It's Time to Pivot Customer Service

Let's start off with a very basic question, why do you contact a Customer Service department? For most of us it is certainly not because we have a desire to. The fact is that often the need for Customer service is often the result of a poor Customer experience! Customer service by its very nature is reactive. Unfortunately, often the reaction does not meet the needs of the Customer causing even further frustration for the Customer. In my view, it is time we change all of this!

Within businesses we often look at the service center from a pure cost perspective. In many companies it is the largest expense, as well as the highest percentage of employees. Today we tend to measure performance of our call centers based on metrics such as efficiency, sales, etc. This has lead to even worse performance for the Customer who started the experience frustrated even before they dialed. I have a pet peeve of companies trying to sell to me, especially when they did not address the reason I called in the first place. The message is often sent that we do not care for our Customers. As a Customer, I try to let these businesses know I hear them loud and clear!

We often send similar messages when we outsource our calls to third parties. I am not against outsourcing, I am against the approach taken today. Outsourcers, just like internal service departments, are not set up to help the company win because of the contracts they sign. They are measured on a operational goals, such as reduced call time and add-on sales. As we often state, you get what you measure. Unfortunately your Customers also get what you measure. Now you can start to understand why we, as Customers, are often frustrated by your company.

We are in the process of seeing a renewed energy toward creating the right Customer experience. I have been watching companies hiring new Customer experience leaders, reporting into the highest levels of the organization. I applaud this new focus, but the cynic in mean worries it will be a short lived focus. Either that or the company views Customer experience as a means to get rid of their high priced call center. As I said earlier, today Customer service is often the failure of Customer experience. At the same time they should be careful what they wish for.

How do we start to change service? As with anything, it often starts at the top of your business and the culture of the company, but service leaders can easily begin the process today. We have to move the model from reactive to eventually being proactive.

It is time we start to use service to lead change in our organizations. The first key aspect in this effort is changing the way we measure service. We need to focus on the needs of the Customer and resolving them immediately and permanently. I am a fan of surveys that are simple, such as NPS (if used properly, but many do not), but leading service organizations will begin to measure impact they have on purchase behavior well beyond the interaction. Do your Customers continue to buy your product because of the service interaction? Does your interaction increase or decrease their dedication to the company over time? 1 month, 6 months, 18 months? Service can be a key relationship builder that leads to long term dedication. The reality of service at many places today is that I am often pushed to a competitor instead of being dedicated to your brand. Create a charge back model so other business units feel the true impact that poor Customer experience decisions have on the bottom line. Imagine that a new fee drives so much volume that your company pays more than it collects in service interactions resulting from the fee. It happens more often than companies realize. If decision makers are charged for the impact of their decisions, they will be make very different decisions in the future. Now you are starting to lead change in the business, and you are changing the dialogue at the C-suite.

The key to success in changing the service model and to leading change in the organization is forging new partnerships within, and sometimes outside your business. The partnerships will vary based on the type of business and/or product that you are servicing, but at minimum I would recommend partnering with technology, marketing, legal, and products. You must create an environment where all parties involved see service as a key partner in making decisions, not the group that they dictate decisions to as has typically been done in the past.

We are heading to a period, if companies do things right, that could lead to what many assume is nirvana. The idea that companies do not need service at all (we will probably never reach that level but closer to it). This may work for some companies. I am thinking about companies where there is no need to build longer-term relationships. For other companies, there will always be benefits of touching your Customer on occasion to build the relationship. This will depend on the company, but for many service oriented businesses this touch will extremely important so your Customer does not see you as a commodity. Imagine if you only touch your Customer with a person once every few years. If that is the case, you better hit a home run every time you do. We will be in a world where data will be at our finger tips. We will have the ability to often know of trouble before the Customer even has a chance to know. We have to build the model to deal with this proactively and not wait for the Customer to elect to contact us. The challenge is that we often have data available to us today that allows us to be proactive, yet we do not take advantage of it.

It all comes down to the basics. Service is about listening, and taking action for your Customers. It has not always been that way, but it should have been. I have always found it funny that companies like to say they listen to their Customers, but rarely do those listening efforts drive change at all levels of the organization. Listening is so much more than just addressing one Customer's concern. Truly listening is hearing the needs of the Customer, understanding those needs and making sure the company recognizes the opportunities they present. Social media has already shifted a lot of control to your Customers, and often service jumped on board to service these Customers. Of course they were not using the information to drive deeper changes, so often they simply drove more people to speak negatively about the brand. Of course this has been the same pattern of traditional Customer service, so I should not be surprised by it. It is now time that the Customer service team helps the organization create positive experiences that Customers want to tell everyone about. Service has the opportunity to be the driving force of future growth, but only if service leaders seize the moment and look at their world in a whole new way.

Service has the potential to be the new force driving the organization. Is your service organization ready to pivot?