Good Customer Service

The Customer Comes First

What is good customer service? Does that mean that the customer always comes first. I don't think so, at least not today. What happened to the days when the customer was #1 and their needs and concerns took precedence over everything else? I think those days went out the window when a group of people, hell bent on taking advantage of others, took advantage of companies' willingness to put customer satisfaction and the user experience above everything else. These "scammers" realized that there was a giant window for abuse of the "system" that would allow them to get something for nothing. This in turn created a paradigm shift in the customer service world. Companies could no longer offer 100% satisfaction guaranteed because too many people abused that priviledge.

Today's Customer Service

Fast forward to 2005. Customer service representatives have become the meter maids of the 21st century. People hate calling customer service departments. They expect long wait times, long phone menus and customer service reps who don't speak their language. Is this a bi-product of years of abuse of the system or is it the effect of shrinking margins and increasingly competitive markets? Only time will tell.

Latest Good Customer Service News

1st-class career ends for postal marketing manager - Billings Gazette

01-03-2006

"I love serving the customer, and my ultimate goal is to take care of the customer, and I think I've done a good job of ensuring customers get the service they deserve," he said.

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Surefire Hires - Destination CRM

01-03-2006

Bill Rose, founder and executive director of the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA), suggests incorporating top brass into your recognition blueprint. "When customer service is acknowledged at the very highest level of the company, the people that work in customer service become highly motivated to do an even better job," he says. A good forum for employee praise, he adds, is company meetings where various departments are represented.

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Safe Secrets - Destination CRM

01-03-2006

Two further bits of wisdom are closely related to one another, and ring true for anybody who has had to go through the process of multilevel customer service: "Don't ask for information you already have, and retain whatever you collect during a given session," Schiff says. The reasons are simple: In terms of security, customers get suspicious when you request information on them that should already be on file, again because of identity theft. For company metrics purposes, there's no point collecting data if you're not going to put it to use. Last, there's convenience and the appearance of competence. "People can't stand reading off their information repeatedly to service personnel, or keying it in through the phone only to have to verify it verbally later. And if you force them to give out personal information, they'll make something up," Schiff says. "I've done it myself when the local pharmacy tries to sign me up for their loyalty program, or when a department store offers a discount for signing up for the store credit card."

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