President Joe Biden has announced a string of proposals aimed at easing customer service pain points.
The “Time is Money” initiative will include rules and possible regulations aimed at tackling the “general aggravation” caused by substandard customer service offerings.
At the heart of the US President’s plan is a draft rule, introduced by the Federal Trade Commission in March of last year, that will force companies to simplify their subscription and membership cancellation processes.
An example of how this would work in practice is by requiring companies to allow customers to make cancellations through the same platform and number of steps that it took them to originally sign up for their subscription/membership.
Indeed, this concept was mentioned by White House Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden when discussing the new initiative:
“For example, you want to cancel your gym membership or subscription service to a newspaper.
It took one or two clicks to sign up, but now to end your subscription or cancel the membership, you have to go in person or wait on hold for 20 minutes.
Hold times are another key aspect of the initiative.
In a thread posted on X (formerly Twitter), President Biden wrote that he was “tired of seeing hardworking Americans get played for suckers,” and was looking to remove the “hassle” that certain customer service areas were causing.
I’m tired of seeing hardworking Americans get played for suckers.
Today, I’m announcing a series of actions to crack down on how big corporations – through paperwork, hold times, and scams – add hassles to Americans’ daily lives.
Here are a few actions my Administration is…
— President Biden (@POTUS) August 12, 2024
Among these hassles are what Biden refers to as customer service “doom loops,” the process of being passed between various automated options/departments when on hold.
In his X post, the President pledged that he would look to introduce a rule that would make speaking directly to a human agent simple:
“Consumers should be able to talk to real people instead of being sent through a maze of menu options and automated recordings.
That’s why the CFPB is working to help consumers talk to a real person by pressing a single button. And the FCC is looking into doing the same.
Biden’s proposed rule echoes a recent prediction by Gartner for the EU customer experience and service space.
Earlier this year, the research specialists suggested that the EU could make “the right to talk to a human” a part of its consumer protection laws by 2028.
Despite the rapid expansion of GenAI, Gartner warned companies against pursuing digital-only solutions due to the potential threat of customer service legislation. And while the company may have gotten the wrong continent, its prediction could come true much sooner than 2028.
However, it is important to note that because these policies aren’t based on new legislation, the outcome of the November election will play a pivotal role in whether they are retained, as they could easily be overturned next year by a Republican president or Republican-controlled Congress.
The Cost of Doing Business
Interestingly, earlier this summer before Biden’s announcement, a Twilio study revealed that UK consumers are increasingly frustrated with time-consuming brand administrative tasks, or ‘brandmin,’ which are damaging their patience and finances.
While US and UK attitudes towards brandmin may differ, the results still provide useful context to understanding President’s Biden’s initiative.
According to the study, 54% of customers feel frustrated and 47% emotional due to tedious customer service tasks, with 49% of respondents labeling brandmin a “significant chore.”
On average, UK customers spend 45 minutes weekly on brandmin, totaling over 1.5 days annually. This frustration often leads to incomplete tasks, costing £95 per customer each year and resulting in a collective loss of £3 billion.
The financial element to customer service pain points like canceling subscriptions was also outlined by Neera Tanden:
“Essentially, in all of these practices, the companies are delaying services to you or really trying to make it so difficult for you to cancel the service that they get to hold on to your money longer and longer.
These seemingly small inconveniences don’t really happen by accident. They have huge financial consequences. Really are just taking advantage of the fact that people are really busy.
