Slow Service and the Pissed Off Scale
Enter the Pissed Off Scale: a new way of quantifying the degree at which customers can be dissatisfied. Suppose we want service for something that we just want to get over and done with. Perhaps it is getting a tax return completed from your accountant, getting reimbursed, getting a reservation, an installation, a status update, a repair, etc. We want service as rapidly as possible so we can get this task off our plate and get on to something else. If the service is slow, we and others that depend on us, are negatively impacted. Our scale of progressive dissatisfaction might look like this:
The Customer Pissed Off Scale:
- I feel forgotten
- This is lousy service
- I am never going to use this service again
- I would cancel this <bleeped> order if I could
- I would like to put this business and especially, the management of this service department, on a rocket headed for a permanent vacation on Venus. Please enjoy the 800 degree F. warmth, crushing atmospheric pressure and lovely clouds of sulfuric acid. It is my way of saying thanks for making me feel special as your customer.
If you are a service provider, and your service is slow and/or you are not providing timely and meaningful updates to your customers, here is the effect you are having on them:
- Loss of focus
- Switching gears to repeatedly get status updates
- Phone tag
- Wasted time and effort
- Interruptions
- Handling this same problem repeatedly
- Bottleneck
- Frustration
A company needs a way to measure this, and most importantly, to respond, repair and prevent this from happening again. Often, the traditional 5 point scales from Dissatisfied to Completely Satisfied just don’t capture the intensity of the customer’s dissatisfaction.
Service providers: get with the program or book your Venus vacation now.
