“But sir, I’m just doing my job“

That phrase is a canary in the coalmine that’s become your customer service department. If your staff have to use it, you have a problem. If you’re a leader, and you hear it, you have made some serious mistakes.

That phrase is a defence mechanism used by the call centre agents that you’ve turned into automatons as they desperately try to protect themselves from the anger and frustration of customers aimed at them because you’ve inserted so much self-serving friction in between the people you claim to serve and thing they’re trying to do.

They’re angry because helping them get where they want to go is a promise you made, it’s the reason your business exists.

And when you insert steps that serve you instead of them, steps to enrich yourself, hoops that they must jump through, those people you aim to serve, they’ll become frustrated, and they’ll weaponise those frustrations and fire them at your customer service department in angry voices, “Why must I just through that hoop, I just want to know X. What’s your hoop got to do with it? Just help me get where I’m trying to go!”

And the plea from the other end, “Please don’t get cross with me, I’m just doing my job. It’s not my fault, I don’t have a choice. I’m not here to serve you, I’m forced to serve the machine, and if I don’t I’ll get into trouble. I’ll lose my job.”

The sticker on the door says “Customer Service”, but in that organisation it’s not true anymore. Those agents are in the System Service department, and they’ve been turned into cogs.

So yes, if you’re a leader, and if the customer is the person you seek to serve, and you hear the canary in your call centre, then you have a problem.

What’s the problem?

Your customers will only tolerate so much friction. Too much and we’ll begin to hate dealing with you, and then we’ll begin to bad mouth you, and then we’ll leave and as the voices get louder and become more numerous, soon we’ll be leaving in droves. That’s a problem.

Your customer service agents, well they’re humans too, and there’s only so much abuse they can take. And your best people, your best people have options. They don’t have to sit there and take the abuse of customers frustrated by the system you’ve forced upon them, and so your best people will leave.

Once that happens you’re spiral to the bottom. The only people left will be people so kak that nobody else will take them, people who just don’t care. That’s a problem.

The other people who might be left are a few great humans trapped into the abuse by their socio-economic circumstances. They don’t have a choice, and that’s a travesty.

The outcome is that all your remaining customers hate you, and all your remaining staff hate you, and you hate all your remaining customers and you hate all your remaining stay. That’s a problem.

So listen closely in the coalmine, and if you hear the canarie all out, “I’m sorry, but I’m just doing my job”, that’s a signal. It’s a signal that it’s time to act because your industrial system has gone wrong.