This is a response post to Robb DeVore’s Post about Customer Service which you can find here, and here’s my two cents when it comes to the concept of cusotmer service and its personel.

First of all, let me explain the concept of vicarious liability. “Vicarious”, according to the definition found at dictionary.com, means this :

performed, exercised, received, or suffered in place of another: vicarious punishment.

1.	performed, exercised, received, or suffered in place of another: vicarious punishment.

2.	taking the place of another person or thing; acting or serving as a substitute.

3.	felt or enjoyed through imagined participation in the experience of others: a vicarious thrill

In short, vicarious liability means that one party is responsible for the doings of another, regardless of intention. One of the worst experiences for customer service cases is this : lack of sympathy, and too much apathy. When a company messes up on something, or if a fellow employee messes something up, another employee (mainly those in the customer service sector) is the one who takes the blame. There are two types of responses for it :

1. I’m terribly sorry for that sir…
2. Well, it wasn’t my fault sir.

Those who give the #2 type response are idiots. That always pisses me off. “Well it’s not my fault, OK?” If you are working for a company and your pay is at their mercy, and you are part of the larger organization, you are liable as well whether you are the one who made the mistake or not. When I worked for Bell Mobility as a customer service representative, I was never short on apologies when it was clearly our company’s fault. It wasn’t my fault. In fact there were many situations where I felt I could have done better at the executive position, but nonetheless, I understood that since I’m on their payroll, I’m liable, and I will apologize on behalf of the company.

If you feel that you should not be apologizing to customers when your company messes up, perhaps you’re too good for that position and you should start your own busienss? If you can’t, well, suck it up. That’s what you get when you’re in that position, and you will need to accept that, since you are not capable of owning your own assets and your own operations, you have to be one with the company that is merciful enough to give you an hourly wage or a salary to do their biddings on behalf of them. You are the face of the company and the mistakes of others is something that you will have to cover for, because you are a customer service representative. You are the face - you take the spitting and the slapping.

Here’s what I once said to an agent of a web-hosting company when they messed up my client’s account. “I don’t care if you were there or not, you work for the company so you will take my shit for it.” He shut up instantly. The cockiness of when he said “Well sir, I wasn’t there so I can’t really speak for it.” was just gone in an instant. Too bad, it’s evident that your fellow employee messed up, and you’re on the phone now so you will take my wrath. That’s how it is if you are a pawn. I was there once too, and I did it that way because I understood it.

If you can’t handle this, prove it by doing something greater. If not, suck it up and keep doing it. You’re obliged to because they are paying you. Simple as that.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 2:29 pm and is filed under General, Hot Issues, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.