StarrAnn Ferguson

starrannf@gmail.com
CX Escalations Manager Practical Exercise

Question 1: Given this simplified dataset, what are the key insights you observe looking at
the data? What is your hypothesis on what has been going on within the business?

The data shows around weeks 18-24, this would be considered a busy season due to the holidays.
An example is during November and December, bookings for a Handy Man will increase due to
the need for future assembly or TV mounting. This analysis could be due to purchasing seasons
(Black Friday, Christmas) as well. We can see the Painting request are minimally increasing
compared to the other forms of services. The conclusion of the business outlook, shows how the
business can fluctuate due to seasons, causing a high demand of bookings, emails and calls,
which is good for business.

Phone Calls in Weeks 18-24

Emails in Weeks 18-24

Bookings in Weeks 18-24

StarrAnn Ferguson
starrannf@gmail.com
CX Escalations Manager Practical Exercise

Question 2: You’ve noticed some interesting trends but realize you don’t have the right
information to really dig into the metrics you’re concerned about, metrics surrounding
Customer Support. What are some metrics, or KPIs you’d want to further look into to
better understand what’s going on here? Why did you choose the ones you did?

The KPI’s that are essential for metrics in customer support are:
 CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Support)
 Net Promoter Score
 First Response Time
 Resolution Time

For the company’s performance as a whole and retrieving feedback, CSAT scores help the
employees know how the customer felt about the interaction with the agent. This can ultimately
tell if our service is creating a good or bad experience. The Net Promotor Score askes the
customer “Would you recommend this company/service/business?” and it will help myself, as
well as the marketing team, what’s going wrong with our service or product. How we can change
it and get better. Customer’s like being heard and in this case of feedback on how we performed,
we can utilize this to our own benefits. Finally. First response time and Resolution time. These
two, go hand and hand; no customer wants to wait more than 3-4 hours for a response via email.
A customer can get frustrated as well if it took too many replies or interaction to get their
problem resolved. Looking into these two metrics gives the assumption of how effective and
efficient we are handling their concerns and if we aren’t meeting those metrics, the company can
see where the flaws are set.
StarrAnn Ferguson
starrannf@gmail.com
CX Escalations Manager Practical Exercise
Part 1:
How would you go about solving this incident for both the customer and the professional?
Please be as descriptive as possible in your response and make any reasonable assumptions
you need to build your action plan.
The customer claims there was damage to an item and property, so my first step is
collecting photo evidence (for record purposes), as well as calling the customer to get a voiced
explanation of the issue. I would allow the customer to walk me through, step by step what
happened while apologizing for this awful experience. My job would be also closely listening to
what they are stating in the most specific events. I will let the customer know that I will be
following up on this and ensuring we rectify this issue once we finish investigating.
I will then get in contact with the professional to walk me through their duties and tasks
that they were assigned, allowing them to tell me what happened before they left the client’s
residence. It’s important in this interaction to asked specific and detailed questions about the
“items” that were claimed to be damaged without mentioning there were items damaged. Such as
“Were there any items damaged?”.
After collecting the feedback from both parties, I would determine what’s best for the
customer. Since there’s damage and the customer’s request was not fulfilled by us, I would either
provide the client with another service that has commendable reviews internally or refund in full.
I would leave this option to the customer, assuming she still needs the job completed. As for the
professional, due to the damage and feedback, they would not be paid for this job. If this is their
first time of this complaint, I would still have them as a partner, until the next offense.

Part 2:
In an ideal world, how would this case, or any escalated situation, be handled from start to
finish? Some things to possibly consider:
Escalations normally start when the customer is either dissatisfied with the customer
representatives’ response, which leads to the request of a manager to handle these delicate cases.
When the request is issued from the customer or the professional, it’s always advisable to
read/hear each word without an assumption, since most escalations are resolved by best
judgment. If it’s a phone call, it’s important for me to state what the next steps are and send a
follow-up email stating the exact same thing for records. Customers value written words; it’s sort
of a contract to the offer and discussion.
If the escalation is within the email, then maintaining full transparency of keeping them
in the loop while you do your part, is the important role of escalations. Thus meaning, if I know
it will take a while before responding with a resolution, then reaching out via phone or email
with an update keeps them informed. As previously noted in Part 1, asking questions from both
parties without mentioning what each other stated or ask open-ended questions, rather than
closed, can help voice their story better.
The key goal of getting feedback from both the customer and the professional is to make
the best judgment for the company and the customer overall.
StarrAnn Ferguson
starrannf@gmail.com
CX Escalations Manager Practical Exercise
Part 3:
Imagine the scenario described above is complete and you’re confident in the outcome and
level of support you’ve provided. Write a brief email (2-3 paragraphs) to the CEO
explaining the issue and ultimate resolution. Note that many of our executives will also be
viewing this communication.

Hi, John!

Thank you for taking the time to read this email. I wanted to inform you of a very escalated situation that
was brought to my attention recently.

On November 5, 2019, a professional of ours, Joe Smith, was hired to perform a TV mounting task for
our customer, Sally Miller. Mr. Smith contacted us on this same day stating he left the house abruptly,
due to Ms. Miller “cursing and yelling” and mentioned foul slander that related to his race. The customer
did also email in, but with a rather different version of this altercation. Ms. Miller claimed there was
damage to her wall and TV in the process and forwarded images (Please see attachments). I have viewed
a few comments from Mr. Miller’s previous customers, and he seems to sustain his work and
professionalism.

As this is a very unusual escalated case, I did proceed to follow up with both parties to get more details.
While the customer expressed her focused concern on Joe not doing the task properly, asking for her help,
and damaging property, I offered the solution to have two of our best performing professionals to finish
the job for her. She happily accepted this offer, as well as the refund. I felt that it was the best solution
due to the TV presenting dents and scratches on each edge. I spoke to Joe to discuss his performance
overall with the customer was not the experience we want for the customer and how I do not want this
interaction to discourage him. While the slander from the customer is something we do not tolerate, the
job was improperly completed.

My decision was to not pay Mr. Smith but continue this partnership for the time being; however, if this
performance was to happen again, we will not continue this partnership with him. I will be closely
observing and monitoring his feedback and performance moving forward. Thank you, once again, for
taking the time out of your day to read this. Please do let me know if you have any feedback on this
resolution or matter.

Sincerely,

StarrAnn
Customer Experience Manager
Handy
StarrAnn Ferguson
starrannf@gmail.com
CX Escalations Manager Practical Exercise

Section #2

As Handy is a start-up company, reality TV members and influencers who have a large following
such as this, often hold recommendation purposes. I would reach out the client/customer via
social media, letting her know that we do apologize for this experience and situation and verify
the number before calling. Upon calling her, I will let her know that we would need pictures of
the damaged item and do refund her immediately in this case. After receiving the image, I will
then following up the email, stating more empathy of this matter with our Handy professionals,
thanking her for sending in the photo as well. As a final resolution, I will gift the client/customer
3 free cleaning offers with us with our top performing professionals. As this may be declined, we
cannot replace the item but in a more logic effort to repair the relationship with the
client/customer, extending services where the customer may not have to pay may help in the long
run.