Are You Offering Good Customer Service?

How would you know?

It’s easy to measure the bad customer service, just review the complaints that come in. But I recommend that you not stop there. I’ve talked with supervisors and managers who have reviewed the complaints, taken action to rectify the issue and believed that by reducing complaints they’ve improved customer service.

This is simply not a good way to measure your customer service department. There are a lot of people who won’t complain if they get treated poorly. They’re just going to go away and not come back – and will probably tell several other people what a bad customer service experience your business provided.

There are many ways to measure customer service, and the best way is by asking the customer directly.

Customer service surveys that combine ‘level of satisfaction’ answers as well as open-ended questions can provide invaluable information to a manager. The surveys I’ve used all have helped me refine training processes, identify issues with a particular customer service rep, and also identify company policy issues that needed to be addressed to better serve the customer.

Surveys can be delivered to a customer in many ways. You can use an online tool that connects to your company website, send an email to a customer list and await responses. You can use a written survey sent via USPS, maybe postcard form to save on postage. If the survey is short enough, then a telemarketing effort would be a good idea. Why? It provides the customer service rep with an opportunity to listen to a customer and to provide additional service should it be warranted. In the end, nothing beats a personal touch. But, if the survey is more than 2 to 3 questions it can become too cumbersome to handle over the phone.

This is a general customer service survey example that you can use to get feedback about face-to-face customer service interactions; adapt it to your needs by adding other questions specific to your company if you wish.

Customer Service Survey

Dear Customer,
Our goal is to provide our customers with the best service possible. Please take a few minutes to complete the following customer service questionnaire. Your comments will enable us to see how we’re doing overall and find out how we can improve.

Customer Service Survey

                                                                                     Excellent  Good  Average Fair Poor

• Staff was available in a timely manner.
• Staff greeted you and offered to help you.
• Staff was friendly and cheerful throughout.
• Staff answered your questions.
• Staff showed knowledge of the products/services.
• Staff offered pertinent advice.
• Staff was courteous throughout.
• Overall, how would you rate our customer service?

Open-Ended Questions

• What did you like best about our customer service?
• How could we improve our customer service?
• Is there a staff person you would like to commend?
• Name:
  Reason:
• Thank you for taking the time to complete our customer service survey.

 

I hope you can see that the combination of ‘level of satisfaction’ and open-ended questions can glean more information from your customers than simply asking if they believe the received good customer service.

Share the results with your customer service team. Ask them for input on how to improve in areas that become known through the survey. Remember, they’re on the front line and know your customers much better than you do.

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Are Freebies and Discounts the Answer?

Regardless of the industry you work in, whether it’s in service like insurance or hospitality, or retail/wholesale like a gift shop or manufacturer of custom equipment, if a customer is not satisfied what do you do?

Some companies have a policy of providing immediate discounts to any customer that calls in with a complaint. While others offer a free service or product to ‘take care’ of the customer.

My question to all companies with these policies is simple: have you measured the effectiveness of the freebies and discounts? My guess would be no, you have not. Otherwise you would see that in some instances, the customer went elsewhere for that product or service. And in other instances, the customer returned a few months later expecting the same freebie or discount.

Evergreen policies are lifetime warranties or guarantees either implied or stated upon purchase of a product or service.

For instance, a company purchases piece of equipment that has a warranty of one year on parts and labor whether or not a service agreement is purchased. A service call is placed at the 9 month mark, and new parts need to be ordered. The one year warranty on the new parts starts at the time of replacement, and because the customer argues the warranty issue with the service manager after the next service call, the manager extends the warranty on all parts and service for another year.

This happens again in 10 months, then again in 11 months, then again in 10 months – it appears that the customer has caught on to the system. Place a service call that includes replacement of a part and extend the warranty to infinity. Saves the customer hundreds of dollars, costs the companies the same hundreds of dollars. Satisfied customer, yes. Company losing money, not a good outcome.

So again I ask, how many of these companies that react to a customer complaint measure the costs of that reaction?

Now for the second question. What about the customers’ wants and needs?

When a customer calls the customer service or service department to complain, and the reaction is to immediately offer a free item or discount the customer’s invoice, then that puts the customer in a position of not being heard.

So, I say to these companies and you customer service representatives – don’t react to the customer, respond.

Engage the customer in a conversation about the problem. Encourage the customer to tell you what it is they want from you and the company. Assure the customer that you have a stake in the outcome of the issue, that you will work with them to resolve the issue. Then, once the conversation is over, begin the process of taking care of the customer’s needs.

This is assuming that the company has a process in place that encourages the service person to engage the customer. If the company does not have a process in place, now is a good time to develop one. How? Begin by talking to your customers, your service reps, and your service managers.

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