Is Moving To Self-Service The Way Forward For Customer Service?

May 082012
 

In various parts of business, there has always been a certain aspect of self-service and over the last five or six decades in particular, the expectation for the customer to do more for themselves has increased substantially, often without them knowing.

Take supermarkets, for example. Not too long ago you would enter an individual butcher’s or grocer’s shop and be served by the shop’s staff, whether that was by providing you with products from across the counter or weighing out a specific measurement of a certain item. Although obviously still a possibility today, when supermarkets came along and rose in popularity, customer facing staff were there to do little more than replenish shelves and offer directions to where a product could be found.

The part of business where self-service hasn’t been overly apparent is in regards to customer service. However, there is a growing trend today which focuses on giving customers the ability to resolve certain troubles they may have without ever having to contact the company directly.

But is this a step in the right direction?

Giffgaff, one of the newest mobile phone providers in the UK, for example, have developed their business based on the expectation of their customers helping them in various respects, from marketing to customer service, providing them with benefits for doing so.

Looking at the company’s customer service options, whilst you’re still able to contact giffgaff directly if need be, they have developed a thriving online community that’s maintained largely by the company’s customers. This means that if you’ve got a problem that isn’t technically unique or specific to you as an individual, there’s a very good chance you’ll be able to resolve it quickly online.

Nintendo have recently announced a similar service in the UK with their Official Nintendo Customer Support Centre. This is an online service whereby customers are able to get advice or support on all current Nintendo consoles and devices, backed up by a dedicated customer service team, available by telephone.

And although Skype have had an active online community for several years, it was largely for beta testing purposes, but in recent months they looked to improve customer service and have developed the community into an area whereby the company’s 200 million customers can find answers to their questions without having to rely on Skype staff for an answer.

In this sense, providing self-service could prove to be integral to a company’s continued development and success. Although a certain level of management is required, it can reduce the customer service department’s workload considerably, nipping simple problems in the bud before they escalate, allowing for more time to be dedicated to the complex, serious issues.

However, the negative side of self-service customer service comes when it’s realised it also provides an opportunity for organisations to take their eye off the customer service ball – and it’s this part of moving towards self-service customer service that could prove to be extremely detrimental.

For instance, imagine you developed an online community for your customers. This community primarily featured an active forum and a number of self-help articles and videos.

No doubt particularly helpful and welcomed by your customers, without any regular management or interaction from you as a company (or in some instances even with management and interaction), it removes the one thing that can prove to be imperative for a business’s success – direct customer feedback.

A customer raising their concerns in an online community will likely see them get a response from a more experienced customer who can help to resolve their issue, but what if this type of complaint was being made every day? Or even several times a day?

Not only would this show a flaw in one of your products or services that requires fixing, but it would lead to a poor brand reputation – and there’s every possibility you’d never be aware of the issue until it was escalated into a formal complaint much later down the line.

This isn’t to say self-service customer service can’t be a success or that it isn’t the way forward – the truth is for many organisations it probably is – but it does highlight the troubles that organisations could face if they become too reliant upon it.

Through the correct development and management of such a service and the integration of user-friendly resources, including live chat systems, however, the simple fact is moving towards a self-service based customer service model could prove to be perfect for company and consumer alike.

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Are PPI Claims Management Companies Doing More Harm Than Good?

May 042012
 

Having been the focal discussion point within the financial industry for many months now, as well as being mentioned heavily in the media, everyone, whether affected by it or not, has heard extensively about the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).

As a result of this mis-selling, a number of new businesses have been setup, known as Claims Management Companies (CMCs). These companies are capitalising on the consumers’ need to get the money back that they have unknowingly been paying out for.

As with any successful business, CMCs are following a solid business principle – there’s a demand by consumers and they’re simply supplying that demand, offering a service that can appear to be too complex for the consumer.

However, CMCs have come under fire in recent months for various reasons, from the suggestion that they are offering ‘help’ or ‘support’ lines (similar to governmental or charity-based organisations) to somewhat more serious concerns by banks, with recent industry figures suggesting a quarter of all claimants put forward by CMCs have in fact no claim whatsoever.

To a certain degree, it’s understandable why this is happening. CMCs are contacting thousands of people at once, as it has been suggested that up to 20 million people have been mis-sold PPI. With only 60 million people living in the UK, it’s likely that a large percentage of the people CMCs contact have been mis-sold PPI at some point in their lives.

However, although it might be understandable to some and many believe CMCs are carrying out a particularly important service, the simple fact is these companies have to make stringent checks on every case they put forward. These checks should go a long way to ensuring the claimants actually have a genuine case, but this unfortunately doesn’t appear to be happening.

And in many respects, this lack of accurate and in-depth checking is actually having a negative impact upon the repayment of PPI in general.

At present, banks are doing their utmost to repay all genuine claims as quickly as possible and they aren’t simply waiting for claimants to contact them, but are proactively approaching customers who may have been mis-sold PPI.

Understandably, this isn’t a quick or simple process and every claim needs to be investigated fully.

Therefore, if banks are having to work through claims from CMCs for individuals who have, for instance, no record of ever having PPI in the past, this does nothing but slow the banks’ processes down considerably, resulting in longer repayment times for genuine claims.

There’s no doubt that CMCs have their benefits. Sure, individuals can make their own claims to banks free of charge, but many people simply don’t have the time or inclination to do so and this is where CMCs can really provide a great service. They do, in some instances, take up to 30% of the figure received, but that still leaves consumers with money they otherwise wouldn’t have had.

However, there is a crucial need for their processes to be looked at, as if they continue to submit claims whereby a quarter are outright false, it will do nothing but elongate what many already believe to be a long and drawn out process, no matter how proactive the banks are trying to be.

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Could Customer Service Turnaround Your Company’s Fortunes?

May 012012
 

Whether you’re reading this in the UK, Japan, America or India, chances are you’ll have heard of Tesco.

Just like Manchester United or British Airways, Tesco may primarily be a British brand, but their development, particularly under the guidance of Sir Terry Leahy, has seen the name become synonymous with affordable groceries the world over.

But as with everything, there’s only so high you can climb before you start to fall and in recent times, Tesco have seen their UK profits drop, with Philip Clarke, Tesco’s current Chief Executive, recently announcing that the company will invest £1 billion in a drive to develop its business within the UK.

And one of the key points mentioned was the need to improve customer service.

In recent weeks we’ve talked about the growing importance of delivering a fantastic customer experience, particularly since the global recession, as consumers are no longer just looking for the cheapest products, but reassurance that they’re spending their money with a company who is offering a quality service.

For years, Tesco have been known as one of the cheaper supermarkets, providing produce under their ‘Value’ range, ensuring they are able to reach as wide of an audience as possible.

With this ability to offer particularly affordable groceries and associated products came a reliance upon the public’s requirement for cheap items. As any business should, Tesco were simply supplying the demand.

But as there has been a recent increase in the requirement to offer fantastic customer service, Tesco’s business model has been hit, as their investment in customer service to date has been outweighed by a drive to keep product prices as low as they possibly could.

And although they have based their business on offering affordable products – a business that saw the company be in profit every year for two decades until recently – they are now seeing the importance of the customer experience and the need to develop their business model upon it.

Jo Causon, CEO of the Institute of Customer Service (ICS), provided some valuable words for Tesco recently on MyCustomer.com, explaining that Tesco must be “leveraging customer feedback to drive operational improvements” and “examine the customer journey to improve the customer experience”.

Causon explained that “The only way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace is through service and experience… In our UKCSI research, there was a percentage that realise that going forward they would have to significantly invest in customer service in order to differentiate themselves…”

And it’s information such as this that is imperative for any organisation to understand.

Tesco may be a multinational organisation that are able to invest £1 billion into developing the customer experience, but the basic principles apply to any organisation – differentiating yourself from your customers via customer service and listening to and managing complaints and feedback is something any organisation can benefit from to help increase everything from brand awareness to annual turnover.

But although this is becoming increasingly obvious and the practices more widespread, it’s still questionable how many organisations, like Tesco, will have to witness the effects of not doing so firsthand before they actually begin to make changes.

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3 Reasons Recessions Can Make Customer Service More Important Than Ever

Apr 272012
 

In the fourth quarter of 2009, the UK economy rose for the third continuous time, officially taking the country out of recession, a period that caused massive economic unrest, the effects of which are still affecting today’s consumer.

Although a difficult time for many, the rising economy was initially seen as the light at the end of the tunnel. However, as many analysts predicted, we’ve now slipped back into a double-dip recession, causing even further economic unrest.

Due to the impact of both the initial global recession and now the double-dip recession, organisations have, in many respects, had to completely change the way they operate to survive.

One area in particular that has had to be reviewed extensively is customer service and here we take a look at three different reasons why customer service increases in importance due to economic recessions.

1.  Consumers are more frugal

Generally speaking, consumers have always been careful with their money and although we’re all guilty of making impulse purchases or buying things we may not necessarily need, it’s a consumer trait that we don’t just spend money for the sake of doing so on a regular basis.

The recession that initially ended in 2009 brought about a substantial amount of job cuts and employment uncertainty, which in turn made people a lot more conscious about their spending habits, developing a sense of frugality about what they buy and who they buy it from. In essence, they are now a lot more discriminating.

Organisations can only lower their prices to a certain extent, so it has become increasingly important to not only offer competitive prices, but a service whereby consumers feel happy to spend their money and are confident that they are doing so with the right organisation. This leads to consumers feeling that they are getting ‘extra’ at a low price.

2.  Company-consumer relationships are affected

Recessions generally mean that every consumer is likely to see at least one of their favourite high street brands go out of business. Whilst this is obviously devastating for the individual organisation, it impacts negatively upon the industry as a whole, as consumers are wary about spending money if they don’t feel confident they’re going to get the products they paid for or whether the business will still be there should they need to return a faulty item.

And unfortunately, this has happened extensively over the last few years.

GAME, the video game retailer, went into administration on 26th March 2012 after a string of financial issues, which saw major game manufacturers such as Electronic Arts and Capcom refusing to work with the company.

Whilst GAME was bought out of administration by OpCapita, there was a period of uncertainty for customers who had loyalty points with the company, as they were unsure whether their points, amassed through what could easily have been several years of loyalty to the company, would be redeemable.

As such, there is a distinct need to rebuild customer relationships, not just for companies such as GAME who have been negatively impacted upon, but for all organisations, as consumers are naturally more wary about purchasing with a company, particularly those companies where customers don’t receive their products instantly or there is a possibility of a long-term investment.

3.  Organisations need to look at the long game

The two main focuses of customer service and the customer experience are to ensure a customer makes an initial purchase and is happy enough that they are willing to return time and time again to make repeat purchases.

Although ensuring a customer makes an initial purchase is often seen as the more difficult obstacle to overcome, the most important is being certain that as an organisation, you’re doing your utmost to ensure a customer becomes loyal to you and is willing to spend their money with you on a continual basis.

With the latter point, as consumers are wary about spending their money, they want to feel comfortable that they’re getting the best value they can – and if an organisation can improve customer service and maintain its delivery to a high standard, there’s no reason why a customer will have to look at any of their competitors.

Customer service has and always will play an important role for organisations looking to attract and retain customers, but the simple fact is that when recessions hit, it becomes more important than ever to ensure, as a company, you’re offering a first class customer experience.

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When Customer Expectations Are Low, Should You Still Be Trying To Please?

Apr 242012
 

The primary purpose of delivering great customer service is to ensure your customers enjoy their experience with the company.

From the moment they start a relationship with you, whether that’s looking in your shop window before they enter or visiting your website before they call, you need to ensure you’re doing your utmost to please them and meet – if not exceed – their expectations.

But what if their expectations are particularly low? If it doesn’t take much to please your customers, but you know they’ll keep coming back, should you still be trying to improve customer service?

According to Ryanair, that’s exactly what you should be doing.

The low-cost airline, established in 1985, recently announced what they believe to be positive customer service figures. They explained that throughout March 2012, 93% of the 37,000 flights they operated arrived on time and they saw only one mislaid bag claim per 2,000 passengers, resulting in less than one complaint per 1,000 passengers, a figure that had decreased when compared to the same month in 2011.

With the announcement, Stephen McNamara, Ryanair’s Head of Communications, proudly stated that “Ryanair’s unbeatable formula of the lowest fares, no fuel surcharges and No 1 customer service delivery continues to encourage passengers to switch from Europe’s high fare, fuel surcharging flag carriers such as BA and Lufthansa.”

Whilst there’s no doubt Ryanair’s move to improve customer service is welcomed, it wasn’t generally required if the figures are to go by – passenger numbers have almost continually increased, from 2.5 million per year during the company’s 10th anniversary year in 1995 to over 72 million in 2010 and although the company reported their first annual loss in the 2008 / 2009 financial year, the following year they were back to a €319 million profit.

So why are they doing it?

There are two main points for discussion here – the company’s history and the company’s future.

As popular as Ryanair may be, they don’t have a fantastic record for delivering customer service. In fact, having come under much criticism throughout the years, they are widely regarded as having some of the worst customer service in the industry.

For example, in 2002, the airline refused to provide disabled passengers with wheelchairs at London’s Stansted Airport, causing major upset amongst disabled rights campaigners – and this is just one example of the company hitting the headlines due to less-than-savoury customer service.

So whilst having a tarnished past can be troublesome, it can give a company motivation to bring its’ service levels up to a more acceptable standard across the board, something that ties into its future and ensures it can continue to compete with its rivals.

Ryanair may be one of the most popular low cost, no-frills airlines, operating from over 50 European airports, but they’re by no means the only one passengers can spend their money with and within the industry of cheap airfares, customer loyalty isn’t as apparent as it is within the higher airfare section of the market.

Passengers want cheap flights. They aren’t overly concerned about added extras when they’re only going to be in the air for an hour or two and as long as they are safe and relatively comfortable, everything else comes down to price. Therefore, if flight prices between airlines become too similar, airlines need to have a differentiation factor, something that makes them stand apart from their competitors – and great customer service can be that factor.

The problem that many organisations face when their customers have low expectations is not simply knowing how to deliver great customer service or when they should deliver it, but why they should deliver it. If customers are content with the service you’re providing, why change?

And the simple fact is, if you don’t improve customer service and at least aim to deliver it to a standard that exceeds your customers’ expectations, at some point, your organisation will start to suffer. Whether it’s due to a competitor offering better products and customer service or your existing customer base simply getting tired of not having a better customer experience, there will eventually be a negative impact and one that could be considerable.

It’s all about building foundations upon which your company as a whole can develop – and if your customer service foundations are poor to start with, it’s very difficult to continue to develop your organisation in the way in which you want, as you’ll eventually hit a brick wall and be unable to move forward until you go back and resolve the issues that are affecting your customers.

The small improvement in part of Ryanair’s customer service doesn’t by any means make them fantastic at its delivery across the board, but it shows that even if you’re known for awful customer service, it’s still important to continually try to improve.

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Is The Customer Experience More Important Than Ever Before?

Apr 202012
 

It doesn’t matter which industry an organisation operates in, how many millions they turnover each year or how popular their brand is – the customer is at the heart of their success.

From a sole market trader to a multi-national organisation, the most basic rule of business is that there needs to be a customer base with a demand for the products or services being provided.

There are without a doubt numerous techniques and processes that can be invested in to assist with developing and maintaining a customer base – from direct sales strategies to split-testing to ensure you’re offering the most suitable products to your target audience – but there’s one part of business that is crucial to both retaining and growing that customer base.

And that’s the customer experience.

This is the journey that the customer goes through with any organisation. It starts before they have even chosen who to spend their money with and continues after they have made their purchase. The customer experience has always been an important part of any business, but in recent times, reports and activities suggest that an increasing number of organisations are devoting more resources and investment into optimising this journey than ever before.

Yell Group, for example, recently announced that they are to invest heavily in customer service, starting with the hiring of a dedicated Chief Customer Experience Officer to drive forward improvements in all aspects of the customer experience.

A popular multi-million pound company that is listed on the London Stock Exchange, Yell is a residential and business directory, offering an established and essential service to customers worldwide. Yet despite the high level of demand for their service offering, Yell has recently seen the importance of improving the customer experience and reacted quickly and positively to raise standards

Similarly, Metro Bank, the first bank to be granted a full-service licence by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in over 100 years, has gone from strength to strength since its first branch opened in July 2010, based largely on the customer service it provides.

Metro Bank doesn’t claim to have the most competitive loan rates on the market or try to entice customers with great savings account rates – they base their initial and continued success on offering first class customer service, something that has seen them open a further 10 high street stores in less than two years.

As fantastic as this seemingly new awareness of a great customer experience is, it does raise questions as to if the customer experience has always been imperative to an organisation’s success, why is it only now that there seems to be an increased awareness of its importance and a greater level of investment into ensuring it is as beneficial as possible to the customer?

One belief is that in such a difficult economic climate, it is becoming essential to retain customers and there is a growing amount of evidence linking the customer experience with customer loyalty and therefore an increased turnover, with a recent study by Temkin Group highlighting the point.

Surveying 272 companies and thousands of consumers in the UK and US, Temkin Group reported a distinct correlation between the customer experience, a customer’s loyalty and company turnover, with the survey suggesting that a £1 billion UK company that makes “a modest improvement in the customer experience they deliver” can generate up to £263 million additional revenue.

But Managing Partner of Temkin Group, Bruce Temkin, also makes the suggestion that the survey simply reiterates the importance of the customer experience, rather than informing people of something that’s completely new, saying “Our research quantifies what many people intuitively understand: customers are more loyal to companies that treat them well”.

Organisations have always had to please customers in every respect, from the quality of their products to the service they deliver, yet in an increasingly difficult economic climate, it’s fast becoming apparent that pleasing customers through a fantastic customer experience is imperative to future success.

Whilst there’s no doubt the new awareness of the importance of the customer experience could be associated with various developments in business, there is every possibility that it is simply one of the consumers’ growing requirements that organisations need to meet.

The internet provides easy access to organisations around the world and consumers want to not only be buying the best products at the most affordable and competitive prices, but they want to ensure they’ve made the right decision when choosing the company and are truly thought of as a valued customer.

Whether this makes the customer experience more important than ever before is something that is debatable, but what is undeniable is that organisations are now more than ever truly understanding just how crucial offering the best customer experience can be.

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Does Being An Online Business Make Offering Good Customer Service Easier?

Apr 172012
 

The internet is a resource that has developed exponentially over the last fifteen years and today almost every single person around the world is impacted upon in some way by the web.

Some people and industries only utilise it sparsely, taking advantage of it when there’s no other option (or an option that is more unsuitable or problematic to them than the internet), whilst others have embraced its development, taking full advantage of its capabilities.

And one such industry is online retail.

IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) report that the UK’s online retail economy sees sales of close to £70 billion per year and is continually growing, by 16 per cent in 2011 and an expected 13 per cent in 2012.

Although this part of the retail industry as a whole is still relatively new, online retailers are often seen to be trouncing their offline counterparts in various respects, with one of the more recent areas being in customer service.

In January, the UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) results were published and one of the most notable findings was there were a number of online organisations seen to have better customer service than any of their offline competitors.

For instance, Amazon came first in the retail category, as well as performing best overall in the whole index; the banking category saw First Direct take first position over established banks such as Yorkshire Bank and Nationwide and LOVEFiLM were second to Toby Carvery by just one point in the leisure industry, the only non-food and online-only retailer to make the top five.

The UKCSI clearly shows that some online organisations are offering great customer service, often with large margins in the results between their offline counterparts. It raises one simple question. Does being an online organisation make it easier to offer good customer service?

And to answer this question, there are various points that need to be looked at. One significant factor when shopping online is cost. Online retailers have less staff and lower overheads therefore you can normally find a product or service online for much cheaper than you would pay in a retail store.

Getting great value for money can make a customer feel very positive towards that retailer. So already on price alone, the customer thinks they are getting great service. Another major consideration is that when online, a customer’s expectations of what constitutes good service are likely to considerably lower.

For instance, one of the main differences between online and offline organisations is that the former does not have customer facing staff. This means there is no immediate point of contact for a customer who has either a positive comment or complaint.

This not only reduces the likelihood of receiving feedback instantly, but removes the necessity of relying on staff to build and develop relationships with customers or having to continually invest in their training to ensure they are effectively managing complaints in the first instance.

Offline, there is somewhat of a pre-determined view that you should be able to walk into a shop, find the products you want and receive all of the information you need from the staff in store, whether that’s about the product itself or how you can contact the company to provide feedback.

When shopping online, the customer has to do a lot more work. There’s no one at hand to ask a question. You can’t pick up the products and see what they’re actually like. Every decision you make is based purely on your own judgement and the interpretation you have of the text and images provided by the company.

Therefore, unless there are huge discrepancies between the product you purchased and the descriptions provided, there can be a certain degree of self-blame if something isn’t as expected.

There’s no doubt offering customer service online can, in some ways, be easier than doing so offline.

However, it has to be understood that the benefits of, for example, not having customer facing staff or physical products can also be detrimental to the online retailer.  As no real relationship has been developed, how likely are they to retain a customer? Is online retail more about high volume single sales than longevity?

If online retail continues to grow in popularity, it is likely that consumers will become more demanding with what they expect. Perhaps they will expect retail advice via live chat, so although online organisations might be at the forefront of customer service delivery now, over time, they will face a growing amount of pressure to improve customer service further and develop the customer experience.

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Does An Organisation’s Industry Impact On Customer Complaints?

Apr 132012
 

We live in a world where, rightly or wrongly, complaining has become second nature. If consumers don’t like a product or service, gone are the days of putting up and shutting up – today’s consumer is much more vocal about expressing their dissatisfaction.

How that complaint is resolved, however, determines whether you will retain or lose that customer. The majority of consumers will buy from you again if their complaint is resolved to their satisfaction, but, poorly managing complaints can have a considerably negative impact upon brand reputation.

Whichever organisation you look at, it shouldn’t be difficult to find at least a small group of consumers who are disgruntled with them, either because of a past or present issue. Although the consumers’ gripes are likely to be with a specific product or service rather than the organisation as a whole, does the industry in which the organisation operates have an impact on the type of complaints they receive?

For instance, a 2010 survey by Which? of 75 big UK brands found two communication companies were ranked lowest in terms of customer service. From a consumer point of view, it could initially be thought that communication companies offered a fantastic and much needed service to their customers – there aren’t many people who could survive in today’s world without a mobile phone or broadband internet connection.

Why, then, did these organisations receive such negative feedback when it came to their customer service?

The complaints could have been genuine issues with various aspects of the service provided, but for organisations that essentially allow you to keep in contact with your friends and family and who provide you with access to the internet, could it be that the issues with communication companies are in fact issues with the industry as a whole?

Could it be that because these items have such high importance in our lives, we have an emotional attachment to them and therefore find it unacceptable when things go wrong? For example, if our internet goes down or we have signal interference on our mobile phone, we want (and expect) the provider to sort it out immediately. Failure to do so increases our frustration and our dissatisfaction.

It’s a very similar scenario for airlines, as customers are likely to complain to an airline if their flights are delayed due to adverse weather or an otherwise interrupted flight schedule. There is very little the airline can do, but as they’re the immediate point of contact for the customer, they are at the receiving end of the customer’s vitriol.

However, what also has to be considered is whether one organisation’s good or bad customer service impacts upon the industry as a whole.  Furthermore, does the customer’s pre-determined views and expectations of an organisation or industry also have an impact?

For instance, customers very often have low expectations when it comes to banks and so they are pleased – if not a little surprised – when they receive good customer service.

But does this good customer service from one bank encourage customers to view the banking industry as a whole more favourably? Or looking at it in another light, would poor customer service from one bank have more of an impact – albeit a negative one – on the industry than great customer service from 10 banks?

One way to try to understand whether certain complaints are industry issues or specific to an organisation is by looking at the root cause. Managing complaints should always play an integral role in any organisation’s customer service, as the data from complaints can be extremely useful business intelligence to utilise for future development.

The discussion, however, does raise an interesting point as to whether organisations within various industries need to have a different approach to managing complaints or if, in fact, industries as a whole need to take greater responsibility for managing certain customer complaints.

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3 Ways You Could Be Providing Customer Service In The Not-So-Distant Future

Apr 102012
 

At Charter UK, our focus is on ensuring organisations can both handle and benefit from their customers’ complaints and feedback. Charter Continuum leads the way in complaint management software, providing a resource that can be integrated seamlessly with existing systems to fully enhance the customer experience.

As part of the entire customer service process, just as with any part of business, it’s imperative you’re continually looking to develop how you deliver a service to your customers.

For example, a growing number of organisations are currently looking to incorporate social media into their customer service delivery, but there aren’t many who have managed to do so effectively yet, both from the company point of view and the customer’s.

According to a recent ZenDesk survey, 76% of people would like to use social media for customer service, but they don’t feel they understand how to use the tools available to them. This shows that although organisations have to do more to make using social media easier, there’s also a steep learning curve for the consumer and because of this, it could take many months – if not years – before we’re seeing social media used effectively for customer service.

Looking towards the future, whilst the following techniques may not be readily available to utilise for customer service just yet, it is definitely worth investing time into looking at just how they could be beneficial in the coming years.

1.  Live video chat

There aren’t many people who would argue that shopping online isn’t a fantastic ability, but it very often lacks the personal, visual touch that shopping offline offers.

Live chat is a resource more and more organisations are implementing successfully to offer a greater personal touch to the online shopping experience, as it gives customers the ability to talk to customer service agents through a text-based, instant messaging system on the company website.

However, it doesn’t fill the visual gap that is often wanted.

Therefore, it’s expected in the future for live text chat to develop into video chat, as we continue to move to a much more social and personal internet experience – an experience where consumers want to combine their offline preferences with online benefits.

2. A greater integration with the social space

Following on from the results of the ZenDesk survey, although some organisations are using social networking sites such as Twitter to deliver customer service and as a way of receiving complaints, we advise that at present, organisations stay away from the latter in particular.

One of the reasons behind this is complaints made online are instantly available for the rest of the world to see and can be easily missed, potentially impacting negatively upon brand reputation and natural growth.

Furthermore, as we don’t know enough about how best to utilise social media for this purpose – and consumers don’t feel confident enough using it yet – it makes it a very dangerous platform to attempt to benefit from.

However, there’s no doubt that as we move towards a more social internet, organisations are going to have to look towards more online social integration. Therefore, whilst we wouldn’t advise you use it as the lead to your customer service strategy or even as part of your complaint management software processes at present, the time will come when it will be a necessity and so it’s crucial you begin to research and invest in how you can successfully embrace it in the future.

3. Pro-active, localised services

Throughout the last century, we’ve seen consumer habits change considerably and during the last few decades in particular, consumers have wanted quicker and more efficient services than ever before. No longer are people willing to wait a few days for an item to be delivered or for a response to a query they’ve raised with an organisation.

In the coming years, it’s expected that this requirement for speed and efficiency is going to be developed even further, putting a greater burden on organisations to be more effective than ever before.

And one possible solution is for organisations to be considerably more pro-active through the offering of localised services.

For instance, people regularly mention – often in passing – their unhappiness with a certain product or service online through public, social media discussions. Although some organisations contact these people already, it’s only a tiny fraction of customers and a tiny fraction of these ‘complaints’.

Linking in with the need for a greater integration with the social space, what if you could use the information that’s readily available – such as the location of the person who raised the issue – to contact them and offer a solution before they make a formal complaint?

Although not a possibility for everyone, it could work for an array of organisations, such as with cable or satellite TV companies. They could find out the location of the person who made the complaint about, for example, poor reception quality, look to see how many engineers are located nearby and offer to arrange a time for a personal visit to attempt to resolve the customer’s issue.

It doesn’t matter how successful you are in business, how large your customer base is and how loyal your customers are, you must not stand still or become complacent. Customer service is a part of business that is developing at a quicker pace than most people realise and it’s imperative that throughout the coming months, you invest in looking at the possibilities of how you can expand and improve customer service delivery in the future.

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How To Deal Effectively With Difficult Customers

Apr 062012
 

The importance of customer service within any organisation’s operations is very often misunderstood in various respects. From the business intelligence that can be received from utilising customer complaints software to accurately record and analyse all complaints, through to the simplicity of having customer-facing staff who are polite, knowledgeable and eager to help, great customer service is a difficult thing to achieve.

Looking at the role of the customer service representative / advisor in particular, they are very often not given the praise they deserve, as whilst they are likely to deal with customers who simply want to pass on feedback for improvement, they are also the first point of contact for the most irate of customers.

Yet in this last scenario, an experienced customer service employee should be able to deal effectively with any type of difficult customer. whilst continuing to deliver a high level of service and here we look at the three basic principles they are likely to abide by at all times when doing so.

1. Remain calm

When you’ve got a customer screaming down the phone at you or swearing at your face, the last thing you want to do naturally is keep calm, but this is exactly the route you’ve got to follow.

Part of the reason why customers are angry is due to a problem caused or linked to one of your products or services. However, there’s often also a belief within the customer that the company isn’t going to do anything about their problem or they’re simply going to pass them on to other members of staff or departments.

If you can start your relationship with the customer on a calm note, understanding that they’re likely to be particularly irate for a reason, you’ll find that the customer will soon follow suit – no one wants to be the person shouting at someone else when they’re calm and collected.

2. Listen to the customer

Whether you’ve heard the complaint one hundred times before or you’re struggling to understand the details of what the customer is trying to say, you need to actively listen to them – and not just show you’re doing so by nodding in the right places or agreeing with them throughout their complaint.

You need to be able to empathise with the customer and do your best to resolve their issue, something you can’t do without fully understanding what it is they’re complaining about.

And if you don’t listen fully and you have to ask the customer to repeat themselves or you say something that contradicts what they’ve already said, you’ll do nothing but anger them further.

In many respects, this point is the most important when dealing with any type of customer, as once you have a full understanding of their complaint, you are able to move forward in the most suitable way possible.

3. Provide a quality response

The main point you need to understand here is that a quality response to the customer doesn’t have to be the response they’re expecting or wanting, but it has to be a response that satisfies them.

One of the most popular examples of a quality, satisfying response can be found when looking at how retail clothes companies handle their returns. Whilst most returns policies will state that an item cannot be returned for a refund after the company’s returns period has ended or if the customer doesn’t have the receipt, to resolve what could be a difficult situation for staff, many organisations will refund the item onto a store card. It’s not the ideal response for the customer, but it’s one that ensures they are able to get the value of the items they bought back, as well as ensuring the company receives the value of the purchase at some point.

What also needs to be understood here is that a quality response doesn’t have to be one that instantly resolves the customer’s problem. Although difficult customers may demand an immediate response to their issue, the truth is they will more than likely be willing to wait, assuming the final response they do receive goes back to the point above and satisfies them.

Dealing with difficult customers isn’t a pleasurable experience for anyone, but it’s one that customer service staff need to be confident in their ability to do, as being able to handle an angry customer is one thing, but being able to do so in a way that continues to deliver a high level of service is another, yet one that is crucial to the business’s reputation.

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