twelve solutions

Many people are unaware of the importance of customer service in attaining success. Organisations never stop to ask what type of service are we offering our customers or how do our customers see us? When we get into brainstorming sessions on how to increase our revenue, we should think along the lines of implementing a customer service culture.

Singapore Airlines is one company known for its high customer service standards. They remain one of the most profitable airlines to date and a lot of analysts feel that their superior customer service culture has been the primary reason for this success. Its management team has always given maximum attention to establishing and maintaining a good customer service culture. They believe its the simple and most cost effective way to remain profitable even in a recession.

Let’s think about it this way, its one thing for a waiter to serve food at a restaurant without being rude. Its another thing for the waiter to serve with a smile. Customers definitely don’t want rude attendants but the experience will last longer in our memory if the attendant has a pleasant disposition. We will also be more attuned to talking about it and definitely be happy to return again.

But just to sound a note of caution, for a customer service culture to succeed, everyone in the organisation must be involved. Its not enough for management to provide the funds and expect magic to happen. We all learn better from our elders/superiors. So if you want your staff to truly embrace a new culture why not start with yourself. How you treat them becomes a reflection of how they will treat your customers.

I read a post online and noted the writers surprise to find a top executive of one of the major courier companies on a ride with the truck driver handling deliveries to their customers. He asked the executive why he would put himself through such a tough task when he didn’t need to. The executive laughed and told him he enjoyed it and often made these trips. He said he wasn’t about to stop either. This top executive knows that without the customers being served with delight the organisation will not exist. He knows exactly what they are serving because he’s serving too.

The question we need to ask ourselves is what are we serving our customers?

Our focus this month is on receiving correct customer information. Many times we listen and jot down the wrong details or misspell words. The repercussion of this for CSR’s is that it may slow down the problem resolution process or sometimes makes it impossible to resolve the customer’s complaint or request.

More often than not when you receive a customer, you are required to request for the first name and possibly last name. If you are not sure of what you heard, rather ask the customer to spell the name for you than make him/her repeat the name over and over again while you try to guess the sequence of alphabets to spell the name. It saves time and is less likely to get your customer irritated.

Also collect addresses carefully, never assume you know it unless you are absolutely sure. And because these are split second decisions, its always better to request for the spelling from the customer than try to guess. Same thing applies with numbers, always write numbers down in the sequence you are given lest the information becomes useless.

To ensure you are on the right track, its always important that you confirm the information you have before the end of the interaction. Read what you have written down back to the customer and let him/her confirm that you have the right information. That way you are assured of a quick turnaround time on the customers request/ complaint.

Keeping the customer happy should always remain our number one goal and customers feel more confident about a resolution when they realise you have jotted down the right details during the confirmation stage.

In the past service providers were unconcerned with collating customer data and were okay having to obtain data from their customers at every interaction point thereby treating each transaction as a first. With customer loyalty being identified as a key success factor, organisations have gradually implemented technology to enable them keep a database of customer information.

Some large organisations are able to invest in off the shelf customer relationship management applications (CRM) which allow them effectively collect customer data and also integrate with other existing applications in-house.

However, the question here is how useful is customer data and what do organisations not keeping customer data stand to loose,if anything at all?

An organisation with a customer database gives every customer a personalised experience each and every time they interact with the organisation. Customers have been profiled and their concerns are addressed quickly. Products are tailored to suit their needs making the experience more pleasurable. Therein lies the edge for organisations with customer data, for as they saying goes “knowledge is power”. Thus we must use what we have to our advantage.

Most medium and small sized companies are discouraged by the huge sums required to facilitate data gathering. However it is important that you start a database, no matter how small or cumbersome it may look. It feels good when you walk into a store or call into a helpline and give your name or phone number and get service exactly how you want it.

Need an affordable custom built customer database? Email sales@12solutions.com for more information.

Prejudgement is a crime that most customer service representatives are guilty of committing. We all may have committed this grave service offence at one time or the other during our careers. When we see customers walking towards us or say hello over the phone we are already categorising and segmenting that customer and this affects the service we render.

As professional service representatives, we should never prejudge ANYONE. Everyone who walks in or calls in to the organisation should be given a memorable, consistent experience that will keep them coming back for more.

Often times we become rude to customers who may sound illiterate, have poor diction or walk into our offices or shops dressed in shabby attires. Experience may have shown us that appearance or diction has no correlation with the spending power of an individual. Statistics also show us that the customers who do the lowest volumes of business with us are often the ones who when satisfied “blow the trumpet loudest”.

Why then should the appearance or speech impairments define the service we offer to our customers? In this business we have to give everyone our very best, because we may be losing business when we don’t.

This month’s feature article will focus on the internal customer. Every job function within an organisation requires rendering some form of customer service. For some of us, we may only be dealing with other departments or units within our organisations. These group of people are those we refer to as our internal customers and also deserve our best in terms of service.

Some organisations fail to focus on the primary path to exceptional customer service which is internal customer service. When we build a good internal service culture as individuals within an organisation then we set the tone for success.

As external customers,often times when we encounter problems with the product or service on offer, the most common excuse is oh, its so and so department that has failed to finish what you asked for or is taking their time to deal with the issue. This is often referred to as passing the buck. However, we believe that passing the buck is often times a manifestation of poor internal customer service.

If all departments correctly apply all the do’s and don’t s of exceptional customer service then the front line staff will never have cause to pass the buck. Communicating internally is also a key part of good internal customer service. It puts us all on the right part and reminds us all that we all have one common goal within the organisation.

I’ve come to realise lately that most organisations don’t give much thought to who works in their customer service departments. Recruitment is done based on “who knows who” and “he/she just needs a job”. Most CSR’s are not people who like to serve but they are thrust in the “limelight” and often times fall short of the required standards. 

Recently I met with a friend who works with one of the top banks in our country and while we were talking she spoke with excitement on how she had been moved from sales to customer service. And when I tried to probe deeper with specifics on the interview for the switch between units, her response was, “there was no interview; it was just an internal posting”.

Alarm bells rang in my head and I was wondering “gosh, what are these people up to”. Reason being that my friend is definitely not the best of “helpers”. She can be pleasant when she feels like it but a bit sassy at times and that part will be sure to tick customers off.

Customer service should be treated as a career and not just a job. Recruiting customer service personnel is a very complicated process. Some people have the passion to serve, the patience to listen, a ready smile; they make excellent customer service personnel.

It’s not enough to have this long list of questions to use during recruitment of CSR’s; rather you need to interact informally with your candidates. This interaction process allows them be themselves and affords you a rare glimpse into their personalities.

Organisations need to run frequent health checks on their customer service personnel. Always advice your staff to make a plan to leave the service environment as soon as they find that they’ve lost their initial passion for service or can no longer just bear to listen to the whines of customers.

How do we fare as organisations with our customer service personnel? As customer service managers, do we respond to our staff with a ready smile, an open ear? Or are we grouchy and unhelpful and yet expect them to be the friendly face of the business with our customers?

In a nutshell, who is serving your customers?

Hello everyone,

We’ve launched our all new blog! It promises to be very exciting and informative.

Customer Service is a very special area for us and we have decided to put up various topics within the call centre and customer service area for discussion. Customer Service is very important for any business to survive. Many organisations in our environment still choose to ignore customer service or see it simply as something that gulps a lot of funds. When training sessions are held within organisations, junior level staff are mandated to attend while the company executives use work to avoid attending these sessions. This attitude from senior management staff does not help change the attitude of junior staff towards customers. For a customer service culture change to effectively occur, all staff need to be a part of the process.

A ripple effect of not involving the entire organisation is that the customers take the final punch. Customers get bad service from the front line staff and their issues are not dealt with internally because no one within the organisation’s management empathises; having not been a part of the process.

What attitude does your organisation have towards customers? Are there two “standards” in operation? Do senior staff ensure that junior staff imbibe the customer service culture but remove themselves from the process?

How about the customer? How do we feel when our issues remain unresolved by front line customer service personnel and we are told that our issues will be escalated to senior management, and many weeks down the line we’re still waiting for response?

Will be back again later.

Ati