Customer Care: Liability or Reliability

CUSTOMER ATTRACTION VS CUSTOMER RETENTION:

There is no doubt in the fact that the sole purpose of starting a business is earning money. People invest because they yearn to earn. The investors never invest their time and capital if they find the opportunity to be impotent of breeding a perpetually multiplying business. In order to turn their dreams into reality, they enhance their production scale along with accessing new markets. Enhanced production and making new customers is an inter-related phenomenon. At the same time, the investors pay a serious heed to retaining the existing customers.

Since a market is nothing but another name of a bunch of customers, therefore the analysis of market forces i.e. the needs of improvements in an organization, the wants of customers, the demand of products and supply of goods revolves around the study of customers. To attract newer ones and retain the existing customers, organizations set up customer-care departments; the departments which serve the customers, satisfy them and make sure that their experience with the organizations is always better than the previous one.

Becoming a champion demands guts; retaining the title demands toil and skills, they say. Organizations make new customers by putting their guts into work, but they have to put toil and skills into work in order to?retain?them. To retain the customers, along with achieving other goals, the organizations devise and adopt SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures).

Interestingly, customer retention is customer satisfaction indeed. And every individual customer is different from the other one. Therefore, in order to satisfy every single customer, good organizations go beyond the SOPs and JDs (Job Description).

A Customer-care department is the department which bridges the gap between customers and the organization. No department could be as beneficial and crucial as the customer-care department could be, for this department knows what a customer actually wants, what he needs, what he thinks, and what his feedback about the product is; and above all, what is his perception of and loyalty for the organization.

Customer-care asks for strong nerves especially when it is to be imparted from front offices and contact centers. It is known as one of the most stressful jobs in the world as it has to buffer down the pressures from both sides i.e. pressures bulging from within the organization and from outside.

The employees have to have knowledge of everything about the organization and its competition and to have skills of people handling in minimum time frame.

CUSTOMER CARE – THE FACE OF THE ORGANIZATION:

Customer care people are the face of the organization. If they are unhappy, their customers will remain unhappy even if the organization is introducing the best products.

Customer care is not only the face of the organization but it is also the heart of the organization as it feels the pain of the customers and suggests areas of improvement in product and processes.

A customer who suffers from a bad product or the bad services comes to the customer care people. They register the resentments of the customer and get them resolved according to the customer’s satisfaction.

PROBLEMS FACED BY CUSTOMER CARE:

They have a long list of complaints that other departments do not give required attention to the issues they highlight and do not respond to them as quickly as it is required. The problem lies right there as there is always a question mark when it comes to the satisfaction of the customer care employees. They do not feel empowered when their feedback on any new product or process goes unheard. They feel dissatisfied when there is an unusual delay from the backend departments in resolving an issue which dissatisfies customers. They face an apathetic response from the other departments like marketing, technical, sales etc. Just imagine, customer care employees stop giving feedback and suggestions to improve the product and processes, would any of the department be able to meet customers’ expectations? If the answer is NO then all other departments have to be in a close contact with customer care to get better results of their own domains and in the longer run, for the whole organization.

WHERE IS CUSTOMER STRATEGY?

David Rance, CEO of Round and a former customer care director for a UK based telco, says, “One of the key questions I ask from the organizations all the time is ‘What is your customer strategy? Most organizations don’t seem to have one. They have a business strategy, a marketing strategy, a sales strategy and sometimes even a customer service strategy. But that’s all very internally focused and as a result it’s unlikely to be aligned or consistent for customers.”

WHAT GOOD ORGANIZATIONS DO?

It is said that the voice of customer care remains unheard because it is considered as a department which does not earn money for the organization but it costs too much cost to maintain its business. And other departments like sales, marketing & technical departments are given more importance because they bring money.

This is a wrong conception.

“Retaining customers earn more money than generating customers.” This is the strategy of those organizations who keep flourishing.

A loyal and happy customer brings more customers than a sales person. And earning pleasure of a customer can be done through customer care only. One who can give better feedback about how to develop a “customer strategy” is customer care department. This department can helps in developing such customer strategy that not only satisfies and retains customers but it also helps in generating revenue for the organization.

TREND IN PAKISTAN:

The recent economic slump has hit all the organizations badly which forced them to change their strategies, even for running the business through customer care offices. From banking sector to the telecom industry, almost all the organizations opted to have outsourced contractual employees instead of having permanent staff to serve the customers. The idea was not as bad as it apparently seemed to be because it not only reduced the cost to serve each customer but it also generated revenue from different customer care channels. The good part of this whole transition was this that the organizations made conscious efforts not to compromise on the quality of services although it shattered the customers’ experience with the organizations initially however it gradually improved. But to provide outstanding services to the customers in the existing competitive environment, the organizations have to train their contractual employees well as everyone in the industry is convinced that to minimize churn threats, the organizations have to rely on customer care department as it plays a vital role in developing strong relationship with the customers, the relationship which brings business.

LIABILITY OR RELIABILITY?

It is the organization who decides whether customer care is a liability or reliability however the truth is, customer care is reliability but the condition is; you have to listen to them what they say as they speak customers’ language—the customer who is the blood of every business. Customer is the backbone of every business and so is the customer care.