Customer service has changed. Thirty years ago, for example, service was personal and familiar and when issues arose, they were typically handled face to face with a local manager.
Now, global corporations have millions of customers. By using customer service experts and the latest technology, these companies were able to focus on dealing with their bread-and-butter business. The thinking was that by refocusing in this way, productivity and innovation would increase, enabling organisations to bring new products to market more quickly.
This approach generated its share of bad press. It took many customers a long time to get used to speaking to customer service representatives based in other parts of the world or mechanical systems that didn't offer the right choices.
A new approach was called for. Businesses needed to adapt locally in order to capitalise globally. They needed to take the traditional, personal approach and apply it to their customer service strategy across the world. They needed to get personal while operating on a global scale. For example, confectioner Thornton's listened to customer feedback and developed a more personal service, using a new gift service to drive sales of its high-end products.
Companies need to use all their resources effectively. The familiarity of technology today means customers no longer recoil from voice and touch automated services, as long as they meet their requirements, whether they are requesting account statements or need to replace a broken phone. The response also has to be personal. This means pre-empting the customer’s needs and acting intuitively to minimise the time they spend on the phone. This is where the customer insight, mentioned above, coupled with the means to deploy this with the front line, comes in.
Companies need to collate and analyse the huge amounts of customer data they store, creating a central repository that can build profiles of customers. Using insights into their location, previous purchases, personal data and other information, customer management systems can react as soon as a customer contacts the business. A bank customer rings an automated number and is prompted to enter an account number. Triggered by the unique number, the technology 'knows' what services the caller already has, what issues they may have inquired about in the past, and then builds a profile of the customer and offers choices or remedies to suit their individual needs. Behind all this waits an agent, monitoring several calls. Should a customer become irate or frustrated, the agent can intercede and provide a valuable human contact, knowing exactly what the customer is trying to achieve.
Using analytics can be the difference between a positive and a negative experience for the customer. Yet businesses often don't make the best use of these insights. Companies seem happy to rely on canned, scripted responses, poorly trained agents and clunky systems to deliver customer services. It's therefore no surprise that so many people have horror stories. While 30 years ago, word may never have leaked out about a poor customer service incident, now it can be found as easily as searching on Google.
What companies need to remember is that maintaining, or perhaps even acquiring, an outsourced customer service infrastructure could be the difference between (maintaining a cadre of loyal customers during the downturn and being first off the line when the race restarts), and (being left behind). Outsourcing like this is not an indulgence; it is a crucial part of business.
If companies pay lip service to customers, whether consumer or business, they run the risk of missing out on valuable profits; those that value their customers and view them not only a source of revenue but also a means to improve as a business can reap the rewards. They can secure continuous business as well as positive word of mouth by keeping things personal when working globally.
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