Customer service email

How to handle customer service email?

With regards to customer service email there is just one simple piece of advice: do answer the emails from your clients and don't let them sit in your computer's inbox for too long. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than waiting for an answer which never comes - and by the way, make sure you  reply to your [potential] suppliers too, making it one your top customer service qualities

Customer service success

Customer service success should be celebrated. Why not send away your customer service team to one of the 5 star best hotel getaways so that they can celebrate their success in style, maybe with a bottle of Champagne? Customer service success only comes after a lot of innovation, passion and hard work. If your organisation is successfully delivering its customer service strategy it is critical that the teams responsible are properly thanked and rewarded in the same way as sales and marketing teams are. The benefits of a successful customer relationship management strategy are well known but often under-stated. Isn't it time to adopt a new approach?

Customer service: learn to bend the rules

Learn to bend the rules

Customer service: learn to bend the rules

Customer service is often about excelling in the the delivery of rigid processes following a well defined set of rules and procedures. Developed over many years through the accumulated work of thousands of senior executives, this approach certainly appears rock solid and unbreakable. However, leaning on the experience and wisdom of the older generations, we are convinced that a little flexibility has some good. This is especially true given that the development of social media channels has dramatically raised the expectations of customers in terms of customer service. Indeed, many customers now expect a response within the hour, if not within 30 minutes. In order to ensure customer satisfaction and deliver against the very demanding expectations of your customers, should you not try to widen your employees' customer service skills by teaching them how to bend the rules?

Does customer service improve with age?

Customer service improvement

Can the passage of time improve customer service? Some wines have the ability to get better with age but let us not forget that they need to be kept in perfect condition, monitored to assess their balance and sometimes remedial action needs to be taken. Customer service presents a similar degree of complexity to the extent that the environment can change rapidly and everyone's taste can be substantially different. Time can help to bed down procedures, to perfect the training of employees and better understand customer needs. But, as for wine, there will come a time when quality starts to deteriorate. Rather than wait, it is preferable to design new service standards and celebrate their implementation with a deserved glass of the said wine rather than see it being wasted.

Picture courtesy of Riedel, the Wine Glass Company, with our thanks

Customer service: Stand out from the crowd

Stand out customer service

Developing a customer service proposition which stands out from the crowd is the aim of many. Hands raised, waving the flag, surely our service is differentiated... Unfortunately we rarely get to see the perspective of the customer and often unable to assess objectively whether our company genuinely stands out. Gathering customer feedback through social media channels as well as through the more traditional tools becomes a critical activity. This is especially true if we suddenly discover that we stand out for the wrong reason in which case the company reputation is under threat and remedial action must be taken as a matter of urgency

Picture courtesy of Peter Stevens with our thanks - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrostephano/

Shadow customer service

So much effort is being deployed on customer service design that it becomes nearly impossible for individuals to be themselves. The rule books, the scripts, the do's and don'ts mean that at best the modern customer service company executive is a shadow of himself. Unsurprisingly this plethora of procedures can often be counter-productive as clients feel that their interlocutor is not acting in a natural or genuine way.  It can also provide plenty of ammunitions for the customer service officer to be obstructive rather than helpful - "computer says no!" or "this is against our policy" become frequently used sentences. More worrisomely this often leads to poor levels of job satisfaction which rapidly result in poor customer service. So, make sure your employees do not turn into customer service shadows.