How Customer Service Can Make or Break your HR Department

Everyone hates HR. Individual contributors hate HR because they think this department is looking out for the company, not them. Managers hate HR because they think the department incompetent. Executives hate HR because they cannot see the big-picture. 

This may be the case in many organizations but I believe people hate HR because of one main reason: we are terrible at customer service. 

Think about the best customer service experience you ever had. This may have happened on your vacation in a luxury resort, calling your credit card company about a fraudulent charge or even the way your sick family member’s nurse kept you updated. If the resort concierge ignored your question at check-in, the call center representative did not remove the fraudulent charge or the nurse took hours to update you on your sick family member, chances are you would do anything you could to avoid these interactions in the future. 

HR is no different and we must start treating our customer (the employee) as if they can walk across the street and obtain better services from our competitors. 

I started my HR career fifteen-years ago for a small IT start-up. In this role, I was afforded the opportunity to take a deep dive not only into HR, but every department throughout the organization. By the end of my tenure, I understood sales, marketing, customer acquisition, finance, compliance and operations. What I discovered was every department had one key commonality: their success was hinged on their quality of customer service. Since that time, I have built several HR teams with their main focus being centered around our customer. 

Here are key initiatives to transform your HR department into a high-touch, customer service experience department: 

Ditch the lingo 

Total rewards services such as market adjustments, open enrollment and incentive-based compensation is common language in the HR department. Just as ROI, liabilities and debt capital are part of any finance gurus vocabulary. When presenting at a community event, your CEO won't use acronyms. Instead, they will meet the audience where they are, as it is important, they understand the impact of the organization of the community. Ideally, the audience will become brand ambassadors due to this accessibility in language." 

Our employees have no clue and could care less what these terms mean. All they want to know is why their peer received a higher percentage in a market adjustment than they did, what documentation they need to put their spouse on their health insurance plan and what they have to pull off to get their bonus. 

Timeliness is key 

Think about the last time you had to call your internet service provider because your Wifi was out. If you are like me, you did everything in your power to avoid the dreaded hour-long call of yelling at a robot only to be routed to someone that cannot resolve your issue.  

This is the exact experience we invoke in our customer when their email goes days without being answered, candidates go weeks without feedback from their interviews and our managers have to follow up on the status of their new hires.  

I recently designed a HR shared service center and purposely removed an automated call attendant from the design and developed multiple email notifications the customer would receive notifying of the status of their request. No matter when someone called in, the expectation was the call was answered in less than 2 rings. Your CFO would never be able to tell the board that they would have Q2 results ready by the beginning of Q3 so what makes us think HR can do the equivalent? 

Upsell Constantly 

 Have you ever picked up a rental car and was not asked if you want to upgrade? How about the last time your checked out at the grocery store and was notified you can purchase two items for the price of one? Better yet, do you remember the last time your VP of Marketing presented multiple ways the organization could help you with employer branding? 

 There are countless ways to upsell in HR and very few professionals take advantage of this.  

Employee: “Is there a way I can have less taxes taken out of my paycheck each week?” 

 HR: “Absolutely! All you need to do is change your dependents on your W2 on your employee profile. I have sent you step-by-step instructions on how to do so to your email address as well as online links to help you better understand tax withholdings and how your selection can affect your tax refund. We also offer free financial services planning with your employee assistance program. They can help you with anything from retirement planning to creating a personal budget. Would you like me to text their contact information?” 

In this one interaction the HR representative was able to far exceed the customer’s expectation and gave them resources to make life easier. Another secret, this eliminated the employee from calling or emailing again because they now know about a service, they can utilize that cost the organization nothing. Can you say efficiency? 

 Remove NO from your vocabulary  

If there is one thing people hate more than HR at work, it is being told “no.” Every HR professional should remove this work from your vocabulary completely. Your CIO could never have the latitude to say “no” when tasked with ensuring our team members could work remotely during the COVID pandemic. What they may have said was, “I would be happy to. I will need X amount of dollars for XYZ software to ensure each employee is connecting to our network securely.” 

I hear “no” the most when it comes to HR professionals working with leaders on employee relations issues. “No! You are not allowed to fire them for that reason.” We must stop this. Instead try the following... 

Leader: “I want John out of here today! He showed up late again and I am tired of it.” 

HR: “Have you ever spoken to John about being late before?”

Leader: “Are you kidding? He knows he must be here on time.” 

HR: “I hear you. I know first-hand how frustrating it can be to run a department efficiently when you cannot rely on your staff. Let's go ahead and issue a written warning to John today. This will show him the behavior is not acceptable and you will not tolerate it. Hopefully he will understand how important it is to be on time so you do not have to go through termination, selecting someone a new candidate and the entire onboarding process again.” 

In this situation, we never told the leader “no.” We did acknowledge where he/she was coming from, provided an alternative solution and a gentle reminder of the lengthy and pricey process around backfilling the role. We never said, “You know the attendance policy states you have to provide a written warning.” While policy has its place, we need to stop weaponizing it. 

Know your Customer 

Countless resources go into understanding our customers. Their online activity, social media, surveys, competitor research and so on. What are we doing in HR to truly understand our customer? 

Throughout my HR career, I have worked in multiple industries. The most crucial task I completed in my first 90 days in each was immersing myself in the business. I needed to absorb as much as possible so I could understand my customer’s needs, challenges and strengths. Most memorable for me was when I took a role in healthcare. I had never worked in a hospital setting previously and knew very little outside of being a patient myself. I spent countless hours shadowing radiology, emergency medicine, med/surg, ICU, patient access, and so on. I needed to understand the services, and the quality of those services, that were being provided to patients. 

This paid off when I had a Director of Nursing struggling with managing her staff. Had I not seen first-hand through shadowing her, and her employees in the unit, I would never have known that she struggled with time management and process efficiency. Because I knew my customer’s challenges, I had a solution ready to go that provided her resources to improve this skill. 

Your customer expects an expert 

What would you do if your CEO never gave your team a new idea, an example of what competitors are doing to capture more of the market or a new program that he/she had read about online? Would you have any faith in this person’s expertise? 

For years HR has been advocating that we must have a seat at the table. I do not disagree and will go a step further and advocate that if an organization is large enough to have a CEO, CFO and COO, they must also have a CHRO. Not a Director of HR, not a manager of HR but a CHRO that is bonused on the same percentage and in the same pay grade. 

To earn and keep that seat, we must be experts in our craft. This is understanding best practices (not only in your industry but all industries), staying up-to-date on all of the latest technology, constantly interacting with others in the HR field, holding at least two or more certifications, be a master at change management, the ability to see big-picture and of course a degree that is commensurate with your c-suite peers.