Review the current thinking on customer service, and you will find that having customers who are merely satisfied isn’t enough anymore. Today’s experts suggest that, ideally, your customers would feel a “til-death-do-us-part” sense of loyalty to your company and its products. Of course, just like in any marriage, building that kind of life-long devotion takes time, commitment and hard work. I would add that it also requires a service-oriented company culture and a team of employees who are committed to delivering exceptional care.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should admit that I am not an expert on the subject of customer service, but don’t be too quick to tune me out. While I may be incapable of convincingly employing a lot of customer service lingo or industry buzz words, as co-owner of a company that has spent the last several years overhauling its customer service protocol, I do have a few hard-earned credentials in the area of customer service. Our company’s mission is far from complete, but I have already learned some invaluable lessons about what it takes to transition from a company that truly cares about its clients to one that demonstrates genuine care during every client interaction.
Top Down Culture & Commitment – Leaders may not always recognize or acknowledge the significant role they play within their organizations, but they are implicitly responsible for setting the tone for their companies. For that reason, I cannot overstate the importance of a leader’s commitment to fostering a caring culture that embraces service as a platform. Employees will rally behind initiatives that owners or top executives endorse, because those will be perceived to be the most strategic, and perhaps even career-building, endeavors. When a project is not outwardly supported by top leaders, it is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as superficial and less important.
Identify Internal Champions – Successfully effectuating cultural change requires top level commitment, but implementing related process and procedural changes takes something more. Reinventing a company’s customer service model requires continuous planning and constant attention. In the case of our company, we entirely revamped how we addressed client calls and responded to their inquiries and needs. As a result, we had to research, install and test a new customer service system, establish and implement new protocols, and of course, train qualified people that were not only knowledgeable about our business, but excited about the role they would serve for clients and our company. To oversee a project of that magnitude, it was critical that we identify an internal champion who was not only personally committed to customer service but who also had the passion and conviction to motivate others.
Commit Resources – It should go without saying, but I’ll mention it anyway. If you are truly committed to improving your company’s level of customer care, you are going to have to give more than mere lip service. Delivering exceptional service requires teams of talented people who are equipped with progressive technology and top-notch tools, so be prepared to commit dollars and resources to the initiative.
Hire the Right People – Whenever someone recounts a story about customer service, a large part of their experience relates to the person that they had the pleasure, or displeasure, of dealing with – an especially engaging flight attendant, a sales associate who went out of their way to locate the item they were looking for, an inattentive waiter, a rude customer service agent. Because one person can make or break a customer encounter, it’s critical that the right people are working for your company. The most effective way to do that is by identifying service-oriented people during the hiring process. Everyone in an organization is responsible for helping to deliver remarkable service, so whether you are hiring a sales rep or a receptionist, ask interview questions that gage an applicant’s level of customer care and their experiences in dealing with difficult clients.
Empower Employees – Not long after our company launched its customer service initiative, I had an employee contact me about whether it would be alright for the company to send flowers to a client whose mother had passed away. While I was pleased to be made aware of the situation and happy that my employees were thinking of ways to appropriately acknowledge our client’s loss, I was somewhat frustrated that an employee felt it necessary to ask my permission to do something so right. I realized that I had failed to properly empower my employees! Because it is employees who ultimately deliver customer service, they have to feel empowered to do what they believe is right in a given situation. Of course, guidelines are useful and monetary limits may be warranted, but a waiter should feel free to comp a dessert and a travel agent should be able to provide a free day’s car rental if by doing so a customer walks away feeling more favorably about your company and how it handled his or her issue.
Make Training a Priority – Maybe your company is like ours. As a professional services firm, we need front line customer service representatives who understand our business and are well-versed in all aspects of our service offering so they can address client concerns that are often complex or technical in nature. As a result, we’ve made training a priority to ensure that our customer service representatives, and all of our employees, are knowledgeable enough to deal with the most complicated customer issues. However, we can’t stop at training our customer service representatives only on our products and processes. It is just as important, perhaps even more so, that we also train our front line representatives to effectively deal with people under the most difficult or delicate of circumstances.
It’s Never Done - In the course of committing our company to exceptional service and care, I’ve discovered that customer service isn’t a box that can ever realistically be checked off a “to do” list. While we may have new protocols and systems in place and working well, we aren’t done and we never will be. Delivering remarkable service requires ongoing, company-wide commitment and continuous attention.
Experts have written volumes about exceptional customer service and why customers’ experiences, and in turn their perceptions, are so important to your company’s success. More than likely though, you don’t need an expert to convince you that in this difficult economic environment keeping loyal customers by delivering exceptional service is smart business. Hopefully, my “non-expert” advice can be of some help as you consider how your own company can become more service-oriented.
