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?

-----

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is custom software in 2019 spelled EGO?

I still struggle , as do many, with the rationalization between building software and buying software. Microsoft Excel , likely one of the most widely recognized packaged software applications, was released over 30 years ago . My guess is not many people would consider building a custom piece of software which performs math and other worksheet related tasks. While this is an obvious example, it highlights an important factor for many in deciding between custom and configurable software solutions . Fact is, everybody understands how Microsoft Excel works. Let's mix it up a bit and add the opinions that you have regarding what makes your approach to business so special.   The things that you do, in an industry, which are totally unique to your competitors.   This is where it gets a bit murky, we must tease out the transactional components from the value add aspects of software.   For instance, you use a staffing system to help find, manage, and retain internal and external

no one told you when to run

From the clients perspective, what is the perfect service call? "To interpret my field conditions and apply a solution which resolves the issue immediately and ensures trouble-free long-term operation. Delivered by a professional, courteous, empathetic, appropriately skilled, years of experience, materials required for repair, a good listener, and one that treats me as if I am their only customer; amen"! As you might expect the perfect service call is really a blend of attitudes, attributes, and capabilities. The trick is, while we all may agree that these aspects make the perfect service call, endeavoring to achieve these results is becoming increasingly more difficult. Our customers, with their visibility and awareness of our activities, raise the bar regarding the level of service that we need to provide. Let's unpack a few of these elements: Appropriately skilled :   haven't we all had this discussion in the past?   My workers are all

Modern tech moving us forward?

Think about some of the most recent technologies;   Solar fields, I doubt the designers considered the impact on the bird population; Facebook , do you believe that they thought about the long-term ramifications regarding how false news might be proliferated through this platform; Twitter , could anyone imagine it would be such a haven for bullies; and what about TOR, the US government "internet" built for military families use in foreign countries which has turned into the " dark web " were all sorts of things are bought and sold? I would like to believe that all of these started with the best intentions in mind. Unfortunately it is not enough to dissuade those with impure and nefarious intentions.   I continue to get excited about the future with items such as IOT and cognitive computing machines, assisting us in making better and more deliberate decisions, the other part of me gets nervous that we will inadvertently create a world of "black boxes&