Customer Service Questions and Phone Protocol

Purpose: To clearly define the protocol Customer Service should follow if they are unable to answer questions on the phone.

It is important to remember that Customer Service is the face of Advantus and the ultimate communicator to our customers. Customer Service should be fielding and handling all phone communication with our customers. Screening of these phone calls when transfer requests arise is also necessary as we do not want to transfer spam calls or unauthorized calls to additional personnel in our company. Below is the general course of action to take when answering phone inquiries:

1. Attempt to assist the customer’s needs or answer their question(s).
   1. Not everything can be provided via phone call. If documentation is needed and we cannot direct the customer to one of our websites, divert the correspondence to the appropriate Customer Service shared email.
      1. We should ask for the customer’s email address in most cases, but if the request is complicated, it is acceptable to ask them to send an email to our appropriate shared email with all their specific needs detailed so we may be able to better assist them.
2. If resolution can not be accomplished via phone call because we do not know the answer, divert the correspondence to the appropriate Customer Service shared email.
   1. In cases where we need to look further into what the customer needs; we do not want to keep them on hold. Researching information can take time and it is courteous to allow the customer to move on with their day while we work to answer their questions.
   2. We do not want to transfer customers to a different department to answer product questions. We need to complete the research and communicate with the customers accordingly.
3. Transfers should be properly screened and handled accordingly.
   1. DO NOT transfer customer inquiries regarding products to product managers, marketing, etc. We need to appropriately field and resolve questions accordingly. We can involve internal contacts outside of our communication with customers. We do not want to divulge internal contacts as it can cause them to become unnecessarily involved/ contacted in situations where they should not be.
   2. We can transfer to specific entities if the situation warrants the transfer. This includes, but is not limited to, family emergencies, employees needing to reach managers or coworkers, invoice settling, carriers attempting to reach our warehouse for scheduled pickups/ deliveries.