Re:Andrews and Arnold is xkcd 806-compliant (2010)
by kosei on Thursday July 03, 2014 @02:57PM
(#7984951)
Exactly. Communications companies generate significant savings by driving people to self-help on their website or through chat reps (where they can handle 10 customers at a time). Also, longer wait times helps increase the barrier to frivolous calls and complaints.
That said, my point was that there are likely some additional ways that they can target customers to improve customer service in a way that optimizes both their own workflow as well as that of the customer. The important part is to get both parties on the same incentive structure.
Sure they do -- they don't care about optimizing your workflow.
> they already have a profitable monopoly and a captive audience, so why rock the boat?
Even without a monopoly, deliberately driving away the section of the customer base that has the highest support cost is one way of maximizing profits, especially when you can't conveniently establish a pricing structure that effectively segments pricing so that those people pay more (because otherwise you have to subsidize their support costs out of the general pricing level.) There've been many articles over many years discussing strategies firms in many markets (some very competitive, some less so) take to do this.