Dave Eggers - The Circle

“But those will be pretty rare. You’d be surprised at how many of the questions you’ll be able to field right away. Now let’s say you’ve answered a client’s question, and they seem satisfied. That’s when you send them the survey, and they fill it out. It’s a set of quick questions about your service, their overall experience, and at the end they’re asked to rate it. They send the questions back, and then you immediately know how you did. The rating pops up here.”

He pointed to the corner of her screen, where there was a large number, 99, and below, a grid of other numbers.

“The big 99 is the last customer’s rating. The customer will rate you on a scale of, guess what, 1 to 100. That most recent rating will pop up here, and then that’ll be averaged with the rest of the day’s scores in this next box. That way you’ll always know how you’re doing, recently and generally. Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Okay, Jared, what kind of average is average?’ And the answer is, if it dips below 95, then you might step back and see what you can do better. Maybe you bring the average up with the next customer, maybe you see how you might improve. Now, if it’s consistently slumping, then you might have a meet-up with Dan or another team leader to go over some best practices. Sound good?”

“It does,” Mae said. “I really appreciate this, Jared. In my previous job, I was in the dark about where I stood until, like, quarterly evaluations. It was nerve-wracking.”

“Well, you’ll love this then. If they fill out the survey and do the rating, and pretty much everyone does, then you send them the next message. This one thanks them for filling out the survey, and it encourages them to tell a friend about the experience they just had with you, using the Circle’s social media tools. Ideally they at least zing it or give you a smile or a frown. In a best-case scenario, you might get them to zing about it or write about it on another customer-service site. We get people out there zinging about their great customer service experiences with you, then everyone wins. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Okay, let’s do a live one. Ready?”

Mae wasn’t, but couldn’t say that. “Ready.”

Jared brought up a customer request, and after reading it, let out a quick snort to indicate its elementary nature. He chose a boilerplate answer, adapted it a bit, told the customer to have a fantastic day. The exchange took about ninety seconds, and two minutes later, the screen confirmed the customer had answered the questionnaire, and a score appeared: 99. Jared sat back and turned to Mae.

“Now, that’s good, right? Ninety-nine is good. But I can’t help wondering why it wasn’t a 100. Let’s look.” He opened up the customer’s survey answers and scanned through. “Well, there’s no clear sign that any part of their experience was unsatisfactory. Now, most companies would say, Wow, 99 out of 100 points, that’s nearly perfect. And I say, exactly: it’s nearly perfect, sure. But at the Circle, that missing point nags at us. So let’s see if we can get to the bottom of it. Here’s a follow-up that we send out.”

He showed her another survey, this one shorter, asking the customer what about their interaction could have been improved and how. They sent it to the customer.

Seconds later, the response came back. “All was good. Sorry. Should have given you a 100. Thanks!!”

Jared tapped the screen and gave a thumbs-up to Mae.

“Okay. Sometimes you might just encounter someone who isn’t really sensitive to the metrics. So it’s good to ask them, to make sure you get that clarity. Now we’re back to a perfect score. You ready to do your own?”

“I am.”

They downloaded another customer query, and Mae scrolled through the boilerplates, found the appropriate answer, personalized it, and sent it back. When the survey came back, her rating was 100.

Jared seemed briefly taken aback. “First one you get 100, wow,” he said. “I knew you’d be good.” He had lost his footing, but now regained it. “Okay, I think you’re ready to take on some more. Now, a couple more things. Let’s turn on your second screen.” He turned on a smaller screen to her right. “This one is for intra-office messaging. All Circlers send messages out through your main feed, but they appear on the second screen. This is to make clear the importance of the messages, and to help you delineate which is which. From time to time you’ll see messages from me over here, just checking in or with some adjustment or news. Okay?”

“Got it.”

“Now, remember to bounce any stumpers to me, and if you need to stop and talk, you can shoot me a message, or stop by. I’m just down the hall. I expect you to be in touch pretty frequently for the first few weeks, one way or the other. That’s how I know you’re learning. So don’t hesitate.”

“I won’t.”

“Great. Now, are you ready to get started -started?”

“I am.”

“Okay. That means I open the chute. And when I release this deluge on you, you’ll have your own queue, and you’ll be inundated for the next two hours, till lunch. You ready?”

Mae felt she was. “I am.”

“Are you sure? Okay then.”

He activated her account, gave her a mock-salute, and left. The chute opened, and in the first twelve minutes, she answered four requests, her score at 96. She was sweating heavily, but the rush was electric.

A message from Jared appeared on her second screen. Great so far! Let’s see if we can get that up to 97 soon .

I will! she wrote.

And send follow-ups to the sub-100s .

Okay , she wrote.

She sent out seven follow-ups, and three customers adjusted their scores to 100. She answered another ten questions by 11:45. Now her aggregate was 98.

Another message appeared on her second screen, this one from Dan. Fantastic work, Mae! How you feeling?

Mae was astonished. A team leader who checked in with you, and so kindly, on the first day?

Fine. Thanks! she wrote back, and brought up the next customer request.

Another message from Jared appeared below the first.

Anything I can do? Questions I can answer?

No thanks! she wrote. I’m all set for now. Thanks, Jared! She returned to the first screen. Another message from Jared popped up on the second.

Remember that I can only help if you tell me how .

Thanks again! she wrote.

By lunch she had answered thirty-six requests and her score was at 97.

A message from Jared came through. Well done! Let’s follow up on any remaining sub-100s .

Will do , she answered, and sent out the follow-ups to those she hadn’t already handled. She brought a few 98s to 100 and then saw a message from Dan: Great work, Mae!

Seconds later, a second-screen message, this one from Annie, appeared below Dan’s: Dan says you’re kicking ass. That’s my girl!

And then a message told her she’d been mentioned on Zing. She clicked over to read it. It was written by Annie. Newbie Mae is kicking ass! She’d sent it out to the rest of the Circle campus—10,041 people.

The zing was forwarded 322 times and there were 187 follow-up comments. They appeared on her second screen in an ever-lengthening thread. Mae didn’t have time to read them all, but she scrolled quickly through, and the validation felt good. At the end of the day, Mae’s score was 98. Congratulatory messages arrived from Jared and Dan and Annie. A series of zings followed, announcing and celebrating what Annie called the highest score of any CE newb ever of all time suck it .

By her first Friday Mae had served 436 customers and had memorized the boilerplates. Nothing surprised her anymore, though the variation in customers and their businesses was dizzying. The Circle was everywhere, and though she’d known this for years, intuitively, hearing from these people, the businesses counting on the Circle to get the word out about their products, to track their digital impact, to know who was buying their wares and when—it became real on a very different level. Mae now had customer contacts in Clinton, Louisiana, and Putney, Vermont; in Marmaris, Turkey and Melbourne and Glasgow and Kyoto. Invariably they were polite in their queries—the legacy of TruYou—and gracious in their ratings.