An Extra Mile

"Thank you for calling [company name and project redacted], my name is Doug. How can I help you today."

"I talked to you before," said the caller, "and you got my order wrong!"

That is how one of my calls last week started.  While my first reaction was to deny that I had made a mistake, I didn't say that.  Frankly, I am not perfect, and while I think I do a good job most of the time, I have made mistakes.  So, it was at least possible that I could have gotten this caller's order wrong.

I got the caller's account information and checked his history.  As it turned out, I had not spoken with this customer before.  As I researched the issue, I found it was another agent who had taken his call.  I was relieved, but tried not to show it.

The caller stated that he ordered a particular item and received a different item instead.  He ordered a quantity of 5 the item, but received a quantity of 7 of the wrong item.  That was a curious discrepancy as it is one thing to get the item wrong, but the get the quantity wrong as well is something else.

Further, the two items in question are so different from one another, belonging in very different categories of products.  At first I just could not see how the agent he talked to made the mistake.  Then it dawned on me, and it was so simple it was no wonder that I almost missed it.

The product code of the item the customer did receive rhymed with the name of the product that he said he ordered.  Still, there is a procedure in place to prevent such a simple mistake.  Before placing the order the agent is supposed to recap what was ordered, by product code, product name and the quantity.  Had the agent done this, the customer would have recognized that the agent had selected the wrong product.

But this was only the beginning.  After receiving the wrong product, the customer had called back.  The agent he talked to on that occasion had merely forwarded a request to the escalation team to have the correct item sent.  The escalation team subsequently noted on the customer's account that this would require the approval of a supervisor for a one time courtesy to have the correct item sent.

Wait, a one time courtesy, when it was a mistake made by our agent, and thus by the company?  It if was our mistake, should we not fix it without using the customer's sole one time courtesy?  But how was the escalation team to know who made the mistake?

Enter the author.  There was an option that it appeared the second agent had not thought to do.  However, the opening accusation from the customer that it had been me that he had talked to and that I had messed up his order still stung a little.  On top of that, by the time I had figured out what had likely gone wrong, it was several minutes after my shift was supposed to have ended.  There was a temptation to hurry up and end the call so I could go home.

Unable to find out whether the approval of the one time courtesy had been made and a new order placed, my first thought was to send it back to the escalation team.  But I was sure that the likely outcome would be a repeat of what happened the first time the issue was sent to the escalation team.

But what other options did I have?  As I wrote the the email I was going to send to the escalation team, another possibility occurred me.  But I hesitated.  The other possibility would have involved talking to a supervisor, which would have taken time, and kept me longer after my shift was supposed to have ended.  Why should I, I thought, after the caller accused me to messing up his order?

In the end, I just couldn't take the easy route, I couldn't pass the buck.  Instead of sending an email to the escalation team, I sent one to my supervisor.  I asked my sup to pull the call and listen to see if it was the agent who made the mistake.  I saved the email to the escalation team as a draft, so I could send it if my supervisor was able to pull the call and listen to it.  I advised the customer that we would pull the call and if it could be determined that the agent who took the order had made the mistake, that we would send him the correct item.

The next day, a SME let me know that the call had been pulled and that the agent who took the order had indeed made the mistake.  Because of that, the customer was going to be taken care of.

Looking back, it seems such a small thing to email my supervisor and ask her to pull the call.  But in the moment I had hesitated, tempted to take the easy route.  Then I thought of the teachings of the Savior in the Sermon on the Mount:

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.  And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.  Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away" (Matthew 5:38-42).