Great Customer Service = You Really Care, And They Know It

One thing everyone seems to agree on is that customer service is critical to business success. The problem is it becomes a giant catch-all into which a lot of things get tossed. And when the complaints get really bad about some one thing, the tendency is to dig back in there and go to work on that thing .

Let’s look at the 4 examples of bad customer service listed in the recent article in desk.com The true cost of bad customer service:

• Automated self-service
• Long wait times
• Poor attention
• Inexperienced agents

If you got feedback like this on your service, you’d be tempted to tackle the problem by:

• Pin-pointing those service transactions most in need of a service rep’s attention,
• Changing your automated options to route those questions quickly to a live person, and
• Upgrading the experience levels of the people on the phones.

But that kind of intervention is not necessarily going to get the job done by itself.

Most customer service complaints translate to one root expression of pain: That company doesn’t really care about me.

Before you spend a lot of time and money on fixes to your systems, check the empathy and compassion levels of the people in your organization — yours personally and those of every member of your staff.

• Do you care about customers’ issues?
• What do you do every day that visibly demonstrates and proves that?
• What do you do in your hiring, training, monitoring and performance feedback that ensures the same level of care and concern on the part of every member of your staff?
• Do your customers know and believe you and your staff care about their issues?

Don’t install some boilerplate email survey or one that forces customers to hang on the phone after the call to answer a bunch of questions. It’s very simple to find out if customers believe you care. One question: Did the company convince you they care about your problem, situation or issue? Just ask. Talk live with some customers.