Don't leave it all to Customer Services

Of all of the jobs in an e-Com company, being a Customer Service colleague can be the hardest. Basically because if anyone messes up, CS will end up clearing up.

I have been lucky enough to work with some really fantastic CS teams over the years that have left me proud of the work we have done together in the face of everything that weather, suppliers, carriers, system issues and human nature have thrown up.

I have run bank head office help desks, trader floor support, and software house support functions, pre-sales and post-sales, and e-Com 24/7 support, but I recognise that nothing matches what a retail e-Com CS has to go through.

There are the run of the mill type issues, when is it going to arrive, please change my order, I've changed my mind, address, date I want it delivered, which are the business as usual (BAU). There might even be a few interesting, tell me about, and can I do this, questions to answer.

Then there are the more painful BAU, product defects, replacement parts, where is my order it was supposed to have arrived already, can I speak to your supervisor, where is my refund.

Then there are what you hope are the exceptions, the clear up the mess jobs, sorry your order has been cancelled, that item is out of stock, has been discontinued, will be another 4 weeks.

All of that takes a toll. Some of it may be offset the fact that you enjoy your team or by a boisterous evening at the local, but then it is back into the same problems, same grind the next day.

It is so easy for the rest of the company to pass the pain onto CS, and if they do not sit where you can see, or you do not hear the calls, maybe you will never know, or maybe you will see the social media fallout or the Trust Pilot scores and blame CS.

You might think, "but that is what they are there for".

No.

They are there, primarily, to service the BAU activities from your sales, not to clear up the mess for every lapse elsewhere in the business. Each clear up takes as long as a number of BAU activities and usually takes more emotional and physical energy to resolve. BAU activities are a product of your sales volume, you expect them to increase as you increase sales, and you really want CS to be doing as much BAU as possible.

Having a CS function go into cascade, where people send a second chaser before the first is handled, or drop from the queue and come back later or via multiple channels, is hard to handle, demoralising, and usually bad PR.

A ticket backlog where they have to be triaged, too late to do anything about, may still be rescued, not yet critical, is a bad position to get into, and a hard one to get out of.

Your CS team only have so many hours in the day, and so much energy to deal with the interactions.

So I have a "How to be nice to your Customer Services team" which applies to IT and every other department.

Simple rules for best results

1: If you screw up, own up. If something has happened that is going to create an increase in workload for any reason, let them know, and apologise if it is your fault. It might be a couple of orders missing a deadline or a major issue with a carrier but do not let it just dump on them. If the CS head knows there is a storm coming he/she can prepare for it, rearrange shifts or just prepare the answers for everyone.

2: If you can see an issue that is creating CS problems, fix it. You can think of it as being nice to customers, or as being onside with your CS team, either way customers are happier and the CS team is calmer. That means that if the network is running slow for a bank of agents, or the email server is delaying relays, or there is a flickering light in the CS area, fix it and make CS easier.

Then maybe if you have a MAJOR problem CS will rally around for you.

So 1 & 2 are great general guiding principles, but how specifically can you be nice.

3: Do not promise on the website what you cannot deliver through the logistics. If you have not got it do not sell it as if you have, (pre-ordering is fine, just understand the process). Do not promise to deliver next day to somewhere that takes 2 days to get to. Do not promise to deliver what you do not have the capacity to dispatch, and that includes trying to dispatch a days dispatch in the last 10 mins before the cut-off. That also means having realistic cut-offs that take into account any batching or authorisation delays.

4: Know your products. Get the dims right for carrier selection and get the description right for the customer to select by. Will it fit in that alcove or not? Make sure all of the website descriptions of what you are selling, and what you will then try and deliver, tie up with each other. It only takes one product set up incorrectly to create a lot of problem, or maybe you just suffer an extra % point on checkout attrition because you have an unknown poisonous product.

5: Make the BAU changes efficient. Every click or keystroke saved counts. Make sure CS have all of the data they need, with as little noise in it as possible, and as little switching between systems.

6: Make sure that the data flows through the system smoothly. That orders come in from the website, go through the order management system and out to fulfilment promptly and you have flow alerts to tell you if there are unusually few or unusually many flowing through. That way you might pick up the incorrectly priced product that has just gone viral, or the fact that a 3rd party tracker in the checkout is stopping orders coming through before it goes critical.

7: Enable the customers to self service. Whatever you can give the customer the power to do, means less work for CS, so more orders can be handled. Keep the customer informed of progress of their order, especially if it is a pre-order. If the Customer has peace of mind and accurate reinforcement of the expectation, the CS will get less calls, especially if you have taken the payment up front. This also gives a chance to see where the promise and reality are drifting apart and do something about it.

8: Learn by whatever problems occur. That may mean documenting it so everyone knows what to do when it happens, like a fire drill, or better yet stopping it happen in the first place, and if it was your mistake, go back to stage 1.

In a small company, the feedback loop for CS pain can be quite short. Maybe you share an office, probably you will get the idea even if no one gives you the hint. You almost certainly all go down the pub together and you will have some feeling/sympathy for your colleagues.

In a larger company where CS might be in a different office, the feedback is not usually as efficient. Heads of department may pass on the information but the person who fed in the bad data does not get to see the tears of the CS agent, there is always something lost in translation, and it is not happening to people I know. By the time that the Heads have become agitated about the problem, CS has probably been dealing with it for some time, as have customers, and you may have lost some of both.

And if anyone says there are other priorities, suggest they man a phone for a while, I have, my CEO has. It does not usually take long.

Why Bother

Because your Customer Services team are your colleagues and you should care.

Not good enough? How about because they are fixing all of the issues you let enter the system.

Still not enough reason? It costs you money.

Every second spent dealing with 'issue' rather than BAU is holding back your company growth. Your marketing spend is being undermined by the reviews you are getting because of the issues you have and your CS is stressed all of which makes your customers more unhappy than they could be.

You can also be fairly certain that every other member of staff is getting a comment from everyone who knows where they work about the level of Customer Service, and that every one of them is just that little bit less productive as a result, a little less proud of the company. Remember an employee can be a customer, within a family of customers.