Let’s face it: The average customer doesn’t truly understand their internet service. And that can be a frustrating situation when they call your support team for help. In some cases, customers even have misconceptions about their networks.
These misunderstandings can wreak havoc on your support team’s efficiency, including impacting KPIs like average handle time and first contact resolution. And that’s without considering the time agents waste on issues that could have been solved quickly, or even without an agent’s intervention at all.
Let’s explore some of these mistakes that customers make, and why they’re so problematic.
Note: Though there’s a lot more that can potentially go wrong, we’re only talking about in-home mistakes in this post.
They call in for things that aren’t your fault.
Historically, an ISP’s responsibility for a customer’s internet service has ended at the modem. After that, it’s the customer’s responsibility; they’re the ones connecting laptops and phones, changing settings, adding extra devices.
But that doesn’t stop them from calling you when one of those laptops or phones can’t connect. It then becomes your problem to solve, and it typically involves a lot of investigating to find the root cause. If your team can’t solve it, it reflects poorly on the ISP—and can turn into repeat calls and customer churn.
They don’t understand the difference between the internet and WiFi.
This is related to the previous point, but with an insidious difference. Too often, customers don’t actually understand that there’s a difference between their internet and WiFi; in fact, about 31% of inbound support calls for ISP teams are for WiFi issues!
In these cases, when customers don’t know the difference, it becomes that much more difficult to implement any fixes because now, the agent needs to spend extra time explaining and convincing the customer that a solution will work.
They think routers have unlimited range.
While it definitely existed before, this mistake has become much more prevalent through the pandemic. As people seek out quiet corners of their homes for meetings and classes, they’re discovering that devices won’t always connect.
These issues are particularly detrimental to your support team’s efficiency because chances are, all the customer will say is that their device won’t connect. And without knowledge of the home’s layout, the customer’s distance from the router, or what could possibly be blocking the router, it’s almost impossible—and incredibly time-consuming—to figure out what the root cause actually is.
This inevitably turns into repeat calls and sometimes even unnecessary tech visits.
They think routers can support unlimited connected devices.
This is another painful misunderstanding about routers that most customers won’t even think about. When a customer calls in with a device that won’t connect, they won’t consider how many other devices are connected to their router. Even if an agent asks, the customer likely won’t remember every smart light bulb, tablet, or even their fridge.
Without knowing everything that’s on the network, it can be time-consuming for agents to pin down what the issue is—and damaging for your team’s efficiency.
They argue with agents on the phone.
Customers don’t know what they don’t know—but that won’t stop them from arguing when they think the agent is wrong. This quickly devolves into a time-consuming and frustrating situation for everyone involved, and even though the agent keeps their cool, it translates into requests for another agent, repeat calls, and even the infamous “can’t you just send someone?”
Of course, each of these stages includes time dedicated to explaining the problem and solution to the customer, too.
So how do you address these customer mistakes?
When customers don’t understand their home networks, it can be incredibly frustrating for ISP support teams. Luckily, though, there are ways to help them understand—from self-service support options that can provide and interpret diagnostic information, to supporting customer education pieces agents can hand out on calls.
Because when you can help prevent time-consuming customer mistakes, you can make a major impact on your support team’s efficiency and core KPIs, from customer satisfaction and experience to average handle time, first contact resolution, and more.