Recently I had to deal with a particularly annoying circumstance in which a bank deposit we had made did not appear in our daughter's RDSP for over a month. We had made the mistake of trying to deposit a grant she had received from Endowment 150 through the branch, an error that we will not repeat, I can assure you. Several emails, half a dozen phone calls and the situation was resolved. But it was a month-long process; a month that seemed especially long because of our daughter's daily inquiry about it. One thing I noticed was everyone I wrote to or talked to kept mentioning "escalate" as in "you wish to escalate your concern" or "your matter has been escalated" or "this is an escalation". I found the use of this term very off putting. I looked up the customer service definition and here it is: "In customer service, escalation refers to a situation where a support agent must deal with a frustrated or angry customer who, in turn, wants to get in touch with a senior agent to resolve their issue." sprinklr.com
To my mind suggesting that someone is frustrated and angry before they actually are frustrated or angry is a good way to ensure that they will indeed become frustrated and angry. I found their use of that term worsened the situation for me. I had been polite but clear about how disappointed we were; that this had lessened our daughter’s trust in them but that all we wanted was the cheque to appear in her account. If they hadn’t lost the document, it was simple really, just post the transaction and be done with it. It was not as easy as you would think!
I do find that the words we use are so important. Jargon or words or expressions used by a particular profession can be very confusing and do not always lead to clear communication. And while the words escalate or escalation may seem apt in the world of customer service, I for one don't find them helpful as a customer. Finally, all that matters is that the money is in the bank!
