Customer Service
I think, based on my experiences, that much of what is called customer service, is simple “go away”.
Seth Godin aptly enumerates the state of customer service.
Customer experience initiatives earnestly seek Road 1. What can I learn from you and how can I make the experience better.
That is it! That sums it up.
Because the customer experience is so dynamic, it can be challenging to figure out where to start. Here are some ideas on how to help keep your customers engaged:
- Call lost customers – Every month have your executives, or as many people in your organization you can, call at least five customers who have left you. Don’t have a script. Nothing is really required other than the ability to really listen. Create a summary to share results.
- Call loyal customers – We often focus on lost customers, but it is also important to know what you do right and keep doing it. Create a summary to share results.
- Be a customer – Ask everyone in your organization to do one thing you require your customers to do once a month. Create a summary to share results.
- Connect with the frontline – Bring in people from all the frontline operations and give them an opportunity to talk candidly with the CEO about customer challenges.
- Do customer math – Talk about lost and gained customers in every meeting you can. Relate the loss or gain to customer experience issues you are aware of, to what the frontline is saying and to what you experienced as a customer yourself.
Now the summary from Seth: Four roads we call customer service | Seth’s Blog
Road 1: I can learn from you and make things better
Road 2: You’re an important customer and I can bring empathy and care to this moment to strengthen our relationship
Road 3: I can teach you something and make things better
Road 4: Go away
Now it begins to make sense. For example, if you call Hyatt’s 800 number, they’ll tell you that they’re not actually in contact with management. That all they can do is refer you to the front desk. They’re not there to learn anything from you.
If you call a company that puts you on hold for a long time, you’re on road 4. The organization has decided that you are a cost, not an asset.
Road 1 customer service is pretty rare. It tends to happen with very small organizations, and that’s one reason why companies appear callous and stuck when they get bigger. They don’t want to spend the resources to expose their decision-makers and creators to the people who actually use the product or service, so they build a moat around them. All they seek to learn is, “how cheap can we mollify customers?”
Road 2 and Road 3 can overlap. It’s entirely possible that the customer is upset or confused because they need training or insight or an explanation. By teaching them how to navigate their situation, you can improve satisfaction at the same time you rebuild a relationship.
Road 3 is often best done with the internet, with a manual, with a video. It’s a chance for the customer (who’s enrolled in getting their problem solved) to interact with a well-designed system that can teach them how to solve it. This can fall apart when the customer doesn’t actually want to learn, or worse, when the organization does a mediocre job of education.
Sometimes, though, the flight actually is cancelled, the software has a bug or the weather just isn’t what it needs to be. In that moment, education can help, but what matters more is clarity, respect and care. Most customers don’t actually expect miracles, but they certainly expect more than Road 4.
The harried commodity providers, the pawns in a monopolistic system that have chosen to race to the bottom, the airlines, the cable companies, the underfunded government agencies–all they have to offer is Road 4.
Go away.
If they had guts, they’d just say so.
If they had talent, they’d make you go away without actually being upset.
Instead, the on-hold industrial complex has created an endless maze, designed to sort through the slightly-annoyed and only serve the remaining truly-committed to getting to the bottom of it.
What a waste.
If you engage with customers, as a freelancer or as a public company CEO, pick your road. Be clear about what it’s worth and what it costs. And then do that.
The confusion about what you’re seeking to achieve helps no one.
Digital Business