The above scenario wouldn’t happen in a hospital, of course. Someone presenting with the symptons of a heart attack would, inevitably, have them fixed prior to any problems they might be experiencing with their finger. However, in the world of customer service, we so often miss the pain our customers are experiencing it’s incredible.

I remember being told proudly once by a colleague about the quickest time they resolved an internet connection problem on a mobile phone.

It only took fifteen minutes. The customer didn’t know when his next train was going to leave the station across town and because his internet was down, he couldn’t check. Thankfully, I was able to solve the problem much more quickly than usual!

I congratulated her, and then asked the obvious follow-up question of ‘Did he make the train?’. The answer, as it turns out, was no. The customer was able to check the time on his phone once she’d resolved the problem but, despite hot-footing it to the station, was five minutes late and had to wait an hour.

My colleague did nothing but follow the correct process and resolve the customers internet connection issue. But it didn’t help at all. Why? Because she fundamentally misunderstood the customers pain. He may have called because the internet wasn’t working, but this connection issue wasn’t why he reached out. He got in touch because he didn’t want to miss his train.

The heart attack wasn’t not being able to use the internet, it was getting back for the train. In comparison, not having access to the web was only a bloody finger. The internet fix wasn’t the solution. All the colleague needed to do was go to the National Rail website, find out the train time and offer to call back to fix the data issue later on.

The customer would have been thrilled to be on his train and the support representative reinvigorated by helping someone in the instant they needed help.