Skip to main content

What happened to Customer Service?


Leaving your customer with the sensation that they are highly revered to your organization, isn't that what customer service is all about? However, in order to obtain that level of connection wouldn't it help if every individual which touched the customer sincerely understood what service you are providing? If we go back to my core belief, expressed in other posts, "people want to do the right thing". Taking that at face value, it leaves our primary jobs as mentors and educators.



Many complicate this topic by blaming it on the generations, as a matter of fact that is where I was at when I started to think about composing this post. It is true in some ways that over the years our culture in America has changed. You can experience this by visiting different parts of the United States, for instance go to the deep South and you will get a different level of customer service then you may on either of our coasts. Yet that is really a scapegoat to avoid the root problem that we have as a culture surrounding customer service. If every one of your employees and subcontractors understood what your organization is trying to achieve and could correlate those objectives with the services delivered your customer service would skyrocket.  You know that feeling when you have had an opportunity to touch someone, help them through a problem, make their day better. The funny thing is good customer service is highly contagious, when you are treated with dignity and respect that naturally transfers to others.



You may consider:

  1. Inventing or enhancing mechanisms to facilitate input from the worker to improve a customer's operation and equipment performance
  2. Check in with your customer's when there is NOT a problem, just to see how they are doing
  3. Establish customer forums to listen and foster best practice sharing



-----

Next post:  annuity base, helps or hurts?

-----
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

why transform?

Why do I want to change, who said anything was wrong with my stack of papers and sea of Excel files?   We solve problems, that is a key characteristic of any successful service organization, if it isn't broke why fix it?   Often, when discussing a transformation from paper or cobbled together systems to a cohesive digital approach, folks struggle with the gap between what they currently do and how digital tools can help.   You really need to look at where the pain points are in your organization and how these compare to your business objectives.   Consider writing down these points on the whiteboard in no particular order, spend a few days shuffling and consolidating into a prioritized list.   Once you have the "why" and the "what" identified, the old remaining step is "how".   Some of the most popular observations over the years have been; Slipping through the cracks :   you know, not the major muscle movements, instead those little i...
Post a Comment
Read more

expert at everything...not a problem

Well... I would say sometimes there certainly is a perceived notion that one person is an expert at everything. For the worker "everything" may be defined as the specific area in which you were hired or are constantly scheduled. Our opinions are frequently influenced off of past experience, or information we've received from their coworkers. Unfortunately this only gives us partial insight to that workers expertise and often is limited to their most recent history. Narrowly focused accounting is made of the skills that this individual possess. Come on, can't we figure out a way to leverage all of the skills of a particular worker? One of the challenges has always been that relationship between the activities which need to be accomplished and the myriad skills of individuals within your workforce. In addition, even if you could inventory and get a pretty good handle on the skill sets, they are constantly changing (with any luck) and thus the ineffective process of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Digital distance

As influential Irene entered the dispatch department this hot July afternoon all that she heard was the tapping of keyboards.   The energy felt like a controlled, almost clinical environment.   It wasn't that many years ago when the sense of chaos, wrapped in genuine human concern for our clients, filled the room with a much different feeling.   Could it be that our ambitions to become more efficient, by leveraging technology has simply created a reason for us not to communicate verbally with one another?    Hasn't the idea all along been centered around our ability to spend more time with our customers? Making each and every one of them feel as if they are our most important client?   Certainly I'm not suggesting we go back to big chief tablets and number two pencils.   Yet, we need to reflect and strike a balance between digitization and delivery. By pure coincidence, avid Andy was composing a memo attempting to give his opinion, without tr...
Post a Comment
Read more