Caller Complaints

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Callers to a customer help line frequently complained about the quality of service. Seventy percent of survey respondents cited the services agents' lack of knowledge of how to solve the problems they were calling about. To address the problem, management decided that each service agent should go through regular training. Each agent spent half a day each week in sessions covering how to respond to callers' problems. Nevertheless, after three months of training, the rate of caller complaints has not decreased.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain why the training failed to achieve its goal?

Review: Caller Complaints


Explanation

Reading the question: the prompt doesn't presents not an argument, but rather a situation. We're presented with only facts and no opinion. So it makes sense when we get to the question stem and see that we're asked to "explain."

Creating a filter: as we discussed in Osprey Prey, since we are explaining, we should identify a "mystery" with two parts. The correct answer will probably address both parts of the mystery, without contradicting any of the facts given. The mystery's two parts are that 1) the team has been trained, but 2) complaints are still high. A possible explanation is that there is a "new problem." For example, maybe the training was conducted in an insulting manner and drove away some of the best agents, so the remaining agents are knowledgeable but defective in some new way. We'll look for something like this in the answers... a "new problem."

Applying the filter: Choice (A) presents a new problem, but not one that would affect customer complaints. So (A) is out. Choice (B) presents a new problem: increased wait time. It's not just an explanation; it's an explanation that describes how the action in part 1) above could generate the problem in part 2) above. So (B) is in. Choice (C) is relevant, and plausible, but it doesn't generate a new problem, as we're looking for. Also, agents wouldn't have to be trained in every conceivable problem in order to be much better trained and for complaints to go down. In other words, it says something about part 1) of our mystery, but doesn't establish any connection to part 2). So (C) is out. Choice (D) fails to connect to part 2); if the help team is better trained, they should rate higher. Choice (E) also fails to connect to part 2); in fact, losing unhappy customers would be a reason to think complaints would go down. The correct answer is (B).


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