Clarifying customer role before complaint call

both times

D1 — Directive

Primary: Bring the Right Mood

This session creates the space for your coachee to see how they can connect more effectively with their customers. Your role is to help them observe what is happening — not to tell them what to change.

1. Diagnosis

The agent does not distinguish between the multiple roles a complainant can hold within the same transaction, leading to unclear preparation for the complaint call.

2. Behaviour Observations

What you might see or hear that points to this pattern.

The agent does not identify that a complainant can hold more than one role simultaneously within the same transaction.
The agent does not clearly distinguish the bank's remit from the responsibilities of third parties involved in the transaction.
The agent does not map the complainant's specific role in the transaction as part of call preparation.

3. Session Objective

The objective of the session is to help the agent recognise that a single complainant can occupy more than one role in a transaction simultaneously, and that understanding those roles precisely determines what questions to ask and what the bank's remit actually covers. Help the agent build a preparation habit of mapping the complainant's role and the bank's specific involvement before engaging on a complex complaint call.

4. Session Tactics

How to prepare for and structure the 45-minute call review.

Bring a complaint call where the customer's role in the underlying transaction is ambiguous or layered. Declare the distinct roles that exist within the transaction and ask the agent to identify which role or roles the complainant holds. When the agent conflates two roles into one, pause and ask them explicitly whether the same person could occupy both roles at the same time. Ask the agent directly what the bank's responsibility was with regard to the specific interaction in question, to surface where the bank's remit ends and another party's begins. Help the agent identify what questions they would need to ask the complainant to clarify their role before drawing any conclusions about what information should or should not have been shared.

5. GROW Experiments

Experiments the coachee might choose to try. These are offers, not prescriptions — the coachee selects what feels right for them.

Experiment 1

Before the next complaint call involving a third-party transaction, the agent will write out specifically what role or roles the complainant holds in that transaction prior to making the call.