Re: procedures for handling customer calls

["Rene Stephenson" <RStephenson -at- mwci -dot- mea -dot- com>]

Rene Stephenson wrote:
>We are beginning the process of setting up customer service. We are just
>starting to research the procedures to implement when a customer service
>representative receives a call from a customer. We would love to see some
>procedures that work(ed) at other companies. The industry is irrelevant.

Gunther Schmidt wrote:
>how about designing a form which helps you to record the relevant 
details?
>It will take a while to complete this form, but it's whortwhile. Of 
course
>the items in this form depend on the subject-matter, so you won't find a
>form which you can adopt unchanged.


Vielen Dank, Gunther. Our customer service agents will enter data into the 
customer service database at the time of the call. We have very stringent 
guidelines about the metrics that we must track for each customer service 
call. We have help desk software on back-order, but that is not a problem, 
because do not have a customer base or customer service agents hired yet.


"Jeanne A. E. DeVoto" <jaed -at- jaedworks -dot- com> wrote:
>...what kind of procedure are you looking for here? What problem do
>you see that you're seeking a procedure to solve? 


Jeanne,
We are performing initial research for a policy/procedure manual. This is a 
high-level (as opposed to detailed) need. We aren't targeting specific 
problems, because we don't have a help desk set up yet that would generate 
any scenarios. We are a brand new company, in the initial setup and 
planning stages of our customer service department.


Scottie, thanks for your insight.


ALL: 
OK, it looks like clarification is in order. We're not looking for things 
to adopt from other companies. Ethically, we will not reproduce anything we 
receive from another company, in whole or in part.

We're interested in the *approach* to common issues, including the 
organization of the information in the policy/procedure manual. The purpose 
of the request is to gain a broad understanding of how customer service 
issues are handled in general, by surveying how various companies outlined 
their procedures. As you know, there are many ways to write about any given 
topic. We already have identified topics that need to be addressed as well 
as some basic parameters and very specific metrics that we will need to 
track. From the responses I'm getting, it looks like I should have 
elaborated more in my original question. Sorry, I was (am) operating on a 
small budget of time.

My boss wants to see what other companies do about their customer service 
policies and procedures -- not specifically what the policy or procedure 
says -- not the granular, detailed stuff, but a "big picture" view -- how 
it is said, and how it is organized. Hence, my original request.

Thanks,
Rene