Many companies pride themselves on the level of service they provide to their customers. During the course of our work with some of those companies, we often conduct surveys of current and past customers to get an objective view of service levels and customer satisfaction. Some companies are surprised by customer responses, while others consistently find that they have a good understanding of customer needs and expectations.
So, what is good customer service? Based on our experience, there are some common themes. For example, good customer service is:
o Having an internal environment that is committed to the customer, i.e., a true service culture as demonstrated by the statements, actions, and behaviors of the organization's leaders. Many companies struggle with how to define and promote a service-oriented culture. The end result, however, is clear. All staff members understand customer satisfaction trumps their other priorities.
o Being available to customers when they want to do business. Increasingly, this means longer business hours, often approaching 24/7/365 coverage. It also means being available immediately, without extensive delays, wait times, or queues. Providing this accessibility in a cost-effective way requires sophisticated technologies and monitoring tools to staff the various contact points for good service levels. Such technologies include work-force management, remote worker infrastructure, voice recognition, and workflow to name a diverse few.
o Providing points of contact that are convenient to customers. Points of contact include face-to-face encounters, telephone, Internet, and mail. The key here is not to select one means of communication as the sole strategy but to provide access in all the ways your customers want to do business. Yet again, companies are faced with two primary issues in accomplishing this: creating and maintaining the points of contact and, most importantly, doing it in a cost-effective way.
o Having access to all customer information and accounts at the point of contact. For many companies, this requires a significant improvement in technology and data integration and a redesign of the way information about customers is collected, stored, and accessed. With all the emphasis in recent years on customer relationship management (CRM), it is both notable and troubling many companies still do not have ready access to comprehensive customer information at the point of a service contact.
o Being able to complete/resolve customers' requests and issues in one transaction a high percentage of the time. Many customer service horror stories include going through extended menus to get to the right party, being placed on hold, being referred to another department, repeating the same request over and over, and being told "the check is in the mail."
o Having regular measures of customer service levels and customer satisfaction. These measures should be multidimensional and evaluate service from the viewpoint of the customer.
o Taking immediate action to resolve lapses in the customer service process. These actions must be institutionalized and satisfy two critical objectives: resolving the service transaction from the specific customer's view and taking corrective action to avoid similar situations in the future.
Good customer service is not:
o Having a published but underachieved customer service strategy.
o Bending rules and policies to make customers happy.
o Handling problems and complaints very well. (Good customer service is all about avoiding problems and complaints in the first place.)
o Apologizing repeatedly for service lapses.
o Trying to solve service problems with technology alone. Many customer interactions are still person to person. While technology is essential to supporting these contact points, people are ultimately the key to successful transactions.
o Measuring the performance of services with anecdotal, complimentary letters from customers. Testimonials from customers are nice and can support the message of a service culture. However, they do not take the place of statistically valid information about the service experience being provided.
Some of these ideas may seem like common sense, offering few new insights. The fact is many companies lose sight of these fundamentals when they implement new processes, technology, and policy changes. A good way to remain focused on customer service objectives is to measure the outcomes of customer contact transactions.
Measuring the effectiveness of the components of customer service entails a multilevel analysis. It includes measures of the mechanics of the process (such as call center metrics of wait time and call abandonment), review of technology performance (system availability, performance, ease of use), monitoring of service representative interactions with customers, and periodic surveys of customer satisfaction.
Excellent customer service and customer satisfaction with service transactions are essential components of customer retention. Studies have shown that small improvements in customer satisfaction translate directly into higher profitability because the cost of retaining existing customers is much lower than the cost of acquiring new ones.
In the financial services industry, product differentiation is disappearing. Service differentiation, however, is another story: By delivering positive experiences to customers, it is possible to lock in customers and gain a competitive advantage.
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