What You Can Learn From Your Least
Satisfied Customers written by David Lewy
Leading providers of contact center outsourcing services strive to make each and every customer
transaction a positive and productive experience. Realistically speaking however, no contact center will
ever achieve 100% customer satisfaction. The question then becomes what can be done with those bad
customer transactions. Obviously, the expectation is that you keep the number of bad customer
transactions to a minimum but it is the best contact centers that make full use of this data.
Dissatisfaction Analysis (DSAT Analysis)
DSAT Analysis is the detailed collection, aggregation, codification, review , reporting and analysis of the
specific customer transactions identified as “Dissatisfied” by customers through Customer Satisfaction
(CSAT) Surveys. Clearly a prerequisite for DSAT Analysis must be the distribution and collection of CSAT
Surveys. Included in the CSAT Surveys must be two components; a question requesting the customer to
indicate his overall satisfaction with the “Support Transaction” and secondly, an opportunity to provide
an explanation for the respective response.
Survey Questions
With regard to the overall satisfaction question used in the customer survey, there is much debate as to
whether an organization should use a 4 point scale, a 5 point scale or even a 10 point scale. As that is a
topic for another discussion, suffice it to say that a 4 point scale which allows for no neutral response
will elicit more negative scores. More important to DSAT Analysis though is providing the customer an
opportunity to provide candid feedback. This is usually facilitated through a free-form text box although
it can also be facilitated through a comprehensive set of choices in a drop-down dialog box. Analyzing
data using a pre-defined list of menu choices is certainly easier but to truly understand what customers
are concerned with, there is no debating that free-form responses are the best forum. Below is a
sample customer survey that is presented in written form after a Webchat channel transaction.
Figure 1 - Simple Customer Satisfaction Survey
Delivering Surveys
The manner by which surveys are delivered partially depends on the channel in which the service is
provided. Surveys emailed to customers lend themselves well to support provided by email and
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) surveys are an appropriate and effective means for collecting data to
customers that seek support by phone. Many companies without this technology will email a survey to
customers subsequent to a phone transaction; the latency factor contributing to a lower response rate.
Also note that if a support organization does not provide 100% recording of all phone transactions,
analyzing dissatisfied phone transactions that are linked to dissatisfied survey results may prove very
difficult.
The Webchat channel, which offers many benefits over the traditional phone and email channels, can
immediately provide surveys at the end of a chat transaction without the customer having to request it
or opt-in. The net result is a much higher return rate for surveys from the chat channel than from voice
and email.
Submit and
Collect Survey
Data
Partition
Negative
Survey Results
Grab and
Review
Corresponding
Transactions
Codify Results
Report on
Findings
Aggregation & Codification
When it comes to being dissatisfied with a customer support transaction, there are primarily three
groupings of dissatisfaction; 1) Dissatisfaction with the Customer Support Process, 2) Dissatisfaction with
the company’s Support Policies and 3) Dissatisfaction with the company’s products or services that
support is being requested on. On top of these groupings, we must also introduce the notion of Locus of
Control and by that we mean who is responsible for the poor customer support transaction and more
importantly who is capable of improving the experience. As is illustrated in the table below, the Locus of
Control generally rests in the realm of either the Customer Care organization or the company’s
product/service group.
Dissatisfaction with the Support Process
Dissatisfaction as it is related to the support process is entirely within the control of the Customer Care
organization. Examples range from knowledge issues to communication issues to comportment issues.
Knowledge issues include providing the incorrect resolution, providing an incomplete resolution and
issue misidentification. Communication issues range from poor listening skills to weak oral skills to
shoddy written skills. Comportment issues range from rude and insolent behavior to more subtle issues
such as managing conversation control. All of these issues can usually be addressed through retraining.
Of course it is important to note whether the issues in this category are related to individual agents or
whether there are trends that can be identified on an aggregate basis. Aggregate trends may require a
review of the training curriculum being used or perhaps the knowledge tools/content being employed.
Dissatisfaction with the Product/Service
Conversely dissatisfaction with the product/service entirely falls under the control of the company’s
product/service organization. Examples in this category include bugs, defects, missing features and
broken parts. No matter how polite, effective and knowledgeable a customer support agent might be, if
a customer is angry about the product/service, it will often reflect in the survey results. Nonetheless,
this feedback is invaluable to companies’ R&D and Product Marketing groups and too often there is no
communication link between customer care and these divisions. The irony of course is, that often times
there is more contact with a company’s target audience through the customer support organization and
yet often times valuable information is either left untapped or poorly feedback into the organization.
Dissatisfaction with the Support Policies
Support policies do not fall exclusively in either Locus of Control as certain polices are within the control
of the support organization like how escalations are handled whereas other policies are mandated by
the company such as product returns and refunds. Again, no matter how polite or knowledgeable an
agent is, if the customer wants a refund and corporate policy dictates that this is not allowed, the
customer will be unhappy. If the collection of data indicates significant concern with rigid support
policies and customer satisfaction is a goal, serious consideration needs to be directed towards these
policies. Of course, without this level of detailed analysis, the root cause for dissatisfaction might not be
known.
Figure 2 - Codification of Dissatisfaction Data
DSAT analysis by the very nature of the detailed review that is required is a manually intensive process.
Depending on the volume of surveys that are received, DSAT analysis may require multiple full-time
resources to properly execute. The codification of dissatisfied transactions as exemplified in Figure 2 is
crafted after an extensive review and analysis of reams and reams of transactions as identified through
customer survey results. It is extremely labor intensive when employing free-form customer responses
but the benefits of not limiting customer responses through pre-defined choices enables a more
comprehensive picture of the customer support issues.
Every transaction is reviewed (either read or listened to), and then coded based on the corresponding
codification table. It is a difficult and time consuming process to take qualitative data and transform it
into quantitative information but the results are well worth the effort expended.
Error! Reference source not found. shows an example of one week’s worth of analyzed DSAT data.
Overall DSAT Analysis
8%
42%
Support Related
50%
Product Related
Policy Related
Figure 3 DSAT Graph
Taking the analysis one step further, Figure 4 and Figure 5 provide further detailed breakdowns of the
dissatisfaction issues based on the subcategories of Support , Product and Policy Issues.
Support Issues Summary
Incomplete/Improper
Resolution
Poor Expectation Setting
14%
28%
12%
Lack of Ownership
11%
11%
15%
4%
5%
Delayed Response
Lack of Probing
Chat Control
Lack of Empathy
Figure 4 - Breakdown of DSAT Support Issues
Product & Policy Issues
15%
7%
50%
9%
19%
Product Limitation
Transfer
Hardware Issue
Software Issue
Shipping Issue
Figure 5 - Breakdown of DSAT Product and Policy Issues
The analysis, review and presentation of this data provides a myriad of opportunities for the
organization as a whole to target critical and significant areas of improvement, not just in the Contact
Center but also within the company’s Product/Service arms as well. Too often companies ignore this
data, collect it but don’t act on it or collect it and fail to disseminate it to the appropriate internal groups
for further processing. Done right, the effort put forth in DSAT Analysis provides a comprehensive
picture of an organization’s weakest links and the opportunity to create multiple roadmaps towards
improvements both within the contact center and throughout the whole organization.
David Lewy is Senior Vice President at Knoah Solutions, a provider of contact center outsourcing services
including customer service, technical support, sales support, agent QA services and data/order entry.
DSAT analysis is just one of the many best practices that Knoah Solutions employs to insure their clients
and their clients’ customers continually receive top quality customer care. David can be reached at
908.788.7232 or [email protected]