What do we usually mean by customer service? It boils down to the delivery of good and/or services in a way that ensures that customer experience is up to the standards correspond to the brand and the organisation’s values in general! Easy or not? One might assume that the sales department can easily structure a set of actions to achieve the above task. But is it so?
Well known statistics, prove the need for continuous improvement in customer service prior, during and after sales actions. A huge obstacle in sustaining and developing current clientele if customer service not taken care of in a holistic approach.
Aiming for high standards of customer service, imposes strategies and directions clearly explained and monitored. At the same time, each organisation must ensure that all departments that are directly or indirectly connected with customer service, contribute, understand and implement these strategies. Departments such as Sales, Marketing and Customer Support are clearly focused in delivering high standards of customer service. None should forget though departments such as, warehouse, logistics, purchasing, front-line support, accounts and more. Management should aim to align actions between these departments towards high level of customer experience.
Going back in my earlier years in my career, I recall sales managers’ and sales representatives’ dreading “wrong” behaviour when other departments were contacting clients, i.e. if accounts department were to contact customers for amounts due! Although in this example, accounts departments were obliged to contact them, it was at the same time essential for sales and accounts to align their approach and handle possible ambiguities per case. The necessity for this alignment is even more crucial nowadays, especially taking into account that each customer is different!
We can assume that providing high standards of customer service is an everyday challenge and should not be confined within specific words and actions. We should think of this as a holistic approach, a set of behaviours and several indicators that help us analyse further the outcome of our approach.
Essentially, we need to base this holistic approach on organisational values and explain in more detail how these apply to each department involved directly or indirectly with customers. Then set up indicators (KPIs) to measure the impact that each department has on customer service. Identifying these KPIs is not as difficult as it might seem. Taking for example delivery of goods to customers, clearly includes indicators such as, time and accuracy of delivery, time and correctness in handling of complains, time needed to correct a wrong delivery.
The challenge is therefore on gathering information, analysing it and responding accordingly. To whom do we delegate these responsibilities? Although these are not easy tasks and sometimes demand investing in systems and technologies, we need to weigh the cost of losing customers. Considering that the cost of building relationship with new customers is usually too great and that cost of attracting new customers is proportionally extreme. In a process of balancing between cost and benefit we need to ensure that our decision serves our objectives and as mentioned before aligns with our organisation values.
The million-dollar question is how an organisation tackles effectively the need for uniformity in client service? It can be done through the following steps:
- Firstly, list and analyse your values so everyone can use the same approach, behaviours and to some extend vocabulary.
- Each department lists their customer specific actions and approaches.
- Identify per department customer specific KPIs as the next step from the above.
- Verify with management and ensure continuity and uniformity.
- Put the above into use, evaluate, set targets and re-visit for regular fine-tuning.
The above are all challenging. But in most cases, step 4 is the most challenging of all, although lack of knowledge can put a hold on the procedure if step 3 is not completed quickly and effectively. We seek for the big picture, giving emphasis on targets such as time, efficiency, accuracy, customer satisfaction surveys’ results, common filling systems (CRM), etc.
To overcome any challenges, customer support or sales should take this tasks under their control and treat as a project with S.M.A.R.T. deliverables.
Happy customer service!
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Haris Tapakis
Consultant & Trainer