Customer Service Skills Test Question 56 – Managing an appointment queue during a system outage
Read the customer-service scenario and rate each action independently. The same rating may be used more than once.
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Scenario
The appointment system has been unavailable for two hours. A long queue has formed, including people with booked appointments and one customer who says a legal deadline expires today. A limited manual process is available for urgent cases, but there is still no confirmed recovery time.
Rate the actions
For each action, choose Counterproductive, Ineffective, Fairly Effective or Effective.
Action A
Take the customer with the legal deadline out of the queue and use the manual process, but give no general update to the other customers.
Rate this action:
CounterproductiveIneffectiveFairly EffectiveEffective
Action B
Give the queue a factual update, identify urgent cases using the agreed criteria, use the manual route where appropriate and offer rebooking or alternatives to everyone else.
Rate this action:
CounterproductiveIneffectiveFairly EffectiveEffective
Action C
Ask everyone to remain in the queue until the system returns because serving people in arrival order is the fairest approach.
Rate this action:
CounterproductiveIneffectiveFairly EffectiveEffective
Action D
Tell all customers to leave and try again tomorrow because the system cannot be used.
Rate this action:
CounterproductiveIneffectiveFairly EffectiveEffective
Click to reveal the answer
- Action A: Fairly Effective
- Action B: Effective
- Action C: Ineffective
- Action D: Counterproductive
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