How to execute beginning-to-end ownership of resolving for a customer.
Amiel Greathouse
Quality Manager at Uber | AI & Human Synergy Specialist | Compassionate Leader Elevating Customer Experience & High-Performing Teams
Why ownership works. ?????
Customers want as few touch-points as possible to resolve their problem. Many companies now see that this matters deeply to a customer in 2018. Customers want to deal with the same person and not be passed around. Customers really want sole primary ownership of their problem. Compare a company’s metrics of customers that report NPS as being highly satisfied promoters with touch-points. Factor in how many different agents spoke with those customers. Findings will reveal that the best results happened when there was a single owner resolving the problem right away. In the 2018 customer service world, I believe this is now natural law for every company. The bar is extremely high.
The first responder. ??
The first person to interact with a customer’s call for help should take sole ownership. That person will follow the problem from beginning to end. Even better, the largest majority of problems should be resolvable with only that first agent.
Point agents to the signal. It’s right there. ?? ?? ??
The goal of any company should be to empower the frontline agent as much as possible. To enable resolution for the largest majority of customers on their first contact. This can be done with the right training, process simplification, coaching, tools, and resources. Agents can be experts in certain things of course, but the interaction needs to be seamless for the customer. Get frontline agents of different specialties working hand in hand together so that skill cross-pollination occurs. It’ll be organic. ??
?? Ahhh, can you feel that fresh tropical air? Take a deep breath. Imagine it. ??
Why write about this? ??
Customers have higher expectations of service than ever in history. I am a customer with a multitude of companies. If I have a problem this is also my same expectation of those companies. Treat me wrong as a customer and I’ll find a competitor that won’t. Even if the competitor is not that much better, I will likely still switch out of principal. Fast, quick and in a hurry. Time to level up in 2019. Never stop. ??
(Notice: Views expressed herein are independently those of Amiel Greathouse. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Amiel Greathouse’s employer. Absolutely no endorsement of any kind is implied.)