How to Drive Customer Delight!

Think about the last customer service interaction you had with a company. If you haven’t had one recently, then think about one that you remember distinctly. Chances are that your impression of that interaction (digital or human), is similar to your overall impression of that company. This is the power of customer service.??

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As software, products, and features become more widely available, it is easier for customers to switch software companies. Therefore, the quality of the services that a company provides becomes the strategic differentiator driving customer satisfaction and loyalty.?

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And yes, customer satisfaction is important, but the real question is how to drive customer delight that ensures customer loyalty? There are multiple ways to address this topic, but today I am focusing on the role that a leader can play in driving customer delight.?

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Build an Employee Focused Culture?

First and foremost, it is critical that you create an employee focused culture. It may sound strange that I am saying focus on employees even though you are trying to delight customers. My reasoning is simple – Happy Employees = Happy Customers. The service business is a people business. If you have a culture that inspires, motivates, and delights employees, they will do their best work and delight customers.?

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Leading Metrics as Priority?

The support and service business is highly operational and data-driven with an infinite number of things that you can measure/control. However, leaders can define too many business metrics and key performance indicators (KPI’s). Eventually, employees end up managing the metrics rather than focusing on driving customer behaviors. I recommend that leaders focus on leading metrics and driving customer behaviors which can be influenced by their teams to deliver the right outcomes. For example, you can control your response times and resolution times which will drive a better Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). Focus on improving how quickly your team responds to and resolves customer issues. This will naturally lead to a better CSAT score. Don't put the pressure on individual team members to improve the CSAT score, but rather make it a team effort. This helps drive clarity with every role in your organization and reduces complexity. I discussed “Creating Clarity” in my last Tuesday Tips article and this is an example of putting this practice into use.?

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Be an Enabler?

While many think that the leader’s role is to drive business outcomes, I think it is equally important to play the role of an enabler. Empathy is everything. You need to understand the pain points of your team and help remove the roadblocks. As a leader, I often hear that the complexity of process, tools, data, and systems can make things difficult and inhibits delighting customers. Your role as a leader is to intervene, help simplify the processes, build better tools/systems, and enable your teams with the right data. Once you reduce the effort your teams are spending doing low impact activities, they can focus on delighting customers.?

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Reviews & Rhythms?

Once you have set the right priorities and enabled your teams, it is important that you set rhythms to review the business. You will notice that I said "review” the business and not “inspect” the business. Some leaders feel very proud of inspecting the business, and it may work in the short term, but it is not sustainable. I have sat in reviews where leaders enjoy finding the reds in the reviews. It is not a bad thing to have a red scorecard and I believe that good leaders differentiate themselves by working with their team to learn from those reds, brainstorm solutions, and drive actions which will turn them green. Customer loyalty is a long-term journey, and you need to travel along with your team in true servant leader spirit. Lead them from behind – they should know that you have got their back!?

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Partnerships with Key Collaborators?

The customer service department is the company’s ambassador and represents everyone in the company. A solution may be provided by customer service, but it comes from many other departments within the company. As they say, “it takes a village” and this is very true in customer service. Therefore, as a customer service leader you need to build partnerships within your company so that when your team needs help, they have the right internal contacts, and can provide the customer with a seamless experience. Build an empowered team which has the support of key collaborators within the company. This is easier said than done, and I have personally experienced huge challenges in developing partnerships, but take my word, once you do it, you are creating a magical experience for your customers.?

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Celebrate!?

Customer service can be a tough job. You are handling the toughest, thorniest challenges, irate customers, and many times, you don’t even have answers. There are also times when you substantially help a customer, easing their anxiety and enabling them to do their best work, which can feel like the ultimate success. No matter the circumstance, as a leader you need to be an eternal optimist for the team and create energy and motivation. This starts with celebrating small successes and making people feel important. It is easy to fall into the trap of being self-critical and fretting over every mistake, but a great leader ensures that they celebrate the team’s success.?

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That’s it for today, I would love to hear your thoughts and perspectives. Do these ideas resonate? Are there ideas that have worked for you? Let’s start the conversation!?