Annie is a hard-working and proud single mother of 2 children. She has a 4-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter. She works 40-50 hours a week as a nurse. She is extremely busy balancing her work obligations, her childrens activities, and arranging childcare as she works shiftwork.

Even though Annie has a good job with benefits, she is a one-income household, so she pays close attention to spending and follows a strict budget. She is extremely organized and has carved out 5 minutes a day to check her online banking.

On the last day of the month, Annie is particularly careful and ensures she never forgets to check her accounts because her mortgage payment always comes out that day. This time, when Annie checks her account, she is immediately overcome with panic and anxiety. She found that her paycheck did come into her account, however, there was a $600 withdrawal that left her very short for her mortgage payment coming out the next day.

Annie knew that she did not have any bills that would have come out for $600. She quickly researched the charge and did not recognize any of the information associated with the payment. Her heart sank as she realized that either someone was using her account fraudulently or the bank had made an error. She knew that she would now have to carve out time to call her banks customer service team. She liked her bank but lately, the hold times were getting longer and longer, however, it was imperative that she make the call. Annie was on hold for 25 minutes while trying to get her children fed and ready for school. The customer service representative greeted her with a friendly voice. Annie could not hold back her tears while she began to explain what was happening. The customer service agent explained that their system takes two days to update and recommended that Annie wait 2 days so that they would be able to see what they were seeing and call back and they would try and help her then.

Annie felt helpless. If her mortgage payment were to bounce, it could affect her excellent credit score, and what if someone was using her account fraudulently? The customer service representative reiterated that they would not be able to assist her until their system is updated but they would be happy to deal with her questions if she could just call back in 48 hours.

Using the textbook and the class discussions over the past month, the following questions are to be answered in long-answer format. (minimum of 350 words per question)

1. Annies situation is extremely challenging and client service representatives need to be able to understand their customers. In the textbook, we learned about many of the challenging customers, but Annie does not really fit into one of those categories. Based on the case study, explain how you would classify Annie as a customer in your own words. What type of service does a customer like Annie need? (5 pts)

2. Describe how you felt about Annies interaction with the client service representative and the company. What steps could the CSR and the company have done differently to assist Annie?

(5 pts)

3. Imagine that this was your company. Using the material in the textbook as a reference, describe a strategic customer service plan that would have been able to anticipate a situation like Annies. As a customer-focused client service agent, what policies and procedures would you have in place to ensure the following: (10 pts)

- Annies expectations would be positive

- Annie would receive an exceptional customer experience

- Annie would close the call and feel confident her issue was resolved

- Your company would retain Annie as a customer