If it ain’t broke..then try and break it

In customer service we live and die by our systems and how effective they are at doing the job they are designed for.

In the past on this blog we have talked about the need to simplify our systems to make sure they put the customer at the centre of it all and ulitmately make their life easier.

However good a system or process is it can always without fail be improved upon.  It may simply be a tweak here and there, and often it is just that, but so often we take the attitude of if it ain’t broke then don’t try to fix it.

There are things that I use in my daily life, products I have bought that aren’t broke but they could do with a bit of fixing in some way.  More often than not I either don’t have the requisite skills or motivation to “fix it” even if I tried.

We can’t afford to take the same approach with our customer service systems.

Take the example of MI5 (I am a huge Spooks fan by the way so forgive me this indulgence).  Some of the highest paid people that work for the security services are paid to simply try and break things.  They spend every day finding flaws in their systems and then making things better.  The same is also true of the banks who pay millions of pounds trying to find faults or gaps in their systems.

Am I suggesting that we all invest millions of pounds and try to have our customer service systems broken?  No of course not, a) we don’t have the money and b) this is customer service and not counter terrorism!

However there is always a lesson in things and although I am not advocating that you go and head hunt yourself a Spook or Spy it is worth taking a step back from time to time and trying to see what works well and what can be improved – your customers will undoubtedly thank you for it in the long run.

Yesterday I wrote a blog called Heaven’s waiting room which gives a clear example of someone who had looked at the entire customer experience and made sure that it could not be bettered – I bet it can though with a tweak here and there.

Here are three simple ways you can begin this process.

Mystery Shopping

This does not have to be a hugely complex spy-like operation with hidden cameras and people wearing a wire.  Feel free to do that if you want but it is not necessary.

There are many good and inexpensive mystery shopping companies on the market that can try a few ways to compromise your systems.  In the lead up to our customer service courses we are often asked to do an element of mystery shopping which is always great fun (all those fake moustaches) and very enlightening too.

You could even ask your customers to do it for you and give them a reward for doing so.

Ask your customers

You don’t have to ask your customers to mystery shop you if you don’t want to but what you can do is simply ask them some questions about your systems.  Don’t make this the normal “out of 10 did you find your customer service advisor helpful and polite?

Instead ask them some more open questions like what one thing in our systems could make better for you to make it easier to deal with us?  Is there anything that really annoys you about our systems?

These are controversial questions and the answers may not make for comfortable reading but the responses you get can be worth their weight in gold.  It also shows your customers that you a) want and value their input, b) are always trying to improve your systems and c) that you are not above criticism.  Worded correctly this type of communication with your clients can be an invaluable tool.

Get out of there

Finally another way to look at things is to take a dispassionate and objective view of your systems and ask your staff to do the same.  Maybe this can be done on an awayday or a team lunch but it is fact that you need to detatch yourself from a system to understand how it is working.  When you are in the system and working with it every day it is hard to look for improvements.

Encourage your staff to make continual suggestions about how things can be made better.  Like your customers, your staff will feel valued and you will get another huge insight.

So many times in life we carry around legacy systems and old habits that have never been challenged.  This is true of both our systems and also our overall attitudes.

Execute one or all three of the above suggestions and you will be on your way to finding out what ain’t truly broke but may still need some fixing.