Quality assurance…just not for who you think
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
I just ran across a company called Recordant.
They use microphones to capture conversations between salespeople and customers. Those conversations can later be analyzed to determine which specific words used at specific times in the course of a conversation led to a sale.
From their FAQ:
2. Do you have to tell your customers they are being recorded?Recordantâ„¢ is a competitive advantage for your business. It tells customers that you are serious about giving them the best possible shopping and service experience. We require you to provide and post adequate signage to inform your customers that their conversation is being recorded for quality assurance purposes and employee training.
3. How do customers respond when they learn they are being recorded?
They respond very favorably. One survey showed they believed that when a transaction is being recorded the quality of “their” service is truly important to the retailer. Many customers also viewed it as assurance that they were being dealt with fairly and within the policies of the retailer. On a rare occasion a customer may not want to be recorded. In that instance, the employee can simply turn off the audio capture device.
I can see the analytical possibilities and benefits from the standpoint of running a company, but is anyone else bothered by this? Specifically, the false sense of “customer service” that’s being promoted: “quality assurance purposes” are in fact the “optimization of closing practices”, which really has nothing to do with “customer service” per se and everything to do with “convincing customers to buy”.
I suppose this is always the case whenever you’re on the phone with the bank and they’re recording your conversation for “quality assurance purposes” (which method of stonewalling is most efficient), but I never made the connection until now.
Noting the ambiguity inherent in the phrase “quality assurance,” I wonder if this is a benchmark by which to assess whether a company is interested in actual customer service or simply the mechanics of their sales mechanisms.