The Persuasive Manager

(2019B)
Persuasive Writing Assignment

Before you start reading the emails:

Let us identify some criteria to check how persuasive the emails below are. For that,
the first thing we should do is to forget that we wrote them and try to read them from
the perspective of the target, CEO Srinivasa Murthy. (I’ll try to read and comment on
them standing in Srinivasa’s shoes. This introduction, I hope, will help you also read
and gain from the emails below.)
Unlike in real life, we know little about Srinivasa. But based on the few case facts we
can assume that he is completely convinced about the tremendous value of making
call centre associates chatty and friendly. He believes that any extra time and
expense required is worth the deep emotional connect that will be established with
the customers who call in. At the conference he attended in the US he may have met
a few presenters or attendees from different parts of the world who gave him a rosy
picture of their experience. He may think that this is a progressive measure in a
world where people are increasingly lonely despite large numbers of connections
through social media. He believes in it firmly; that’s why he broached the subject
twice despite your pushback and heated arguments that led nowhere.
You believe it is not at all a good idea, certainly not in India where call centres are
run on wafer-thin margins making such luxuries impossible and retaining associates
is itself a major challenge. Your conviction is based on the evidence gathered
through your own experience in general and over the last 18 months in particular that
the typical Indian customer is happiest when they get connected quickly and
encounter an associate who is clear, concise, and business-like without being rude.
Many customers would rebuff any associate who might wander beyond the
perimeters of the business transaction and attempt to be chatty or ask any personal
questions. Adopting Srinivasa’s proposal, you believe, will alienate rather than retain
many callers and hurt the brand.
During the two conversations (rather arguments) with Srinivasa you will have
presented your evidence and a strong rejection of his position. What can you do now
to persuade him to change his mind? There is no guarantee that anything you write
or the way you write will accomplish it. But let’s explore the paths that are most likely
to lead to success.
Is there any aspect of his proposal that you can accept? If there is, it makes sense to
start your email with it to validate at least that part of his belief. In this particular case,
there is one aspect that you as the Director of the Customer Service Call Centre
Services could accept wholeheartedly: the objective of and the benefit envisaged in

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his proposal, namely, emotional connect with callers that nudges them to be lifelong
customers and apostles of the company. It is worthwhile.
It makes sense to start your email signalling this acceptance before talking about the
practical and financial challenges involved in achieving it. It is important, however,
not to exaggerate the difficulties. If you do (Example: claiming that there would be
numerous ruinous lawsuits against the company from the kin of callers who may take
extreme steps in response to advice/suggestions made by call centre associates),
you will be dismissed as silly or merely scaremongering.
Assume that, after the appliance-related query/complaint is handled efficiently and
cordially, the associate asks the customer in a friendly voice whether all is well with
them instead of the usual “thank you and have a good day.” It is rarely that anyone
would launch into their personal stories of frustration with the world. Nearly all callers
are likely to say, “Fine, thank you,” hang up, and get on with their lives. A few may
open up and share their stories. Srinivasa would like the associates to listen to them
and respond to them in a friendly manner rather than cut them short. There is little
risk of a close or unwelcome relationship being built by a caller with any particular
associate because callers never know who among the scores of associates they will
get to talk to if they call again.
How then do we go forward? Srinivasa may not want to go empty-handed from this
encounter. That is obvious from his persistence. What can you offer him? Can you
think of something that doesn’t upset the working of the entire call centre? One way
out might be to suggest an experiment, a pilot. If a caller initiates a friendly chat,
perhaps the call centre associates can be asked to go along for a while instead of
bringing the caller abruptly to the appliance-related business. The experience can be
reviewed in three or four months and further steps taken based on the outcome. You
may also get a more realistic estimate of how much more time is required.
You may find that without any special training the associates are able to carry on a
friendly conversation for a while and make the caller happy. Or you may find that
your associates are simply not up to the job, become awkward, don’t know what to
say, and mess up the customer’s experience. Another discovery may be that hardly
any customer initiates a personal chat at all and therefore perhaps the proposal can
be buried without any tears being shed.
That is the advantage of suggesting an action along experimental lines. Most people
are willing to accept such a way out of an impasse created by the clash of beliefs.
Right now, both the parties are arguing from their strong convictions without the
foundation of an actual experience. The “experiment” may help the company adopt a
course of action without anyone’s ego getting hurt. An experiment may help both the
parties reset their expectations and convictions.
There may be other ways of persuading Srinivasa. Let’s go ahead and find out.
Note: Please read as many of these emails as you can apart from your own. Some
of my comments that may be equally applicable to several instances may not be
repeated in later emails. Some of my comments might appear harsh, but they are
expected to reflect Srinivasa’s reactions.
- MMM

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 (1)
Subject: Maintaining existing customer Service levels – Why or Why not? [Somewhat
puzzling subject line. Too vague or too broad to serve as the topic of this email,
written in response to a specific request from Srinivasa regarding the way call centre
executives respond to customers who call. “Customer service” denotes a much
broader service.]

Dear Srinivas
I have been thinking over the conversations that we have had twice over the
possibility of making our customer service executives more friendly and emotional
while talking to the customers. I can clearly see the changes in the overall
ecosystem and how various companies have been changing the style they had
adopted earlier in customer service. Definitely this will have a positive impact on the
customer relationships and engagement. This will also help the company in
increasing their brand perception over time. [Very good move. You have accepted
the desirability of the objective of his proposal.] You beautifully explained all the right
reasons to make changes to our existing system.
Let us figure out why we have not yet considered to adopt this strategy
[inappropriate wording. It implies that we have rejected the proposal without giving it
adequate consideration. It would be better to phrase it along the following lines: why
we are unable to adopt this strategy now/why our call centre is not yet ready to adopt
this strategy. When you say it this way, you concede that the idea is great, but we
don’t have the resources to adopt it.] On the face of it, we might seem to be making
some mistakes. However, I have been carefully analysing this development and
hence decided to do a thorough review of the situation before arriving at any
decision. The single biggest reason the customer calls at our centres is that they are
frustrated with some of our offerings. At this point of time, their frustration levels are
at peak. If we do not control the average talk time or complaint resolution time, it will
increase the average waiting time. Otherwise, we will have to hire more people and
thus additional costs. According to me, the core function of any call centre executive
is to address the issue the customer is facing and also in timely manner. In the end,
we all want our customers to be happy. With the shorter waiting times and quicker
resolution of their problems, customers end up being more satisfied. [You have
presented your belief about what is important when frustrated customers call: quick
and efficient resolution of the appliance-related problem bothering the caller.
Srinivasa has a different belief: while resolving any the appliance-related problems is
important, equally important is responding to their emotional needs. Of course, the
call durations will go up; we may need to hire more executives to keep call waiting
times reasonable. But Srinivasa believes that the extra investment is worth it
because of the tremendous goodwill that will be generated as a result.]
On the other side, I am thinking if our executives are in the right position to answer
personal problems of clients. Our majority of the workforce is in the early twenties
and are efficiently trained to resolve customer queries on our products and services.

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However, I think we would be expecting too much out of these people to handle
stressful situations of our customers. One, they may not appropriately handle the
situation and secondly, it may affect their personal psychology as they are not
mature enough and have not been trained effectively in handling these situations.
These could have repercussions in which we might put customers more dissatisfied
after the call. [Listening empathetically to strangers is indeed a difficult skill. But
perhaps you are underestimating the call centre executives. Why don’t you give it a
try before coming to this judgement? We are not expecting call centre executives to
be professional counsellors or therapists; what is expected of them is a little
empathy, an attempt to connect emotionally with callers.]
The initiatives that you have taken thus far have always yielded excellent results in
the past. [Very good acknowledgement; it should soothe his ego.] However, I have a
feeling that this decision will hurt us more than it will help us in the long run. I would
personally suggest that our customer service executives should do what they are
best suitable for. This will keep our costs down and also keep majority of our
customers happy.
Let me know if you still feel otherwise, I am happy to understand more. [What
Srinivasa needs is your action.]

7.5/10

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 (2)
Subject: Customer Service effectiveness for business [too general to serve as the
subject line for this email being sent in response to a specific request]
Dear Mr. Murthy,
Hope you are doing well. [redundant and potentially annoying when you write this to
someone you meet regularly and/or who works in the same office as yours. Cut it
out.] Welcome back! Hope you had a good trip to the USA. [Inappropriate. You will
have met him several times since his return and you had two heated arguments with
him!] I wish to give you the good news first before diving into the intricacies of why I
believe what I believe about the proposal you put forward. As you know, customer
service organization is one of the trickiest to manage profitably in any company. And,
when it comes to a consumer business like ours (white consumer electronics), it
becomes even harder as we interface directly with our end consumers. [cut this out
in your email to your CEO. It merely flaunts your sense of self-importance. The fact
is that each job is challenging in its own way. And without those two sentences you
can very well introduce your achievement in the call centre service during the last 18
months.] I would like to bring to your notice that we the help of continuous
monitoring, systematic performance metrics, and effective training programs we
have established fairly good and reliable communication standards with customers.
Our goal is to provide them with quick and formal business service. As a result,
complaints from customers about the call center associates have come down to 14 a
month from 67 a month in 18 months. As the effectiveness of each increased, the
time taken by the representatives to solve customer’s problems decreased which
had led to reduction in holding and waiting times for the customers. This is significant
progress in the direction of organizational performance effectiveness and cost
saving. Typically customer service departments are very erratic in terms of budgeting
and spending in almost all organizations. [there you go again! You can’t blowing your
own trumpet.] I am very proud of achieving this milestone for us.
[You could easily have compressed this paragraph into about one third its size by
avoiding self-congratulatory stuff and running down of other departments and
customer service in other companies.]
I would like to express my concern about your proposal of making the customer
service reps do more than just solving product related problems. I see a few potential
problems here:
1. If the customer service reps talk to the customers for extended periods of time
listening to their life problems, they will end up spending more time on the calls
which will in turn lead to increase in waiting times and cost of running the operation.
[yes, it’s likely. But if the goal of establishing an emotional connect with the callers
through such conversations is worthwhile, increasing the headcount and keeping the
call wait time reasonable is worthwhile too.]
2. When the reps will be expected to listen to anything and everything and
indulge with the customers emotionally on the call, it will lead to fatigue and

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exhaustion in the reps and they will not remain mentally fresh and patient enough to
listen to all customer complaints (which is the goal of having a customer care
operation). They already have to go through a lot of emotional outbursts from angry
and disappointed customers, this will only add up to their woes and will make them
ineffective in what they are actually supposed to do i.e solve customers’ issues about
the products.[on the contrary, these call centre executives may be much better than
us in not losing their cool when faced with verbally abusive and emotionally
distraught callers.]
3. The assumption that if we allow customers to share their emotionally heart
wrenching stories with the reps, they will develop a loyalty to our brand and product
and would want to buy more is flawed according to me. Firstly we do not have
enough evidence from the industry that this tactic really works in acquiring and
retaining more customers. [If we want to be leaders and trailblazers, we may have to
leap into the dark at times instead of waiting for the light from the candles set up by
others.] Secondly, the increased cost of running an operation like this will indirectly
lead to increased cost of our products on our end. This might pose a threat to our
customer satisfaction and retention numbers.
With all the above points, I wish to make a earnest request to you to consider these
with utmost importance before making any decisions. I appreciate the time and effort
taken by you to hearing out my concerns and I trust we will take a decision that is in
the best interests of the company and our customers.
[Unlikely to persuade Srinivas to change his mind.]
[The email is too long; the body alone comes to 557 words. There will be a subgrade
penalty.]

5.5/10

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 (3)
Subject: Extending Customer Services Levels [the subject line is too broad for this
email and therefore misleading]
Dear Srinivasa,
We both are ardent supporter of customer centricity. We both have strived hard to
increase our NPS score and due to your support only I have been to reduce
customer complaint call to 14 a month from over 67 a month [the reduction is in the
number of calls complaining about the behaviour of call centre executives]. [good
start – giving Srinivasa part of the credit for reduction in complaints] Our customers
love brand. It is because we do what we promise them. I believe there should be a
boundary to what we say aim to strive given the resource and industry we work in. I
wish I could ask my associates to go beyond merely providing answers to the
customers’ appliance-related questions and even respond to their emotional needs
for acceptance, recognition, and companionship, but I know our associates can’t be
therapists. I will explain my rationale in below paragraphs. [again, a broadly welcome
move because you seem to agree with Srinivasa that his proposal is very good, but
the lack of resources stops you from implementing it.]
Firstly, in customer service sector, doing what is required itself is so tough. Time is
one of the most critical factors we fight for. Time not only depends on total number of
customers but also how much time they spent. We have been able to reduce amount
of time and number of customers calling to us. If we move ahead with your
suggestion, we will have to expand our facility beyond budgeted. This will impact our
brand perception in customer’s image very negatively. [Not clear why expanding the
call centre facility beyond the budgeted size would impact brand perception of the
company.]
Secondly, even though we have been able to train our associates for our operations,
they are just not ready or capable enough to handle emotional needs. [Difficult to
understand how you come to this claim. We all deal with a variety of emotions
without any special training. Of course, showing empathy to strangers is difficult. But
you seem to raise the skill sets required to the level of those of a professional
therapist. Why not give it a try and see how well or badly the call centre executives
manage it?] Most of our customer service operation has been standardized both on
inputs and process fronts. Emotion is one need which has so much of variability that
even therapist practice it on one to one basis. I wish I could this, but planning
operations for such need is not possible.
Thirdly, we all have been through Prospect theory. It says loss is always much more
prominent than gain. In appliance related questions, we always one more chance to
nullify any of our wrong doings. When it comes to emotional needs, if we go wrong,
we won’t get another chance to correct, and its impact will also be much more. I think
even on risk front, this project way much riskier than benefits it may give. [Please
see comment above about exaggerating the skill level required. Here you are
exaggerating the risks involved. Let’s not forget that customers are extremely
unlikely to speak to the same call centre executive again to develop a personal

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relationship with anyone of them. What Srinivasa wants is an emotional connect
between the callers and whichever executive answers the call. No therapy is
provided by call centre executives.]
Fourthly, I agree that there is certain value in what you are envisaging [finally, some
grudging acknowledgement that Srinivasa may be asking for something very good
for the company and for its customers.] and some of the companies have been able
to do it. I am not saying that we don’t listen to our customers. We do listen to our
customers and establish an emotional connect with them. We have been trying to
provide for their needs and listen to their both emotional and functional problems.
[Oh! How can you make this claim after saying that it’s too expensive and too risky to
implement? Are you stealing his thunder?] It is only the later part of your idea that
suggests to start responding to those things that I find contentious.
I trust you with your judgement, and am ready to work with you on all the
assignments. [Good that you are offering to work with Srinivasa.] It is just for the
betterment of an organization and our customers that I have put the above.

6.5/10

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 (4)
Subject: Customer service – Change paradigm or not? [Subject line too broad. Your
email is about call centre service, not customer service in general.]
Hi Srinivas,
Trust you are well!!! [Please cut this out. It adds nothing to the email. It merely tells
the reader that you don’t know how to start your mail. You can, of course, start with
this phrase if you know your reader has been unwell and you haven’t been in contact
for a while.] I have been deliberating quite seriously over the discussion we had in
our previous meeting – Do we need to change the way our customer service agents
go about doing their work? Let me confess [unwise choice; we generally confess
things we are not proud of or are embarrassed about. If you want to persuade
Srinivasa, say something in the direction of, “I agree readily that...”], some of the
points you made were quite insightful and the instances you quoted did sound
convincing in the first go. I, however, would part company with you at this juncture
and for valid reasons [another unwise choice of words; do you generally disagree
with your boss for reasons that are not valid? Here you are likely to get into an
argument that is unlikely to lead to persuasion.].
Let me begin with the situation and challenges of a customer service team. Typically,
a customer service personnel must resolve complaints over telephone in an optimum
time frame and extending the time spent on resolving the queries can lead to a pile
up of cases pending for resolution. If we ask our agents to establish an emotional
rapport with the customer, the time agent takes to resolve queries will increase.
Increased call time will affect our margins and hike up our costs. Additionally, a high
waiting time not only reduces customer stickiness but also increases chances of
tension between the service team and customers. [The call durations will surely go
up; to keep the wait-time reasonable for other callers, the number of call centre
executives will have to go up. The costs will go up. But then the question is, what do
you get in return for the increased investment? If you make these customers lifetime-
customers, the payoff will more than compensate for the increased investment.]
Another point to keep in mind is that expecting agents to establish an emotional
connect could be equally distracting to our agents as well. Moreover, our agents are
not trained for psychological therapy, would it make sense for them to dish out life
advices to our customers? In my humble opinion – no, as it might lead to situations
where the agent might inadvertently end up emotionally scarring the customer. [Are
you creating a strawman so that you can shoot it down easily? You seem to treat
attempts at creating an emotional connect with callers the same as professional
therapy.] It will help to know that the number of complaints against customer care
were 67 a month around 18 months back just before I took up. Currently, the number
of complaints has dropped to 14. When the trend does show that things are
improving, do we need a change? [It’s not a change that is advocated. It’s an
enhancement of the relationship with the callers. The objective is to make them
happy by going beyond purely appliance-related interaction.] Emotional connect
may have worked in some cases, will it work for the business and the geographical

9
segment we operate in? [Why not? Shouldn’t we find out rather than reject it out of
hand?]
We are doing good, however anything good can still be made better. [Precisely!]
Currently, our customer care agents keep the conversation short and business like.
We should deliberate on further improving the interaction that happens between
agents and customers. A change could include further training, change in the mode
of interaction, and personalizing the experience for each customer. Now
personalizing customer experience requires understanding customer requirements,
segmenting customers, and modifying the nature of interaction that happens
between agents and the customer. [Not clear what the thrust of this paragraph is.]
I have full faith in your judgement and have thoroughly enjoyed working under you. I
firmly believe that we should continue to work towards the goal of ensuring complete
customer satisfaction. Please let me know if we need to discuss regarding agent re-
training and rework the dynamics of customer engagement. I would be willing to
discuss with all required data. [This is a very good, conciliatory move.]

6/10

10
 (5)

Subject: Opinion on[unnecessary; cut it out] the proposed approach in the call center
to enhance our Brand Perception

Hello Mr. Srinivasa,

Good Morning! [Ask yourself whether this is an appropriate greeting in an email.

Obviously, you are writing in the morning. You have no idea when and where
Srinivasa will read it. Perhaps in the morning. Perhaps in the afternoon. Perhaps on
his way back home in the evening. Perhaps at night. It’s best to cut out this kind of
greetings. An appropriate salutation is all that is required by way of greetings. Then
just come to the point.]

Please accept my sincere apologies for the two occasions that we had an intense
discussion on the new proposal without being able to reach a final agreement.
[Excellent start. You rarely lose anything by apologizing; you often create a
conducive environment by doing so.]

Ever since I left your office, I have been thinking on the suggested approach to
increase the Brand perception of our white goods by making our customer care
associates take a more friendly and accommodative approach. With deep reflection
on the matter, I now completely understand your perspective and admire your
constant emphasis on continuous improvement within the company, which has
pushed us to achieve excellent results in the past and present. [Again, an excellent
move. You appreciate the logic behind Srinivasa’s proposal and insistence. You also
give him credit for some of your achievements.]

I agree with your view that the above approach would make the customers feel at
ease and help create a lasting impression in the mind of our customers, thus
enhancing our brand perception. However, there are a couple of challenges that we
first need to understand and study before we can implement such an approach.
[Now Srinivasa will be ready to listen to you. He doesn’t think that his proposal is
easy to implement. Once he becomes more aware of the challenges involved in
implementing the proposal, he may be willing to change his mind about what change
should happen when in the call centre.]

Our call center associates have been strictly asked to follow the set guidelines and
SOP’s established in the past year, which has greatly helped us to increase our
efficiencies and reduce customer complaints. Any sudden deviation would confuse
the associates. Since each customer is different, their needs and wants will be
different too. Without the presence of some standards, the way each of our
operatives would handle a single customer will be very different and at times, could
end up irritating the customers. Moreover, our associates work on minimum wages
and are not yet trained to handle the kinds of emotional needs that a customer could
pose. Also, attending to the emotional needs of the customers would increase the
average call duration and the customer waiting time too. We would have to hire more
employees to accommodate this change.

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[Yes, agreed. So, what next? Incomplete. Your otherwise excellent email ends
abruptly without any indication of what you may be able to do to meet the challenge.
If the objective is worth pursuing - that is what you concede - you should find a way
to achieve it.]

6.5/10

12
 (6)
Sub: Improvements to the Customer Service Call Centre Model [Specific, neutral;
good subject line]

Hello Srinivasa,

Hope you are doing well! [Cut this out. Please see Mail 4 above for the reason]

As pursuant to our continuous discussion on the new operating model for Customer
Service Call Centre, I still believe that the suggested changes will be detrimental to
the performance of the division. [A clear and honest statement of your position up
front. Unfortunately, not a smart move when your objective is to influence your target
who believes firmly in the opposite view.] As you know, we had implemented a new
training program 18 months ago to establish a reliable standard while communicating
with our customers. Due to this, we have seen the customer complaints about our
associates come down from 67 per month to 18 per month. This has additionally
resulted in the reduction of wait-time for customers while also increasing their
satisfaction with our services. The customers have given us positive feedback on our
business-like approach in solving their problems. The proposed changes will reverse
the improvements that have been made in the past year, and will hurt our brand in
the following ways:
• Most customers who call for our services just want to get their appliances
shortened out and are just looking for an effective, quick service. Engaging with them
on small talk and other miscellaneous activities defeats this whole purpose.
• Responding to the customer’s emotional needs is too much expectation from
a customer service representative. His job should be to solve the problem in an
efficient manner. Customer service associates would be unfairly given this burden for
which they currently aren’t appropriately compensated [the number of callers an
executive attends to may come down but the number of hours they work will not go
up] or trained [perhaps no special training is required to be open emotionally to the
callers; it’s just being human that Srinivasa expects.] It is also unreasonable for us to
expect that a customer care associate can handle the job of a therapist. [You are
exaggerating the requirements.]
• Even, if we do decide to train the associates for this new program, the
additional cost of training won’t justify the increase in brand perception or recognition
that we might get from this program. [You’re too categorical and dismissive about the
impact of an emotional connect between call centre executives and customers who
call.]
• Quantitively, it will also be hard to measure the effectiveness and the
efficiency of the associates in the new program. E.g.: If an associate spends 2 hours
with a customer responding to his emotional need, I don’t know if that would be a
good thing or a bad thing.

I do understand that customer service is one of the most meaningful and effective
ways to build long-term customer relationships and there is always a scope of
improvement to the current model. Thus, I propose the following changes to build a
healthier relationship with our customers:
• Follow-up with our customers after 48 hours to check if the issue for which
they had contacted us has been resolved, and if any additional support would be
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required from our side. A feedback about their interaction with our associate can be
taken as well.
• Contact our new customers 14 days after purchase of their goods to see if
they are satisfied with their product, and if they have any suggestions on improving
it.
• Proactively, contact our customers about any offers or discounts that they
may be interested in. [Your suggestions also will require additional manpower. But
that’s not the problem. While your proposals are very good, they can’t be a substitute
for Srinivasa’s proposal. Your proposals are narrowly focused on the appliances
customers may want to buy or have already bought; Srinivasa’s proposal is about
establishing an emotional connect with the customers who call. One doesn’t replace
the other.]

I believe that these suggested options are more feasible for the long-term growth of
the brand and ties up with our corporate strategy as well. [You have stated your
belief. Srinivasa has a different set of beliefs. While you have articulated your belief
excellently, there hasn’t been any attempt to persuade Srinivasa. What we see in
this email is a repeat of the inconclusive oral arguments you had with him.]

Hoping to hear your thoughts on the same.

5.5/10

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 (7)
Subject: - Customer Service Call Centre Strategy [a little intriguing but short and
neutral subject line – good]

Dear Murthy,

I appreciate your thoughts on changing our customer call centre approach towards
our customers. [Good start] We are still not well prepared to handle the existing
customer base. Currently we still receive 14 complaints a month on customer care
centre[not clear what you mean by this. The complaints mentioned in the case are
about the call centre / behaviour of call centre executives]. We cannot afford to have
any unsatisfactory customer who calls us to get his / her queries resolved in the best
possible time. While we are still a long way to go in this direction, a new shift in
strategy could derail our operational efficiency of call centre operations. [After a
promising start in the first sentence you come too quickly to problems associated
with Srinivasa’s proposal.]

Our call centre team, though educated and capable of handling queries related to
various products in our portfolio, is not well equipped to handle conversations that
need a great degree of emotional quotient [perhaps not! We all connect with many
people emotionally, don’t be? What kind of EQ training do we have?]. We also need
to ensure that our service quality is not hampered by the length of the calls that
would be a prerequisite for the service capability you suggest.

If we indeed go with a new strategy of listening to our customers’ emotional needs

and have conversations beyond the service requirements, we could end up having
several customers who could be hurt due to lack of service. Such dissatisfaction
leads to a bad day in customer’s life. Customers could indeed lose emotional
connect with our brand in the long run. [You are too dismissive. You haven’t explored
any ways of implementing Srinivasa’s idea but are quick to dismiss it as unworkable
or, worse, unhealthy for the brand image.] Imagine a busy woman or a man in mid
30s (our typical caller) not getting service due to our shift in call centre strategy. They
would love to resolve their queries on time. They would not want a damaged
microwave or TV or AC bothering them while at work or spending time with family.
[Why would they not get prompt service? If the average call duration goes up,
perhaps we should explore hiring more people.]

Going forward, we can definitely adopt a more customer centric approach in

conversing with our customers but cannot cross the boundaries especially when our
customer service team is not trained enough to handle complex emotional queries.
We can be more friendly; we can wish them a happy day. But, as mentioned above,
any shift in our approach beyond this would only lead to more unhappy customers.
We want our customers to be happily associated with our brand.

Would continue to work towards the happiness of our customers, as always. Would
like to hear from you regarding my proposal to enhance the service experience. [I
can’t see your proposal in your email. Is it about the general promise of adopting “a
more customer centric approach”? Or is it wishing every caller happy day?]

15
[Unlikely to persuade Srinivasa to change his mind.]

5.5/10

16
 (8)
From: XXXX

To: Srinivasa Murthy

SUBJECT- Regarding the initiative to reconstruct [meaning?] the approach of call

centre associated [associates]

Dear Murthy,

This mail is pertaining to the on going discussion on the initiative proposed by

yourself to reconstruct the approach of our associated such as to be chattier,
friendlier and more personal in their approach during their interaction with the
customer to established a positive perception of brand.[You’ve captured the context
of the email correctly. But a less stilted language will make it easier for the reader to
process it. Example: This email is about your proposal to train our call centre
associates to be chattier, friendlier, and more personal when they interact with
customers.]

After the last discussion that we had, I tried to analyse our call centre operation on
various parameter to better understand the better approach for the initiative. First, I
tried to understand the call that we received from the customer a.) when a customer
want report about any malfunction which contribute to around 65% of total call
received b.) when a customer wants to understand the about function in our product
which contribute 20% c.) when a customer wants to know about the new product
which covers the rest. In all those cases when a customer makes a call either he is
disappointed about the product or he wants quick and direct information. So, in all
the scenario expect us to provide the more concrete information in a direct manner
to address his queries as all the call received are more of functional quality because
of the product that we offer in the market.

Second, I analysed the call duration for the different type of call that we receive in
our call centre. Major call that are above that average call duration are from the
customers who call to report the malfunction and want a resolve the issue. In the
past 18 month we have adopted the approach to provide the solution to those
customers as fast as possible to have the direct and focussed communication which
has helped us to reduce the customer complaints about the call centre associates
from 67 a month to 14 a month. This direct and focussed communication approach
has also worked for us in reducing the waiting time for the customer without incurring
any major capital investment.

Third, I try to gauge the interest of our caller from our previous feedback reports. I
could not find significant number of callers requiring friendlier approach while most of
callers have in low waiting time and complain handling time.

Admitting ,the friendlier, chattier, and more personal approach will definitely help us
to connect with the customer and develop inter-personal skills of our associate but at
the same time it is expected to increase the call waiting time for the customer which

17
might increase the customer complaint as well if we will investment in additional
capacity.
In the light of above-mentioned point, I could not able to gain the confidence that this
initiative will help us to established a positive perception about brand. So I will
propose if we can start this initiatives as pilot project selecting few call centre
associate to train them to be more friendlier and more personal in their apporach
rather them implementing the idea throughout the customer service centre.

This pilot project will help us the check the impact of this new apporach on
customers perspective as well as on our other performance parameters.

Thank You for your time and consideration.

[Very likely to persuade Srinivasa to support the pilot project you have proposed
assuming that he will have had the patience to read through to paragraph 5. The
pilot project will help both the parties go beyond their beliefs and take a pragmatic
decision. This mail would have been far more persuasive if you had made the
concession – that the friendlier, chattier, and more personal conversations between
call centre executives and customers who call in may result in an emotional connect
between the company and its customers – right at the start. That would have made
Srinivasa more receptive to the problems associated with his proposal that you
present so well.]

[The language of this email is good enough for Srinivasa to understand the contents
without any difficulty. However, I recommend that you edit the language of your text
before you press the send button. Language errors create in the reader a poor
impression about the writer even when they don’t cause any difficulty in
understanding the meaning. They may dent the credibility of the ideas presented
especially when they are found in matter written by senior managers. Perhaps unfair,
but it’s difficult to change our readers; it’s simpler and safer to ensure that our writing
is grammatically and stylistically appropriate.]

8/10

18
 (9)
Sub: Continuous improvements to Customer service [subject line too general]

Dear Srinivasa,

Hope this email finds you well. [Cut this out! The reason for this suggestion is
explained in email number 4.] I understand from our previous interactions that you
had a great experience in the US conference and seek to implement some of the
ideas in our customer service team. I welcome your ideas and am happy to work on
these together, but would like to put forth some of my concerns. I [very good
introduction. It should help Srinivasa be more receptive when he reads your
concerns.]
As you are aware, we have established a reliable standard of communication of
service agents with our customers over the past 18 months through systematic
appraisal and training, slashing the number of complaints to a fifth. Being brief and
business like while also being helpful has improved our engagement with customers
while also reducing the wait time, thus increasing customer satisfaction.
The changes suggested by you to be more empathetic in conversations with
customers and going beyond the transactional aspects are well received. However, I
would like to potray the context of these changes and then discuss this further.
• The customer service agents are not trained therapists, and may not be able
to handle the variety of emotional responses of customers. [Aren’t you are
exaggerating the requirements?]
• As the emotional state of customers are only partially perceptible to the
service agent over phone, it is possible that the service agents’ responses lead to
unintended consequences. [Like what? Let’s not forget that while a few customers
may want someone to vent their emotions safely to, they don’t think they are
approaching a therapist when they dial the call centre.]
• Also, getting involved beyond the functional aspects will lead to higher wait
times for customers unless we invest in additional resources, leading to cost
overruns for a low margin business like ours. [Think not only of the narrow call centre
service but also of the customer service of the entire company. If an emotional
connect is established with quite a few customers and they become lifelong
customers and apostles, isn’t the extra investment worth it?]
• Consequent to our last 2 meetings, I have been following up on the needs of
customers. Our date from monitoring these calls indicate that majority of customers
are calling up just to resolve their functional needs of product or service. Going
beyond the functional needs often makes customers perceive the agents as intruding
in their private lives, and invites undesired responses. [This is your preconceived
notion. The call centre executives have not asked any such questions so far for you
to arrive at the likely response from customers. A customer can hang up any time
without any adverse consequences for themselves. They can redial the call centre
number and they will be taken to a different executive by default.]
• In the customer service industry, there have been examples of unintended
circumstances when engaging in emotional needs make the customers dependent
on customer service agents who may not be capable to resolve them

The plan to make customer service agents empathetic towards customers and
respond beyond transactional needs of callers thus entails significant risks for our
19
organisation. [Like what? You make general claims without any evidence or specific
illustration.]

To make customers feel more engaged, we are training our agents to be good
listeners and have welcoming voices while also being adept at resolving the
functional needs of our customers. I believe it is in the interests of our business to
continue the current program targeted at reducing wait times and providing solutions
to customers while also being helpful. [You cling to current practice and are unwilling
to look beyond current success.]

I urge you to look at these aspects in the context of our organisation’s strategic
priorities. We can meet to discuss this further to strengthen our brand through
excellent customer service.

6/10

20
 (10)
Subject: Furthering the discussion about improving customer experience [focus on
the call centre!]

Hello Srinivasa,

I hope you are doing well. [Cut this out! See email number 4 for the reason why it
may not be a good way to start your email.] I have mulled over our discussion we
had the other day and I am aware of your passion to serve our customers. It is this
very passion that has become a benchmark for my team and me for customer
centricity and motivating us to do better every day. [Good attempt at smoothing
Srinivasa’s ruffled feathers.] After our previous discussion, I have mulled over you
viewpoint and your arguments and I am able to understand your point of view that a
‘By ensuring that we understand our customer emotional needs will make them
happy and satisfied customer which will lead her/him purchase our other products ’.
Although the idea is good I still feel that in our line of business overall customer
satisfaction be driven by how quickly and effectively you address the concern of our
customer rather than taking a long time and serving customer emotional and service
needs. [Pretty good start. You give Srinivasa his due before you summarize your
belief.]

Firstly, our customers usually call in if they are having difficulty in operating their
product if there is any problem in it to register a service request. This means that our
service is a “grudge service” which means that the customer is using our service
because one of our products is not working as per customer expectation. So
customers expect a quick solution so that they can be on their way. Taking a longer
time to understand customer emotional needs might act counterproductive and could
increase customer stress levels. [This is your interpretation of what is likely to
happen when a customer unhappy with one of the company’s products calls in. It
needn’t be the way they respond if call centre executives are able to establish an
emotional connect with them through their conversation]. This could lead to brand
image damage and customer not using our product or services again. This will
increase customer complaints which we as a team worked very hard to reduce.

Secondly, to service customers' emotional needs the calls are going to take longer
than the current baseline which is, in turn, going to increase the wait time for our
customers resulting in angry customers. This would be counterproductive to our
efforts to improve customer satisfaction. We could increase our call center staff size
to handle the delay in calls but that would require additional salaries and a lead time
to ramp up our skills. This will increase our costs and training efforts and reduce our
overall business profitability. [This appears to be a narrow characterization of the
cost of hiring additional resources. Yes, the call centre operations may cost more but
if many callers become lifetime customers of the company, the additional cost can
easily be absorbed as investment in business development.]

Thirdly, our employees are not trained or equipped to handle customer emotional
needs, if improper handling is done it could affect the customer's emotional state and
lead to serious implications to the reputations of our brand. [Vague and general
threat of negative consequences without any evidence] We could try to train our
21
employees to handle such situations but I am not confident about the effectiveness
of such training because EQ is much difficult to gain than IQ. Additionally, this is
going to add costs to our business decreasing the profitability of the business
[somehow you make the introduction of emotional connect with customers so very
specialized and sophisticated!]

Fourthly, currently addressing the emotional needs of the customer cannot be

standardized which could lead to varied responses by our employees to customer
needs. This will lead to varied customer experience from good to bad which could
lead to a mixed response to our service and not improve the overall brand image as
we expected. [Your faith in standardization of call centre conversations is intriguing.
After all, customers are not standardized, are they?]

Finally, the customers you are mentioning are usually very few in number and in our
effort to provide all customers a high level of service we might lose track of who we
are and what we do. This will divert the attention of our staff from our core
responsibility. [This criticism is strange. No one wants to impose any emotional
conversation on any customers. Let’s not forget that the caller is absolutely free to
hang up without any adverse consequences for themselves if they don’t like the
executive they are talking to or the direction of the conversation they have been
drawn into.]

In total, I do agree to your view that we need to understand our customers need
better to service them better but to serve their emotional needs is best left to experts
who can handle them correctly both for the betterment of customers and the
business. Hope you agree with my assessment. I am always open to having further
discussion on the topic. [Over 600 words; way above the word limit; there will be a
subgrade penalty]

[You start very well. You also articulate your beliefs very well. But the chances of this
mail changing Srinivasa’s mind are very limited.]

6/10

22
 (11)
[subject line?]

Dear Srinivasa,

Thank you for your idea to improve customer centricity. Though I have my own
apprehensions [such as?] in the customer service team being more friendly and
chatty with customers, since there are cultural differences between us and the US
customers, I will make sure that our Learning and Development team crafts a
training program for the team.

We will implement the learnings as a pilot and let you know the results. Based on
that, we shall take a concrete final decision.

[This micro mini mail covers everything that’s needed in a persuasive email: (i)
acknowledgement that Srinivasa’s proposal is to improve customer centricity, (ii)
indication of the writer’s concern/apprehension about the proposal, (ii) offer to get a
training program crafted for the new challenging assignment, (iv) proposal of a pilot
project, and (vi) finally, promising final decision-making based on the outcome of the
project. And yet, it’s too short to be persuasive enough. It doesn’t give Srinivasa a
fairly good idea of your apprehensions. Without it, it’s difficult for him to figure out
what kind of training programme you will get designed by the L&D team. If, as a
result, an inappropriate training program is designed and implemented, the project
may not really test the efficacy of Srinivasa’s proposal.]

7/10

23
 (12)
Subject: Effective and trusted Customer Service [subject line too broad]

Sir,

With reference to our earlier conversations, I have collected my thoughts for final
perusal. I have tried to evaluate your request to behave friendlier and beyond solving
product issues from me and my team. The following are my sincere concerns going
forward with it and would request further deliberation.

Under-qualified customer representatives: My team is experienced in handling

complaints of a product malfunction or similar technical issues. The expectations
from them to understand the wide variety of emotional problems an individual can
face is far fetched. I have worked for many years in this industry and I would advise
you against further burdening the representatives that get shouted at most part of the
day. The emotional turmoil for modest remuneration already puts a toll on
recruitment and retention of employees in the job market. [Untrained or
underqualified Call Centre executives may be unable to deal with technical issues.
Emotions belong to a more fundamental category that everyone is familiar with. It is
a little strange that you consider trying to build an emotional connect with callers a
burden that requires additional remuneration. Is being human something that
requires costly special training?]

Efficacy Training: Through hard work of over a year, my staff is trained in being
efficient and resolving the complaints in a timely manner through good
communication. The brevity of conversation is a reflection of the staff’s product
understanding, following SOPs and personal conversation style. This investment has
to be utilized with the current batch of employees and sudden retraining will be
wasteful and confusing. [Why do you call the retraining wasteful? The goal of
establishing an emotional connect with the callers is in addition to the efficient
resolution of technical problems presented by the callers.]

Shortage of staff: The friendlier conversational way of customer service definitely will
consume additional time at the expense of other calls. Thus total call serviced per
hour will fall leading to piling of complaints. Thus the number of personnel will have
to be increased leading to strain on other resources such as office space. [This is an
extremely narrow view of the costs of an operation. They should be judged by the
returns. It’s well known that some departments are cost centres. Their returns are
reflected in other departments. Here, for example, the increased costs of call centre
operations may lead to a substantial reduction in the costs of the company’s
customer acquisition and retention.]

My job is to collect valuable information about any pressing concerns and route to
appropriate people, track contacts and create product awareness. In a white goods
purchase, repeat customers are rare as the purchase is a big-ticket thus there is not
much value in maintaining long term relationships with a single customer. [Again, this
seems to be a narrow view of customer relations. It’s true that even an extremely
happy customer will not come back to buy a new fridge or television set every 6
months; but a delighted customer often becomes a brand’s apostle and brings in
24
new customers through passionate recommendations. This is in addition to buying
other products from the same stable.] The strategy for such a market segment is
quick redressal as it causes inconvenience to daily life workings.

I hope to have cleared my points of contentions and understand that change is part
of the fast-changing economy. [It is one thing to articulate one’s concerns and quite a
different thing to persuade another individual, in this case, your CEO.] The overall
strategy for the company is your prerogative and hence I understand your concern is
well minded. The other concerns as monetization of extra time, privacy issues and
branding are though not directly my concerns, I believe you will consider them all
before deciding the way forward. On my part, Ihope for us to have further
discussions such that I and my team contribute to the company’s strategy. [In spite
of differences of opinion, you indicate your willingness to go along with your CEO’s
vision. While the offer to cooperate with him once he decides on a course of action is
sound, you are expected to persuade him to change his view of what you should do.]
[Although you have articulated your concerns very well, I’m not sure you have
succeeded in persuading Srinivasa to change his mind.]

5.5/10

25
 (13)
Subject: initiative around restructuring [?] call centre associates

Dear Srinivasa,

Our conversation a few days ago regarding your takeaways from the international
conference in New York was indeed interesting and got me thinking in a lot of ways,
afterall the whole purpose of such conferences is the meeting of minds and learning
from others to collaborate on industry best practices. One idea that stuck [struck] me
in particular was your idea about our customer care agents [call centre
associates/executives] being more receptive and friendly. [Very good start.] I
personally have taken tremendous interest in the topic ever since I took over 18
months ago.[Not clear how you connect the two: Srinivasa’s idea of making call
centre executives friendlier, chattier, and more personal and what you have been
trying to do during the last 18 months. You seem to imply that they are the same, but
the fact is that they are not. In the next sentence you make clear why there is greater
customer satisfaction now: customers can get connected to a call centre executive
faster than in the past.] In the past 18 months, we have been able to considerably
reduce the time that the customers have to hold before one of our executives attends
to them, this has resulted in greater customer satisfaction. Our customer service
agents have gone through extensive trainings to achieve this and are finally starting
to get comfortable to this style of being brief and formal while also polite and friendly.
A change in behavior to such a great degree will end up confusing both our customer
care agents as well as the customers. [Although you imply something different at the
start, what you want to say is that your call centre executives are doing a fine job and
that trying to change their behaviour will end up confusing both the executives
themselves and the customers who call.]

I am sure you would agree with me that the business that we are in, i.e. white goods,
the customers call in to get a lot of technical information very quickly which often
swings their purchase decisions in our favor. Long queue times, which may result
due to long friendly calls with the previous customers will potentially even swing the
customer decision in the other direction. [Narrow view of the function of the call
centre. If friendly calls become long but help in cementing an emotional connect
between the company and its customers, it may be worthwhile to employ more call
centre executives to keep the call-wait time reasonable.]

Fortunately, our business is growing rapidly, however, that brings with it the
challenges of having a bigger customer care unit with it. We are barely able to meet
the current requirements and all our customer services agents are working very hard
to give their best shot. I believe, we can talk at this point in time about expansion,
looking at the business projections, we can perhaps hire more agents and train them
as per the current norm, i.e. short friendly calls, however, we may look at hiring
additional professionals who can handle distress situations and train our customer
service agents to recognize when a customer may want to indulge in a long
conversation, ultimately to transfer the calls to these new professionals whose sole
job may be to talk to customers and fulfil their emotional needs. [This 90-word giant
sentence is not really a sentence but a collection of clauses which have been thrown
in together. As a result, it’s difficult to process it. You are suggesting that the
26
company hire “new professionals whose sole job may be to talk to customers and
fulfil their emotional needs.” Why should a white goods company provide this
unrelated service? If such a service is good for the company, why shouldn’t all call
centre executives try to provide it?]

I do recognize that if the international community recognizes the merit that chattier
customer care executives bring to the table, the idea is worth considering, however,
we need to very carefully analyse the success stories in its entire eco system,
including the industry that these call centres would cater to and the geographies in
which they operate. This would help us identifying the customer behavior and
determining whether the customer needs vary from segment to segment, country to
country or even from business to business. [Not clear what your focus is on. Do you
want to adopt this practice only after everyone else has done so? You had a
wonderful opportunity to propose an experimental project to study various aspects
including its cost effectiveness. But you didn’t take it up.]

Let us please talk more on this topic and see if a new specialized work force is
something viable to us at this growth stage of the company. [ “A new specialized
work force” is not what Srinivasa proposed. In any case, a third discussion between
the two of you is unlikely to lead to clear answers.]

[You tend to write in long sentences that are not grammatically connected. One often
must read the sentence a second time to figure out the meaning. I suggest you
reduce the length of sentences and use appropriate connectors between clauses
and between sentences to make it easy for the reader to process your writing.]

5.5/10

27
 (14)
Subject: Regarding the initiative of making the call center associates friendlier,
chattier. [Very good subject line: short, clear, neutral, and specific. You can make it
even shorter by knocking off the first four words, “Regarding the initiative of.” Never
begin your subject line with the word, “Regarding” because it is redundant. The email
is about (that is, regarding) what is announced in the heading or in the box reserved
for the subject.]

Dear Srinivas Murthy,

This email is about the recent request of making the call center associates friendlier,
chattier, and more personal to establish a positive perception of the brand in the
minds and hearts of the customer. I completely understand the rationale behind the
initiative. It intends to provide a superior service to the customer through personal
bonding, which helps the organization to establish a long-term association with the
customers. [Very good start. You have concisely captured the essence of Srinivasa’s
proposal.] While the idea is excellent, we should also consider the downsides of
taking this route. [Fair enough. Srinivasa doesn’t expect his proposal to be
something that can be implemented without any difficulty. He will be willing to
consider problems associated with its implementation. However, you spoil the flow
by promptly rejecting it in the next sentence. You fall back on your belief rather than
evidence and call his proposal a detour.] I firmly believe that the organization would
do better by not taking this detour and instead retain the existing methods of
handling the customers.

As a customer service call center, our business thrives on the loyal customers who
look up to us for any grievances associated while using white goods products. Such
loyal customers tend to come back and avail of our services frequently. To gain trust,
we need to ensure that we provide accurate and quick services to these loyal
customers. While we provide correct responses, we have also taken a longer
duration to resolve issues, which has considerably increased the waiting time.
Increasing waiting times have frustrated the customers in the past, who have
stopped availing our services.

To address the customers’ concerns on waiting time, we have taken several

initiatives, which have started to yield results. We have modified performance
appraisal systems, which incentivizes the agents to be brief and quick in responding
to the customers. Customer wait time is reduced by ~80% over 18 months without
any impact on the quality of service. [Instead of talking about “the downsides” of
Srinivasa’s proposal, you get into a description of the initiatives you took to deal with
the problems the customers used to experience while contacting your call centre.]

This initiative [What initiative? You have been talking about your initiatives to make
the call centre better.] will have long term repercussions on both the customer care
representative and the customers. Hearing out to the personal grievances of the
customers will take a significant toll on the mental health of the customer care
representatives. Our representatives are neither trained nor equipped to provide
social therapeutic sessions. The attrition rate may increase. It is at alarming levels
right now and may breach the standards where the whole business can become
28
unsustainable. [Such exaggeration destroys the credibility of your position.]
Customer service agents are paid based on the number of calls they handle every
day. This new initiative will disincentivize the customer agents, which could lead to a
high attrition rate. [What is sacrosanct about the number of calls the executives
handle? When the objectives change, it doesn’t make sense to retain the old norms
of assessment, does it?]

Customers call us for quick, efficient service. If the customer care representative
starts responding by asking as to how they are and what they think or feel about, it
would just turn off the customer. It may even deter the customer from taking our
services in the future. [You are sticking to a narrow interpretation of what Srinivasa
would expect the call centre executive to do. What if they resolve the caller’s issue
quickly and efficiently before initiating a friendly chat? After all, the customer can
hang up any time they like without any adverse consequences for themselves. They
don’t have to justify their action to anyone. In other words, the call centre executive
can’t impose themselves on a customer who calls in.]
We have been working very hard to improve the operational efficiency by reducing
the waiting time, without compromising on the quality of the service. In the best
interests of both the customers and the organization, we should continue with the
existing methods of handling the customer care service. [This is so unambitious! It’s
so hard to look beyond what is working well in search of something even better.]

5.5/10

29
 (15)
From: XXXX

To: Srinivasa Murthy, CEO

Subject: Importance of continuing our current in-house customer service system

[there are two problems with this subject line. First, it’s too broad; the email is not
about the company’s “current in-house customer service system” but about its in-
house call centre service. Second, it’s completely one-sided. While it is an honest
subject line, it is not a smart one when your objective is to persuade someone who
holds the opposite view. It is best to keep the subject line brief, specific, and neutral.]

Dear Srinivas,

I'm writing this regarding our conversation on changing the company’s customer
service philosophy. Before I go any further, I must admit that such unconventional
ideas from you have been one of the driving forces for the success of this company,
and I derive my job satisfaction from working with you on many such ideas and
implementing them. While I have enjoyed them, the one on changing our customer
service focus to be chattier from that of business conversation is not an ideal venture
now. [Excellent start. You could, however, have toned the last sentence of the
paragraph down by sounding a little tentative rather than categorical.]

You must be aware that the customer service team has recently undergone an 18-
month rigorous change to learn and up-skill, resulting in an 80% reduction of
customer complaints. [These are complaints about the behavior of the call Centre
executives, not about the products of the company.] The achievement is no mean
feat and it required behavioral as well as procedural changes by associates. We
have established standard operating procedures that have significantly reduced call-
in and wait times, lowering costs and improving customer satisfaction. Another shift
in philosophy very soon will take its toll on associates, resulting in high employee
turn-over. The huge investments we made to realize these benefits will all go in vain.
[This is highly exaggerated. Why do you look at Srinivasa’s proposal as an either/or
issue? Couldn’t the associates be encouraged to be chattier after resolving the
caller’s appliance-related complaint?]

Many of our current associates may not have the competency to be chattier and
friendlier, and we might have to retrench a significant number of our executives. It
will be a difficult pill for them to swallow and may even result in adverse publicity for
the company. We must hire new associates with different skill sets, increasing our
costs. The interim period will significantly lower our customer service standards and
it will be challenging to earn the customer trust again. [This is a continuation of the
either/or approach in the previous paragraph. It also continues the gross
exaggeration in the previous paragraph.]

By being friendlier, a customer service executive may be able to cross-sell in a

services company but not in ours. Most of our customers’ call is to raise a complaint
or request a service call at home. With a chattier customer service, our call times are
going to shoot up again and so will the wait times, resulting in a dwindling customer
30
service rating.[You seem to assume that you will have to run the call centre without
any additional manpower. Why not hire more associates if it is worthwhile to work
towards building an emotional connect with the customers? The associate doesn’t
have to cross-sell other products of the company. If a customer has a deep
emotional connect with the company/brand, they will tend not only to buy other
products with the same brand name but also act as apostles of the brand
encouraging their friends and neighbors also to buy products of the same brand.]

I feel the companionship model might be irrelevant in our country. As you know, the
social fabric of our country is still quite strong even in urban areas and is not the
same as in the US, where most of the people live alone and look for companionship.
Hence, this requirement of having a friend and a companion through a customer
service executive may not find many fans in our country. [Valid observation
regarding the cultural differences between US and India. But most of us love to chat
with those who want to engage us emotionally.] There are many disadvantages of
the new model such as the possibility of increased prank calls, incompetence of an
executive to have a therapeutic effect when compared with trained counselor, short-
lived nature of customer’s appreciation of a companion in such calls, catastrophic
risks associated with suggestions provided by our executives, who are not trained
and so on. [You seem to be wildly exaggerating the risks. You also equate chatty
and friendly conversation with psychotherapy.]

In this light, I would request you to reconsider this proposal on accounts of increased
cost, reduced customer satisfaction, short-term benefits, new risks, and painful
change. I reiterate that I am one of the big fans of your unconventional thinking, but I
have my reservations with this one. Having said that, if you still wish to go ahead
with the idea, I will make sure that the plan gets implemented in the best way
possible.[Reassuring offer of cooperation rather than threat of confrontation after
flagging your concerns regarding this proposal. Very good.]

Thank you for your time, and hope to hear from you soon.

7/10

31
 (16)
Subject: Revamping behaviour of customer service associates [brief, neutral subject
line; good, but too broad – your email is about call centre executives, not customer
service associates in general]
Dear Srinivasa
Hope you are doing good! [Cut this out!]
In relation to your proposal regarding possibility of making our customer service
associates friendlier, chattier and more personal with customers to enhance the
brand perception and recognition, I have dug deep into the proposal and based on
my research I have concluded that modifying the behaviour of our customer
associate would not be in the best interest of company and our esteemed customers.
[Very honest and clear statement of your position right at the start. Unfortunately, it’s
not the right place when you want to persuade your target who holds a diametrically
opposite view. If you want to start with the statement of your position, it’s good to
sound tentative rather than categorical. If it’s categorical there is no point in going
forward.]
I understand your enthusiasm based on your experience with friendlier, chattier and
more personal customer services in USA, however, allow me to point out that, there
is a substantial cultural difference in customers’ needs between USA and India. [The
conference Srinivasa attended for was held in the US but it was an international one.
The newspaper article, however, covers only American experience.] Based on
several cultural and research studies from leading institute such as IIMA, the
customers in USA prefer more personal approach from customer services, whereas,
the customers in India expect quick and succinct responses from customer service.
Indian customers are generally impatient and annoyed when their equipment is not
operating as desired or when they have failed to use the equipment. And, as you are
aware, 90% of our callers belong to that category. [That a process is going very well
with all-round satisfaction is no reason why no attempt should be made to discover
or develop something better. Many innovations go way beyond the expectations of
the customers. The first iPhone, for example.]
Moving on, I do feel that as an innovative and dynamic organisation we should be
open to new ideas. Hence, in order to assess the effectiveness of your proposal, I
propose that we do a pilot project with a team of 50 associates and 2 team leaders.
Prior to beginning of this study, these associates will attend a 1-day training on
expectations from the programme and behaviour changes required from the. Our
inhouse behavioural expert has agreed to curate a programme on expected lines.
The pilot will be carried over a period of 3 months. Based on the success or failure of
pilot study, we can take decision at that stage. [Very good.]
I request you to provide necessary approvals for proposed plan and suggestions.
[The rest of the email doesn’t belong here. They don’t add anything to the theme of
your email. And don’t forget that you are writing to your CEO, not to a customer who
may not be aware of your achievements. What you could consider doing is to give

32
additional indications of how you plan to go ahead with the pilot and possibly asking
him whether he would have any suggestions.]
I also take this opportunity to reiterate the milestones and achievements of our
customer service team in last few months and path ahead of us.
1. Our performance in terms of customer complaints [these are customer
complaints about the behaviour of call centre executives not about products.] per
month has significantly improved over last 18 months, dropping from 57 per month to
14 per month. This has been achieved after investing significant sum in the
behavioural and technical trainings of our associates. We are expecting even better
performance in coming months.
2. Last year we awarded over 50 associates for their professional conduct during
customer calls and providing successful resolutions for customer problems.
3. Over 30% of our workforce have received consistent 5 Stars in after call
feedbacks from customers in professionalism and providing quick resolution to
customers.
4. We have been awarded Best Customer Service Team Award for our
Professional Customer Service and Minimum Waiting Time categories in 2019.

7.75/10

33
 (17)
Sub : A call on new model for customer service call centre [good, concise, and
essentially neutral subject line]
Hi Srinivasa,
Thanks for your guidance and consultation for successful training program for our
call center executives. Due to establishment of new standards post training, we have
been able to reduce the customer complaint [these are customer complaints about
the call centre/behaviour of call centre executives not about products.] by 80% over
18 months period. This couldn’t have been possible without your support and trust
on me and my team. [Good start. Showing appreciation for your reader, even when
not fully justified or deserved, can still dispose them favourably to what you our
presenting.]
I went thru your new idea of changing our operations methods by being friendlier,
chattier, and more personal with customer as it may create positive perception of our
brand in customer’s mind. We both are believer of and committed to the highest level
of service to consumer and this is essential to any business. The proposed idea is
excellent; however, applicability of the idea is limited in our industry. We produce and
maintain functional products not the emotional one. This idea is more fruitful in
business where consumer is emotionally connected with the product not functionally.
[Fair enough. But if your purpose is to persuade your target whose view is
fundamentally different, it’s good to sound a little tentative. Instead of saying “the
idea is more fruitful in business…” you could say, “the idea is likely to be more fruitful
in…”]
Better brand perception in our business comes from solving the customer’s problem
as soon as possible and “speed is the king” in our industry. We have already put
humongous efforts together training and optimizing the workforce to achieve speed
with accuracy through functional customer care support service and results are
pretty impressive with only 14 complaints a month while it used to be 67 just 1.5
years back. We are in white goods business and consumer is connected more with
functional aspect rather than emotional one.
Additionally, I put the idea to the other managers and some ground staff in customer
care division and asked how they think about it and response was that whenever
they speak on functional note with being precise and concise in their approach,
customers feel more connected and “Satisfied” as that’s the desired way of
functioning for this industry. [The last two paragraphs present your current thinking
and beliefs as well as those of your colleagues. Srinivasa is asking you to leave your
comfort zone and explore a different way of looking at engaging with the customers
who call in. That the current way of doing things is working well is no reason why
other ways, which may turn out to be even better, should not be explored.]
Undoubtedly, nothing is beyond the customer [not clear what you mean by this] and
there are multiple ways to provide the seamless customer experience and it
definitely establishes a positive perception of the brand in the minds and hearts of

34
the customers. We need to understand that each industry has different way of
functioning because of difference in customer demand and brand perception.
We are already exercising the essence of the idea to the core of our service in the
best possible way for our customer [You display a tendency to cling to the present
and consider it the best possible; you seem to be unwilling to explore other
possibilities. If you have had two heated arguments with Srinivasa about his
proposal, it is unlikely that what is currently being done captures the essence of
Srinivasa’s proposal] and that’s really helping our brand to have better image with
our customers. Certainly, in some rare cases, if customers are willing to engage
more emotionally, our workforce will engage to the greater personal level to have
that connect as well. However, if we implement the idea, there will be longer wait
listing for the frustrated customers in que and it’ll definitely impact negatively about
our brand image in their mind.
I hope you’ll understand my concerns and take the judicious approach in the best
interest of the company, that is committed to best customer service experience.
Regards
Director | In-house Customer Service Call Centre
[Unlikely to persuade Srinivasa to change his mind.]

6/10

35
 (18)
Subject – Improving call center services to enhance brand perception [very good,
neutral, and concise subject line]
Dear Mr Murthy
Hope you’re doing well [Cut this out!]
Your thoughts on changing our current customer care approach are well
appreciated. I would love problem solve with you on your ideas and co-create a POA
[positive and collaborative/consultative approach that is likely to help Srinivasa read
on with a receptive mind] however I would like to highlight certain challenges that I
foresee with your approach:
• Although our customer care employees are highly capable and provide best in
class services to our customers, they aren’t trained and equipped to have deeper
conversations, which require a high EQ, with our customers. Also, such
conversations will typically be longer than anticipated and will greatly impact our
operational efficiency metrics such as mean wait time, which in turn will negatively
impact our customer service performance. Going above and beyond the current
scope may lead to situations where the customer may feel that the employee is
invading his/her private space leading to unintended consequences
• Over the last 18 months, we have been able to successfully reduce the
complaints [these complaints are about the behaviour of call centre / call centre
executives, not about products] received at our customer care center by over 80%,
by standardizing the operating procedures and upskilling our employees. We have
been able to significantly reduce the wait times which led to lower costs, which
positively impacts the bottom line. I would be highly skeptical of introducing another
round of changes which will incur additional costs and may demotivate the
employees
With regards to the above, I would like to propose the following approach to take this
forward [having raised your legitimate concerns about what might happen if
Srinivasa’s proposal is adopted, instead of dismissing it as unworkable, unwise, or
unprofitable you propose a pilot project. Excellent.]
• Run a pilot program for 3 months with small number of employees. These
employees would be provided with the necessary skillset through right training and
development.
• Establish key performance metrics against defined objectives which should
cover financial, customer and internal perspective and establish targets against each
KPI
• Monitor and track progress against these metrics on a weekly/bi-weekly basis.
Ideally, we should establish a steering committee that can provide inputs and
guidance
• Codify key learnings and best practices from the pilot program

36
• If the pilot program exceeds expectations, we can think through how to
expand the scope of the programme across the entire division in waves
I fully support of your thought process behind this approach, but I believe a
department wide change of this kind requires a high degree of change management.
We also need to be clear about the impact and efficacy of this change. It is also
imperative that the strategy for the customer care division is aligned with the overall
organization strategy especially with regards to cost
Happy to set up time with you to take this discussion forward.
Thanks & Regards
Director, Customer Care Services
[Excellent!]

9/10

37
 (19)
Date: 04-Feb-2020
Subject: Personalizing Customer Service [subject line short and nice but too broad
for your mail which is about call centre executives]

Dear Srinivasa,
It was unfortunate that our earlier discussions about the idea of personalizing
customer service were not conclusive. In fact, I am sorry that our discussions were
heated. Perhaps, in this matter, it is a better idea to communicate over email as you
rightly suggested. You can be assured that even though we have a conflict in the
approach to our goals, we are completely aligned in our end goal of setting new
benchmarks serving customers. [Excellent start. Slightly apologetic about the
inconclusive discussions, and reassurance that you and Srinivasa are on the same
page as far as creating new benchmarks in customer service is concerned. This
should make Srinivasa receptive to your mail.]
After our discussions I realised that, since a long time, I have run the call centre
business in a particular way and that is how I like it. I took this opportunity to explore
innovative ways of running a call centre and improving customer satisfaction. I am
sharing some of my learnings herewith.
I began by looking at the reasons why customers call our support centre. To this
there were two reasons. First, to report a defect or malfunction in their appliance and
second to enquire about product features. Then I tried to understand the mood of
these callers. I found that callers are either agitated about the product malfunction or
eager to get information. This explains the fact that the biggest expectation of our
callers is quick delivery that saves time. Thus, when we reduced the waiting time the
number of customer complaints [about the call centre/call centre associates’
behaviour] went down rapidly from 57 per month to less than 14 per month.
Finally, I started evaluating the overall impact of introducing personalised
interactions at our call centre. On the positive side the connection developed with the
customer through the friendly and personal interaction will differentiate us from the
competition, help us enhance the brand awareness among our customers, and
develop a cohesive work culture. While these benefits cannot be quantified, their
impact on the overall position of the company is undeniable. [Again, you show your
alignment with your target about the benefits that can be expected from adopting his
proposal.]
On the flip side there are some negative effects of this system as well. The issue
under this system stem from the fact that the associates are required to do two
tasks; that is understanding the problem as well as the client. This leads to the
following issues –
1.) Time: The customer service time per client will increase by 15%. [Be a little more
tentative in quoting numbers. After all you haven’t done any studies to justify this
38
number. So you might like to say, for example, “will increase by 15 to 25%.”
However, this can be easily mitigated by hiring additional associates and renting
some extra office space for them. [It’s interesting that you don’t turn down the
proposal merely because it’s going to be more expensive to run. Again, this is
something Srinivasa would love to hear.]
2.) Quality: 65% of our current associates do not possess the interpersonal skills
required to implement this strategy. This too can be mitigated by conducting regular
training of our employees. This should increase our training costs by a maximum of
30%. I believe that we will be able to retain these highly skilled employees with an
average pay increase of 12%. To be on the safer side we should also set aside a
small $1 million contingency fund for potential lawsuits that may arise due to a few
client conversations gone wrong.
After I reconsidered your idea more objectively, I found that if we can manage to
afford the costs to mitigate the negative impacts of personalised customer service it
will be a nice thing for our customers. Please do share your thoughts on the same.
[A well-written email that disappoints. Your job was to persuade your CEO to
ultimately drop his proposal because you believe that implementing it will be an
expensive flop. That’s why you have had two heated, inconclusive arguments. But
instead of persuading Srinivasa to change his mind, you seem to have decided to
jump headlong into its adoption after flagging some of the risks and additional
expenses that should be anticipated. Are you hoping that looking at the risks and
additional expenses that you have highlighted Srinivasa would give up his proposal?
In other words, a kind of indirect persuasion: Srinivasa persuading himself that
implementing his proposal was too expensive and too risky and therefore it should
not be pursued. It would have been much better for you to suggest a pilot project or
an experiment with a small set of associates to check how it works in reality in the
context of a white goods company and what the additional expenses as well as risks
might be if the new system is adopted throughout the call centre. As you anticipate,
the pilot may demonstrate that the idea deserves to be buried.]
[I don’t know how to rate this email. I am constrained to rate it low because it does
not attempt to persuade Srinivasa to change his mind. I don’t think that indirect
persuasion will take place either.]

6.5/10

39
 (20)
[Subject line? Salutation?]
We have tried discussing this issue [What issue? If you had a suitable subject line,
which is essentially the title of the mail, the reader wouldn’t have asked this
question.] a couple of times, but we couldn’t reach a consensus, so I thought its best
that I communicate in writing so that I can put my points across in a structured way,
and after that, we can meet up and reach a consensus. [Unnecessary first paragraph
because it was Srinivasa who suggested that you write an email. It wasn’t your idea.]
I do understand that in the customer care industry, there is increasing use of
emotional connection with customers, which in turn helps those customers to build
an connect with the brand. Also, I see the point that it can help some people in dire
need of human connection, making him loyal to our brand. [It’s good that you start by
pointing out the good things in the proposal that you are going to criticise. It will
certainly make the reader more receptive to any reservations or any criticisms you
may have about their proposal.] In spite of seeing merit in these points, I see some
very major issues if we go on and make these changes, which I would like to point
out as under-
1- We already don’t have sufficient associates to take calls. Presently, there is
some seconds of waiting time, which has been significantly reduced since the
associates are trained to be more professional and finish the calls in a shorter
duration. If we channelize our associates to talk friendly and for longer durations to
customers, we would have an unprecedented long waiting time. The number of
customers has increased, but our associates haven’t increased in that proportion.
We are hardly managing to keep the waiting to a tolerable level with our current
associates count. If we increase associates considerably by new hiring, we can
probably work it out, but it would be an investment of resources to be carefully
considered.
2- Not every customer call to have an emotional connection over customer care
service. Most of the customers call to get their queries resolved in the minimum time
possible. These are customers who are rushing to their work or other daily chores
and don’t have an extra second to talk. The majority of the customers can fall into
this category. We can’t afford to offend them by keeping ten of them on waiting while
our associates are solving a problem for one customer who needs emotional talk. Its
scarcity of resources. [Yes indeed. But if the goal is worthwhile, shouldn’t the
company consider hiring more call centre associates and training them for this
purpose?]
3- If our associates would try and get over-friendly with customers, that can
backfire by customers perceiving us as non-professional, and you would agree that
this is the last thing you would like to do. It can get awkward as well, and sometimes
we avoid people whom we have shared with so much out of sheer embarrassment.
[But call centre associates are, for all practical purposes, anonymous. Customers are
essentially talking to strangers over the phone.]

40
Listing all these points, I still understand that we wouldn’t want to lose a customer
just because we didn’t have an ear to listen to him/her. In my opinion, one of the
solutions in this scenario can be that we hire a couple of extra associates and train
them sufficiently in empathy and compassion along with the regular job of associate.
Also, we would need to communicate with other associates to transfer a call to these
new associates if they think we are losing a valuable customer who would need
some extra time.
Lets discuss in detail when we meet.
[I don’t know how this transfer will work. How or when would the call centre executive
decide that a call should be transferred to a specialist executive with high EQ to deal
with the customer? Wouldn’t it be better for the associate to escalate it to their
supervisor when they find that they are unable to deal adequately with the
issue/customer? However, essentially your approach is to start by recognising the
good things in the proposal, flagging the problems associated with implementation,
and then suggesting a small-scale experiment. This is likely to persuade Srinivasa to
reconsider his idea after analysing its result.]

7.5/10

41
 (21)
[Subject line? Salutation?]
I understand your argument of making call centre associates friendlier, chattier and
more personal to improve the brand equity. However, we have been able to achieve
operational efficiencies through the professional approach to service.
Through relevant training we have standardized the calls, which have reduced the
average duration of calls quite significantly. Thus, allowing us to serve more
customers per day. This process optimization has resulted in huge cost savings
resulting in higher budgetary allocation in other departments, such as marketing.
Moreover, this cost saving doesn’t come with any trade-off in terms of emotional
connect with customers. Since we standardized calling process, we have been able
to consistently maintain the customer service associates to have welcoming voices
and be good listeners, and at the same time focus on resolving customer complaints
professionally and cordially. This has resulted in better emotional connect which is
evident from the fact that our customer complaints [about the call centre / call centre
associates] have reduced from 67 to 14 per month.
I understand your rational that emotional needs of the customer take precedence
over the transactional needs of the business. However, we are already successfully
doing that by maintaining a cordial and professional relationship by resolving
customer complaints promptly.
I recollect an incident in 2004, when I faced an issue with my iPod and had called the
Apple customer service call, which was directed to Apple service centre, Sydney.
The tone and the way the customer representative greeted was very welcoming,
however, I was more impressed by the promptness in which they resolved my issue.
As a customer I was looking for a prompt resolution to my service complaint. Majority
of the customers calling service centres are looking for a quick fix, there are only a
few who would really crave for a personal connect. At this stage you have a choice
to please majority of the customers and also achieve cost savings from the
operations. I also propose that all the cost savings we make from the tele-calling
operations be reallocated to marketing department to build on brand equity through
media channels and marketing campaigns.
In conclusion, I recommend that we maintain the current cost efficiencies and at the
same time pleasing the majority of customers. But if you would like [incomplete?]
[This is unlikely to persuade Srinivasa to change his mind or to drop his proposal.
What you are trying to do in this email is to say that you are doing a fine job and
saving money for the company while keeping the customers happy. You also claim
that what you are doing is what the customers want; you cite your own experience
with your call to Apple’s Service Centre to support your claim.
The problem with this approach is that you appear to be unwilling to look beyond
what is currently successful. If you look, you may find that there are even better ways

42
than what you consider to be the best to serve and retain customers. And
incidentally, not every customer is like you.
You have recreated in this email the two inconclusive arguments you’ve had with
Srinivasa.]

6/10

43