Does Our “Customer Service” Serve?
In our daily lives, we
often find ourselves calling or emailing “Customer Call/Service/Contact/Support
Centres”. For any Customer Experience to
be successful for the customer, it needs to meet three basic criteria.
These criteria are that it should:
- Meet their needs;
- Be easy to use
- Be enjoyable
Different organisations may have differing views on what this
means, but to find out what will make the grade with our customers, we need to
actually ask. The answers will vary depending on our
industry, product/service, target customer base (different customer segments
may have differing views, don’t forget) and delivery channels.
One of the most popular channels is the phone, followed by
the internet. Physical mail still
happens, but is being displaced by email unless some kind of paper-based
authentication is needed.
With phones, we see the most direct and immediate form of
contact. This is equivalent to asking
someone face to face and suggests that the matter is urgent and important
enough for someone to spend their time on the phone rather than sending an
email or letter. This means that the way
we handle phone calls is a “make or break” point.
The complaints I hear about “Call Centres” are usually:
- Slow to answer
- Automated answering rather than a “live person”
- Too much time spent going though menus (“Press 1 for Accounts, 2 for Sales”, etc)
- No option for what I want
- No option to speak to a live person
- Was given the option to call the person’s extension only to be told they weren’t answering and the service hung up
- No option to leave a message
- Left message; no one called back
- In other words, the so-called “Call Centre” doesn't meet the criteria required for a good customer experience.
Many readers will have had similar experiences, but most of
us can say that our hearts sink when we hear, “Welcome to the ABC Limited Call
Centre, to help us direct your call, please press…”. Whilst this is usually meant to make sure
that we get through to the “right person”, we’re still left wondering whether
we’re going to spend the next 5-10 minutes navigating complex menu choices or
on hold (“Your call is important to us and an agent will be with you as soon as
possible.”).
Email can be slightly better, but again we’ve all faced a
drop-down menu of “subjects” none of which quite describe why we’re emailing
(and we have to choose one of
them…). Again, we hit the “send” or
“submit” button and are left wondering if we’ll get a reply.
As for letter, many of us have written to “Customer Service”
only to hear nothing…
The upshot is simple: does our process actually work?
To do this, we need to ask:
- Who are our customers?
- What do people contact us about most (and why)?
- How do they want to communicate (phone, email, face to face/all of the above)?
- Do different customer segments prefer different communication channels?
- What’s our process for handling these contacts?
- Does it actually work? If not, why not?
- Do we have deadlines for replying (even if only a “holding reply”)?
If our Customer Service actually serves, we can look forward to healthy business flows from happy
customers.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 09:04
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