Tag: customer service

It’s not you asking

FabrizioLeave a comment

You need to establish a relationship with the people you are serving, and ask them how you are doing often.

Of course, this means you might not like what they have to say, your customer satisfaction score might be low, you will have to work harder, and perhaps eventually you will have to change quite a lot of your product or service, or even get out of business.

But it’s not you asking that makes these things true.

Things are what they are, and even when we refrain from finding out – because we don’t want to know we are not liked, or find out our hard work is not hard enough, or realize we won’t get that bonus or promotion -, they will continue on their course with no regard for our preoccupation.

At least, with knowledge, we might be able to adjust just in time.

Openly ask

FabrizioLeave a comment

Do you ever bother to openly ask?

A team member, what they would like to work on.

A customer, how they will be using your product.

A user, what topic would they be happy receiving content about.

Your partner, how would they feel if something would happen.

Your boss, what’s keeping them up at night.

Most of our businesses and lives are based on assumptions. Sometimes we hide them under the labels “experience” and “data”, and yet assumptions they are and they will be.

Should we instead bother and ask the question?

A whole lot more

FabrizioLeave a comment

I can find all the praises for your product or service easily.

I can talk to one of your reps in minutes.

If I prefer so, your chatbot will guide me to the content most relevant to my situation.

I can painlessly answer a survey to help you improve your website, and with one single click give you consent to using (and share) information about my interests.

Your marketing will seek me out to offer more, for free, as long as I stay engaged.

That rep is still trying to schedule a follow-up call to offer a discount if I sign now.

And then, once I am finally your customer, if I need some information, I have to dig them out of an overly complicated help center page, or pray for a telephone number to appear below one of the folds of your website and wait in queue.

And if I decide that, for any reason, I do not need your service anymore, you frustrate the hell out of me with rules, counteroffers, bundles, and eventually a cold goodbye.

There’s no balance in the way companies allocate budget throughout the customer journey. Or perhaps it’s just they think the journey ends when the customer has paid.

There’s a whole lot more to it.

Do, measure and adjust

FabrizioLeave a comment

There are many different ways to address any case. Unfortunately, you probably have resources (attention, money, energy, motivation) to try one or two of them at the same time.

The point is then to avoid lengthy discussions about which way is the better (not to mention pointless scenario-building that change the rules of the case), and put some effort instead in identifying what successfully addressing the case looks like.

And then just do, measure and adjust.

Unrealized potential

FabrizioLeave a comment

Customer service should be a function of marketing.

It’s an opportunity to establish a personal relationship with the customer, right in the moment when the customer wants to speak to you and is willing to provide information about their experience.

Not only.

If an organisation is smart enough to mine the information collected from customer service interactions and analyse them qualitatively (sentiment, voice of customer, etc.) rather than quantitatively (first rime response, contact rate, etc.), a treasure trove of customers insights could be found, good to use in messaging, positioning, differentiation, price and promotion, and more.

Customer service has the potential to become a true channel for personalisation, as well as the source from which all other personalisations originate.