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InterviewJourney Orchestration25m · 15:01 GMT · 4 min read
Technically Correct Service Can Still Fail the Customer
Service teams are under pressure to resolve more customer issues with less effort. But Miele’s Dr. Kashyap Dave argues that a technically correct fix can still fail the customer, and explains where automation should stop and human authority should take over.
What happens when the technically correct process doesn’t deliver the best customer experience?
For instance, take this example from Dr. Kashyap Dave, Director of Customer Services at Miele:
A customer calls to say her washing machine has broken down, and she needs someone out within three hours… but the policy says two working days.
Any service team could defend the decision to stick to the two-day timeframe; it is documented, consistent, and technically correct.
However, the policy was only part of the story. The caller, it turned out, had a six-day-old baby at home.
“As you can imagine, that totally changed the situation,” Dave told CX Today. “In moments like this, it is always important to remember how you make the customer feel.”
That is the tension facing service teams being asked to resolve more issues with less effort.
Standardization keeps things efficient, but the efficient answer is not always the right one.
Consistency Matters, Until It Doesn’t
It is important to note that Dave is no critic of process.
“I strongly believe that consistency is very important in succeeding in any business, but not always what we are doing in every situation,” he said.
His answer is contextual decision-making, where “your judgment should be based on the needs of a customer and how you align yourself and your policies accordingly.”
For premium brands, he said, the stakes are higher. Customers do not expect everything to go right, “but they expect brands to behave exceptionally when things go wrong.”
In expounding on this point, Dave points to an earlier period of his career at an office automation company, where he saw a similar pattern play out.
This time, a high-volume printing unit broke down while its owner was working on a big job for a well-known brand. The part was not in stock, and the standard process meant waiting two to three working days.
Again, that was the technically correct answer. It was also not what the customer cared about. He was not really worried about the machine or the part. He was worried about the business he stood to lose.
So, the team airlifted the part and fixed the machine the next morning.
“Technically correct things are not always commercially or emotionally intelligent decisions,” Dave said.
Three Questions Before the Fix
Dave’s background is in engineering, consumer behavior, and NLP coaching. Technical skills, he said, can be trained, but behavior is harder:
“Human behavior is a very complex thing to manage,” he said, noting that two customers in the same situation “can behave totally differently.”
