Customer watch

At all times, it is crucial that your customer watch is in place. If your customers are in need of simple advice or find themselves in serious difficulty, you should be at hand, ready to provide immediate assistance. This will prevent a situation from deteriorating and causing irreparable damage. If successful, a rapid intervention will contribute to the establishment of a real bond which could last a lifetime. So, who is watching over your customers right now?

Customer service innovation

Customer service innovation 

Innovation in customer service has become increasingly valuable as a way to differentiate from the competition and avoid an all-out price war. But, which is the best way to innovate? The challenge for companies is to determine to what extent the service innovations should be radical and if they are not a rehashed copy of what someone has done before, are they achievable? To succeed management needs to be daring yet make sure that every element has been perfectly assessed and calculated so that the newly built process stays in place for many years to come and delivers the best results. Are you brave enough to have a go?


Recent examples of customer service innovation:

- publish in real time the expected response time of customer service agents on Twitter (innovation by KLM - 2013)
- delivery of products with 30 minutes of order using un-manned flying drones (innovation by Amazon - pilot 2013)
- enabling shoppers to see a season catwalk show through live streaming and to order personalised versions of clothes and handbags within minutes of seeing them (innovation by Burberry - 2013)

Customer service: take the helicopter view

Your understanding of the environment where your company offers its business services will be crucial in determining the success of your operation. What are the constraints?

Bread and butter customer service

Is it the end of bread and butter service? The increasing sophistication of marketing tools and techniques mean that many businesses have upped their game to improve the shopping experience they offer to their customers.
These activities can lead to the creation of extra layers of costs and inefficiencies which are not always fully valued by the customers. As a result they develop a bargain hunting instinct whereby they wait for heavy promotional periods and sales during which they are prepared to buy at what they believe is a fair price. In turn, such behaviour leads retailers to invest in yet more marketing tools to game the system and increase prices so that they can be better discounted later. Complicated and confusing. So wouldn't it be better to adopt a simpler approach, cut out the fuss and make sure that the service delivery to clients is of quality but simple enough so that it does not take too much value away from the product.

Picture courtesy of Peter's Yard with our thanks 

Preparation for customer service

Customer service preparation

Preparation for customer service: for many companies, the next client is only a number, a customer record who happened to place an order for product xyz at a given time during the day.
But it is not at all the same thing when you look at it from the clients' point of view. In many instances, the purchasing decision is an important act in the eyes of the customer who has spend hours if not days and weeks to compare products, to chose the colour, to check if he or she could afford the spend. After such a build up, when the big moment arrives, the client wants everything to be perfect and certainly expects the customer service to run like clockwork throughout the buying process from order till delivery and installation. So please make sure that your customer service teams are ready, it is a big day for your customers

Picture courtesy of Academy Marquees  with our thanks 

Vultures are circling

Customer service circle

Achieving the best customer service levels and maintaining them is not a simple task. There are numerous metrics available, one of them being to measure customer satisfaction.
However, sometimes one finds that only customers who are very satisfied or customers who are very unhappy are prepared to give any form of feedback. But what is happening to the bulk of your customer base? A tell-tale sign might be when your competition starts talking about your company's poor performance. Indeed if your customer service delivery starts to deteriorate they might pick it up early by listening to stories told by new customers or employees who have decided to jump ship. At that stage your competitors' behaviour might become more competitive and, feeling that there is an opportunity, they might start circling around.