{"id":25731,"date":"2019-02-28T09:55:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T09:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.kepner-tregoe.com\/how-organizations-undermine-their-frontline-support-teams\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T14:42:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T14:42:32","slug":"how-organizations-undermine-their-frontline-support-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.kepner-tregoe.com\/de\/blogs\/how-organizations-undermine-their-frontline-support-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"How Organizations Undermine Their Frontline Support Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

ns, metrics emphasize speed of call handling \u2014 how quickly the agent records the issue, dispatches deskside support, and gets the customer off the phone \u2014 not speed of (actual) resolution. The incentive to get off the phone quickly works directly against the agent\u2019s putting in the time to accurately appraise the customer\u2019s issue, which is essential to first contact resolution.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s frustrating because widely accepted methodologies and tools for achieving frontline service excellence have been available for decades. What these methodologies have in common is an emphasis on nurturing and upgrading the problem-solving skills at level 1.<\/p>\n

Where does the customer\u2019s service experience break down? It\u2019s right at the beginning. If the first impression that is generated is one of lack of clarity and irrelevant questions, that impression will be one of frustration at what they see as wasted effort. Even more frustrating is the fact that we all know that the focus on quality at the front end will actually result in faster resolution.<\/p>\n

Customers form their impression of the service experience \u2014 and of the support team \u2014 within 30 seconds of the start of the call. Often, they go into the experience already cynical about the level of support they will receive. The common clich\u00e9d reference to frontline service as the \u201chelpless desk\u201d sums this cynicism up nicely.<\/p>\n

In many organizations, end-users have given up on their service desks entirely, and a norm has taken hold: If you have a problem, look for the solution on YouTube. This may deflect calls from the service desk \u2014 not entirely a bad thing, but it will undermine confidence in support and eliminate opportunities for the organization to learn from issues and gain technical competence from resolving them.<\/p>\n

It is apparent from Kepner-Tregoe\u2019s experience in working with organizations to develop service excellence that poor frontline customer experience generally stems from an ineffective initial appraisal of the situation. The agent isn\u2019t asking the right questions to determine what the problem actually is \u2013 or indeed, whether there is an actual problem (a deviation in performance).<\/p>\n

Many customer contacts that go into the record as problems actually are not problems (in a technical sense). All systems are performing normally. The customer has a technical question, for which the proper response is to retrieve an answer which we already have, because we have heard this question before.<\/p>\n

Often this is obvious, but it can be more ambiguous. The customer may report that a system is not performing as it should, when in fact it is. The root of the issue is that neither the customer nor the agent is doing the situation appraisal to understand what normal performance looks like. It often turns out there is no real deviation from the \u201cshould.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, the customer will present what looks like a novel issue, one that the agent expects to require original diagnosis and troubleshooting. But ultimately it turns out the agent already had an answer available, but because of a faulty original appraisal, the issue was so lost in the narrative that no one realized that solution existed.<\/p>\n

The skill that differentiates effective frontline agents from ineffective agents is the insight to efficiently appraise the situation and craft a quality problem statement. That comes from the discipline of:<\/p>\n