Let's Turn Today's Customer Service Model on its Head!

Let’s turn the customer service model on its head.

Let’s not relegate service standards to numbers (so 1990's). Numbers are tools to show trends and areas of improvements not the end-all-be-all measurement of poor, good, great or world class service. #fact

Let’s STOP with the frustrating IVR’s that think every customer has the intelligence of a gnat.

Let’s STOP the wait message infomercials that we think are great marketing tools to a captive audience and realize we are just adding to a customer’s frustration.

Let’s not measure a good IVR platform as one that eliminates calls to a live agent as we think the COST factor is too much, but one that provides a great service to those who CHOOSE it.

Let’s train our agents on not being robots saying FAKE “I certainly understand your concern” or fake “I’m Sorry’s” and think that checks the block for empathy.

Let's not hide our customer service number to force customers to use frustrating online self service platforms...YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
While we are at it let’s not say “train” agents at all, let’s educate them. You train animals, you educate people.

Let’s not gouge or trick our customers with fees and “penalty's” because someone in finance saw a way to make a quick buck. Let’s see the bigger picture.

ON THE OTHER HAND...


Let’s think differently about how we service our customers.

Let's allow customer to interact the way they want(voice, email, chat, self-service, social media.....), not the way we want to force them to.

Let's get ready for video chat.
Let’s educate associates to not just know what buttons to push on a computer screen but more importantly to recognize what buttons a customer needs pushed to truly delight them.

Let’s make sure we fully help a customer with any need they have, try to develop a relationship and engage BEFORE we upsell a product.

Let’s understand that talking to our customer is an opportunity to strengthen brand loyalty. It is truly a gift and opportunity if handled properly.

Let’s pay associates a reasonable wage, educate them fully, have a truly fun working environment and allow for advancement. Don’t gouge the customer service staff.

Let’s understand that anyone can fire a person but a true leader works to make stars.

Let’s be visionary and not do what everyone else is when it comes to queues. Let’s rethink wait times and hold music (Pandora anyone?), give real self-service options that save time for a customer, not frustrate them.

Let’s realize that true service is only truly measured by one number. How many customers are actually evangelists for your brand after the experience they just had. That is true brand loyalty which can’t be defined by SLA, FCR, TT…think about it.

Let’s realize we are in a different era, an era of social media so we must offer true service that is not measured by money saved but on money earned from loyal customers who talk and talk and talk….

Let’s be different. Lets be Expivia

Embrace the NPS Culture

As those that follow me know I am not a very big fan of educating and measuring customer service to metrics. I do not think that you should base a world class customer experience on metrics that companies seem to be constantly changing to try to “fix” service issues. These metrics are also constantly being argued over to which one is of the most "importance". Not a great way to define service.

The companies that measure this way are ignoring the two main groups that decide a great experience, the customer and the associate, and put all the time in money into the measurements that are in between them. This makes little sense to me.

The process (notice I did not say metric) that I believe truly can show great service is using a Net Promoter Score process. Net Promoter programs are not traditional customer satisfaction programs, and simply measuring your NPS does not lead to success. Companies must follow an associated discipline to actually drive improvements in customer loyalty and enable profitable growth.

WOW! A program that does not just depend just on First call resolution, SLA, Average Talk Time or hold times to tell a company they are offering great service. As I have been saying for many years, these metrics should be used to diagnose and put service issues and techniques under the microscope, not be the goal.

Net Promoter Scoring programs basically ask one simple question and work from there— How likely is it that your customer would recommend your company or product to a friend or colleague? To get this score you survey your customers with the "Would You Recommend” question. The actual process can be found everywhere online if you are really interested in a more in-depth take on it.
What I am here to stress today is that:

WORKING TO GET YOUR NPS SCORE IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS EMBRACING THE PROCESS!

Embrace the Net Promoter Scoring Process…How? Remember, the goal is to get your customers to recommend you. Let's look at some basic recommendations that would include:

• Look at the whole call process. Are their wait times, annoying IVR prompts, bad self-service processes?
• Are you are utilizing multi-channel (voice, email, chat, self-service APPS/IVR’s, social CRM) interactions with your customers. Are you letting your customer interact on their terms or is it the other way around?
• Are your associates trained not just on how to navigate screens but on treating your customers like family? Delight, empathy, not fake “I’m so sorrys” but true engagement with a customer? Too many service centers just assume associates will do this even though it is trained very poorly.
• Is your call center the “fun” place to work in your company or is it the “corrective action” place. Show me a quiet call center and I will show you one with poor quality and high turnover.
• Do you have an organized monitoring platform that gives instant feedback? Do you educate poor calls and CELEBRATE great calls or do you punish the poor calls and ignore the good ones?
• Are you using metrics such as FCR and SLA’s as the measure of great service? If you are its time to realize they are a tool and a tool only.
• Stop the annoying wait “infomercial” and belittling self-service “tips” that we think will lessen calls to the Center and costs. Embrace the chance to talk to a customer. Don’t waste the opportunity by being petty.
• Most importantly, BE DIFFERENT. Since when did the standard for service become bad self-service, infomercial wait messages and typical service?

Net Promoter Scoring makes your company develop a culture of service. In the era of social media your customer can be year greatest ally or your biggest headache. Don’t just look at numbers and metrics; develop a culture where your customers become your evangelists and their loyalty grants you more customers.
Lets celebrate the proper things!