Customer Service is Dead! Part 2-Empowerment

Welcome back to the ongoing series on customer service! As we discussed last week, poor customer service can be distilled to the following issues-empowerment, lack of training, poor pay and benefits, offshoring, company priorities and finally, expenses.

 Today, we'll discuss empowerment

In a nutshell, empowerment gives employees the ability to do whatever it takes to make things right with the customer without having to go through additional departments or multiple layers of management.

Some organizations make this a cornerstone of their business. Southwest, Trader Joe’s, Rackspace, SVSound and Zappos are all paragons of excellent service. Employees have the ability to make nearly any situation right on the first engagement. 

Why is this important? Think about it-Have you ever had a call (or online chatted) with a customer service rep (CSR) and played the “transfer” game where you slowly get moved up the chain, explaining your situation every time? By the time you get to the level 3rd or 4th rep with the product/service knowledge and more importantly, the ability to fix your problem, how do you feel? Even if they fix your problem, you’ve probably spent a significant chunk of time on the phone. Time that could have been better spent doing anything else than listening to hold music and explaining your issue over and over again.

Compare that situation to one in which your initial point of contact is with a CSR who understands your situation/problem and does not have to transfer you to another person in order to help you. Huge difference, right? What are your feelings toward the company at that point? As an organization, that customer's "feel good" translates into something they all long for-CUSTOMER LOYALTY.

Unfortunately, too many companies fear empowerment as they believe it takes control away from the organization.  Nothing could be further from the truth. An empowered workplace has loyal, dedicated employees that give customers a better quality of service. Of course, employee empowerment cannot exist in a vacuum, but as part of a concerted company effort towards bettering their customer service.

Some great additional reading I highly recommend: The Benefits of Employee Empowerment ( Credit Union Times, 2012)

See you next week for Part 3-Lack of Training.