In the past year, I've had interaction with the customer care departments of half a dozen different companies that provide services for my business or household. The range of responses was astonishingly broad. From a customer's perspective, here are some pitfalls effective businesses must avoid.
When I sit down, my cat assumes I did this because he wanted to recline on my lap. If I open a cabinet, my cat believes my sole purpose is to feed him. Opening a window, in my cat's mind, can only mean I wish to award him a prime sunbeam-soaking position. He displays very little sense of anything but himself. The world revolves around him.
Unfortunately, two providers I called for help recently displayed the feline attitude. The scripts customer service representatives are asked to follow too often betray a sense of self-interest. Reps are encouraged to view every call as an opportunity to make a new sale or upgrade an existing account. To a customer with a problem that needs solving, this can come across as insensitive or arrogant.
Address and assist the customer first and foremost. If, afterward, opportunity to upgrade a customer's account arises naturally, and if the customer is of a favorable state of mind, the representative can venture safely toward the new sale. But doing so at a moment when a customer's basic expectations have not been met will only further alienate and frustrate him.
Remember the game "Telephone"? A brief message is whispered from one person to the next in turn, and often, by the time the last recipient hears it, it has been distorted into something that bears only a passing resemblance to its original form.
Perhaps it seems an obvious problem to avoid, yet some companies are guilty of playing Telephone with customer service requests. One of my recent experiences was a message to tech support. The response I received was an excellent, detailed list of instructions explaining how to do something I didn't need and hadn't asked about. My original question was not addressed at all. As a customer, I was now annoyed on top of being in the dark about the problem.
To have effective customer relations, one must be willing to LISTEN.
Sing with me, Mick: "Time is on my side--yes it is!" What a great tune! The lyric doesn't make a good customer service mantra, though. Outside of Rolling Stones songs, time does not takes sides. A customer's time is just as valuable as a company's.
During another of my recent customer service calls, the rep promised to call me back me in no more than a week with an update on the problem's status. While I did receive an update call, it came three weeks late. Around the same time, I had a service question with another company. I left two messages, a week apart, with my assigned rep. I got no return call at all, forcing me to go over the rep's head to get the problem resolved.
It's not always possible to provide a complete solution instantly. The vast majority of customers understand this and are willing to wait a reasonable amount of time. But there are still valid lessons to be learned from the last two examples:
There is, of course, another side to to all these examples: customer care that really lives up to its name. We've all worked with companies whose service departments are professional, personable, effective, and punctual. These are the providers we choose over and over. We are loyal to them even when competitors woo us with promises of more features or lower prices. A business that shows superior customer service earns a golden reputation, a warm glow that promotes the business's continued growth and success.
© 2008 by AnnaLisa Michalski