worked doing technical support over the phone (so why am I in this community? I know that's what you're thinking) but where I work, employees that are happy with my performance have a method in which to compliment me, and they do it loudly in front of people. It often looks staged the way they position it. Maybe they just want to embarrass me.

I would suggest that if your company is not doing quality assurance you request they set up something so that you can get credit for the good calls. And by the way, I don't think it'd be too much to say, "Thanks, but I'm not allowed to discuss matters regarding my performance. For that, you can contact my supervisor at ###-####" It's the same thing you'd say if they were questioning you for bad peformance, but just do it for good performance.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

We tend not to ask particularly (it's known in some parts of our centre as "pimping"), but if the customer sounds like they do want to do something, we get them to send an email to our main address. If they say it straight out we put them onto a supervisor.

Alas, no reward past the warm-and-fuzzies. But they're still nice to get.

[ex-starmande883.livejournal.com]

"(no, it's not that you promised something we don't support, it's that we're recalcitrant and refuse to help the customer)"

Being an in store tech myself, I get that crap all the time. Salesmen just make shit up sometimes.

[random-c.livejournal.com]

"If only management found that out. People only ever write in to complain!" (Used it, it worked, got my bottle of beer)

[gaffybopper.livejournal.com]

If they sound like they're genuinely happy with your service, they'll be more than happy to tell your manager either verbally or in writing. For example you could say, "Not a problem, I'm always happy to help. There's actually a fax/phone/email/url where you can submit your feedback. Would you like me to give it to you?" They will all say yes, and 9 times out of 10 they will actually do it. When you let the words out it doesn't sound like you're fishing for compliments, especially if they're really impressed with your work, because the customer will enjoy the knowledge you're being rewarded for being such a help to them.

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

There's no address for people to use to submit feedback on how we did, but I get a lot of people who want to be transferred to my manager. Not that it really affects anything either way. I don't think there's really an incentive there to go above and beyond.

I do tell people that if they're satisfied to post a review on dslreports.com. I don't really care if there's any good ones for the company, but I like seeing my name in there :]

[taleya.livejournal.com]

we tend to do something along the lines of "Glad we could help! If you like, drop an email to customerfeedback@isp.........

:D

[j-digi82.livejournal.com]

sometimes?

[ex-starmande883.livejournal.com]

I use sometimes pretty liberally.

[chaoslore.livejournal.com]

Of course your wireless router will let you get the internet 3 miles away, it wouldnt be wireless if it didn't!