One of the worst things you can do for your customers is to make things overcomplicated for them.  Take a look at the picture to the right of the school sign in Michigan (source).  Do you think this is good “customer service” to the tax payers?

I recently had a problem with my cell carrier.  My wife’s phone had a battery problem.  Granted, the phone was four years old but all I wanted to do was pay them for a phone and sign a new contract extending my time with them.  The problem being we were not eligible for an upgrade on that line for 14 days!  When I called customer service they told me they could upgrade me to another phone but not the one she wanted to get.  That one would have to wait.  So I call one of their stores and am told we can upgrade as long as it is in the same month – GREAT!  The upgrade as coming in on the 29th, oh, wait, because it is a leap year they moved us to March 1 meaning we were not in the current month.  Hmmmm…

So, I went to Twitter and within ten minutes got a response from someone who was customer friendly and helped us upgrade the phone, pay them for the phone, pay the upgrade fee, and sign a contract.  It took three different customer service reps and five phone calls to get approved to upgrade a phone two weeks early.  I was literally asking them to allow me to hand them money and it took this many steps to get someone who could take care of it.

This is a simple issue of over complicating an issue in an organization.  The first person I spoke with sh0uld have had the authority to make a two week decision.  Do your customer service people have the tools and power to take care of your customers?  If not, why not?  If you can’t trust them then you have the wrong people in that position.

Of course their should be limits and boundaries.  I have been involved with customer service for over a decade and some of the requests from customers can be quite outlandish.  You must put barriers up somewhere but you have to give enough freedom for your reps to make decisions and exceptions when needed.

Bottom Line:  Allow those that have direct contact with your customers be able to serve your customers.  You will be rewarded many times over with happier employees and much happier and loyal customers.