Customer Service and Relationship Management
Customer Service and Relationship Management tests whether you can resolve problems, uncover needs and keep the relationship without overstepping authority. Questions focus on service recovery, complaint handling, documentation and ethical cross-selling.
Core rules
- Use open questions to find the need before discussing any product; a recommendation made before discovery is a sales pitch, not service.
- Service recovery follows a sequence: acknowledge the issue, apologize for the experience, take ownership, act within authority, confirm resolution and follow up.
- Never promise an outcome you cannot authorize - a fee refund, a rate exception or a timeline that belongs to another department.
- Log complaints with date, channel, facts, action taken and owner; root-cause patterns drive process fixes.
- Escalate on defined triggers: suspected fraud, legal threats, vulnerable customers, or amounts above your limit.
- Share only what the customer needs to hear; never disclose another customer's information, even to explain a delay.
Worked example
A customer is charged two overdraft fees because a pre-authorization settled before a payroll deposit arrived. Verify the ledger, confirm the timing, explain what happened without blaming the customer, reverse one fee under your $50 goodwill authority and escalate the second to a supervisor with a written summary. The customer leaves with a named owner and a date.
Traps
- Promising a refund or rate you cannot approve, which becomes a conduct issue when it is not honored.
- Arguing about who is at fault instead of fixing the problem.
- Discussing account details with a spouse or relative who is not on the account.
- Closing without confirming the customer understood the next step.