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News, tips, and trends to help you reach that next level of customer service.
Advertising often speaks to a companies more subjective qualities like customer service. They're paying for it, so they can generally say what they want. Even if they are the only ones that feel that way about themselves.
I've had an experience yesterday that illustrated how indifference and apathy towards customers can cause sales to walk out your door. If your company is doing awesome, then stop reading. Otherwise...
Translate this to how many companies are handling the current economic mess and you have a simple business plan:
I bet you have already skipped ahead and solved the puzzle, but just in case, step 2 is "people". A gut-wrenching, cost-cutting strategy won't make your company any stronger if your people don't execute. Your visionary, game-changing strategy won't make the company grow any faster if your people aren't carrying it out. Simply playing a recording that says "your call is really important to us" on your toll-free hotline doesn't mean your customers will feel their call is actually important to you.
The best way to get things moving is to engage your people in your strategy and ensure they are carrying it out. Here are five ideas you can use right now to make that happen.
Idea #1: Make a contest out of checking people's work. The best supervisors I've met make doing things right fun through contests and games. This approach can cause employees to welcome additional supervision and oversight since they know doing it right leads to positive results. Some enterprising employees may even bring their accomplishments to your attention!
Idea #2: Hold outsourced providers to the same service standards. Hotels, call centers, delivery services, and other companies often outsource business functions that have a high degree of customer contact. Outsourcing may save you money, but it will cost you customers if you don't hold these service providers to the same service standards you expect from your employees. Offer them training and resources to understand your service culture and check on them often.
Idea #3: Stand-up and listen. Many great supervisors use pre-shift meetings (often called "stand-ups" because they are so short) to keep the team focused and informed. Holding regular pre-shift meetings is a great idea, but you can also use this to gather and share valuable intelligence from the team. What is selling well and why? What problems are customers reporting that we can easily fix? Who has a success story they can share?
Idea #4: Don't miss an opportunity to upsell. Customers are pretty good at tuning out sales pitches, but you can train your team to upsell like a pro by arming them with a few simple questions they can ask their customers. A retail sales associate may ask, "Is there anything in particular you are looking for today?" to find out where to direct a customer. A hotel associate may ask, "Are you in town for business or pleasure?" to better understand which hotel amenities to recommend. Better yet, make it fun and create an up-selling contest!
Idea #5: Empower the team to do what's right. We all need a few guidelines, but make sure the guidelines you give your employees make sense. If there are exceptions to the rules, such as an opportunity to make a big sale or keep an important customer, let them know. At a minimum, train your employees to involve you if they think the rules need to be bent a little bit.
I had an experience today that was a lot like discovering Santa Claus has the same handwriting as my mother. Today, when I called the California's Department of Motor Vehicles toll-free 'customer service' number, I received poor service. Yes, you read correctly, I received poor customer service from the DMV. You may want to stop reading for a moment to verify the earth is still spinning on its axis.
The situation started when I received a 'delinquent renewal notice' for my auto registration. This struck me as odd since I had not received an initial renewal notice. The part that stood out was the $154 late fee, so I made the call. I should have known things were not going to go well when (after 10 minutes on hold) the woman who answered the phone identified herself as "Agent G-7".
That may be the first problem...
Customer service at its best is between two human beings. At its worst, "Agent G-7" works diligently at getting "Customer 1234" off the phone as quickly as possible because the call is viewed as a cost rather than an opportunity to delight a customer.
It gets better (the story, not my situation)...
Agent G-7 looked up my account and informed me a renewal notice had been mailed in May. It didn't matter to her that I never received it. I asked her what she suggested I do and she replied, "I don't know, we don't take payments at this number." I again asked her what she suggested I do to resolve what I felt was an unreasonable fee and she suggested I go down to my local DMV office. What she didn't add, but I will, is that the trip would have likely resulted in a wait of one hour or more only to speak with an equally unsympathetic person who would tell me, "You have to pay the fee."
I asked Agent G-7 if she had any other ideas and she replied, "We don't take payments at this number." Um, yeah G-7, I got that part. So what else should I try? "Well, you could try calling Sacramento." With that, she gave me a phone number and hustled me off the phone. You may be surprised to learn the phone number Agent G-7 gave me didn't go anywhere -- it just rang and rang.
Thank goodness my call is very important to the IVR
A little editorial: I don't like "interactive voice response" or "IVR" systems. Those are systems where a computerized voice tries to interact with you and asks you to say "Yes" for English, "Si" for Spanish, or "Account Balance" to learn your account balance. I don't like IVR for two reasons. First, it sends the message to me that I'm not important enough for these people to pay a real human being to talk to me. Second, IVR often doesn't work too well.
Case in point was the DMV's IVR system. I called it next to pay my bill, but it couldn't understand a word I said. It even lectured me on how to say my license plate number so it could understand me better. I followed it's instructions, but it still didn't understand me. I got so frustrated, I briefly thought of giving Agent G-7 a call back before I remembered they don't take payments at her number.
OK, DMV, you got me.
The end of the story is I paid the fee. Not happily, not proudly, but because I felt it was the best of my terrible options. As a California resident, I know it would be tough to take my vehicle registration elsewhere (without moving), but I do have a few suggestions for the DMV to save a few dollars.
Many of us, including myself, are guilty of focusing on what's wrong with customer service. Maybe that's because it's so easy to point out negative examples. At the same time, there are a lot of companies out there using outstanding service to stand apart from the competition, engage their customers, and make more money.
I'm collecting those success stories for the October edition of Service Sense, my email newsletter. If you, your department, or your organization has used customer service to make a difference in the marketplace, I'd like to hear about it. More specifically, I'm interested in hearing how a specific focus on service (employee training, strategic planning, process improvement, etc.) yielded great results. The best stories will be shared in the October Service Sense.
Please email me or post your comment to share a story.
Jeff Toister