Thoughts of day 2 of the Institute of Customer Service Annual Conference

On day two of the Annual Conference for the ICS (Institute of Customer Service) there have been presentations on Recruitment, Management and Work-Life Balance. There has been a session on Customer Service Delivery and the highlights gleaned from one attendee has provided much food for thought.

“delivering customer service needs to be “Right First Time”, and rarely (if ever) include temporary, low quality solutions.”

This, on the face of it may seem a rather obvious statement, but let’s just unpick the “Right First Time” concept. Of course as a business you always want to service your customers correctly and to their satisfaction – that is after all what they came to you for, however a straight forward transaction where expectations were met will not necessarily place you, in their estimation, as delivering excellent Customer Service.

It is when things go a little awry that customer service can be really put to the test, and are you presenting your customer with your best faces at that point in time? Are your Customer Service Team empowered to  help that customer?

We all know that in recent years it has been more cost-effective (up front) to outsource customer service to other companies and indeed abroad – to call centres that can sometimes be no more than glorified battery farms where staff read from scripts, have no authority and actually don’t necessarily actually care about your company or customer – they have no buy-in.

Last December I was unfortunate enough to have a fire in my oven (not the useful cooking kind of fire)…my insurance company have an agreement with another company to sort out this kind of claim, they in turn use another supplier to book an appointment with yet another company to come and look at said cooker before replacing it. Fair enough, and indeed fair enough that each of those companies want a slice of pie for their bottom line (after all they all have shareholders).

Sadly, when things were not sorted to my satisfaction, the one lady I could talk to had a script that she was unable to deviate from and that is where I find it unacceptable, so I asked to speak to someone senior, she couldn’t do this without raising a complaint, which would take 24 hours, I suggested she also lodged a complaint about the complaint procedure! Argh!!

Eventually it got sorted, but only after a member of the ‘Customer Delight’ team who had the authority to agree a solution had spoken to me. Her service was excellent and had I spoken with her at the outset I would have recommended that company to anyone who would listen, because it was in my hour of need that their customer service was really put to the test.

This is where companies should invest in training their staff. It is important that they know how to placate an angry person on the phone, also how to empathise, but the real value is being able to then resolve the issue to the customer’s satisfaction or indeed delight!

The psychology of customer service delivery is rarely discussed.  Since customer service is largely about interacting with people, it’s an emotional experience, whether businesses like that or not.  Are staff trained or recruited appropriately? It’s first about attitude and then skill and knowledge.

This reflects what Julie Southern from Virgin Atlantic said yesterday that your staff had to have the right ‘fit’, so does your company invest in training managers in recruitment? Do HR/Recruitment have ‘a seat at the table’ in your organisation or is their expertise largely ignored? Do you in fact know what the ‘culture’ of your organisation is?

Success is easier when employees are passionate about the brand. “What we do is special because…”

We must have all had times when we have interacted with someone who obviously loves their job and believes in the company they work for. How do we breed that in companies then? According to an article submitted to the Chartered Institute of Management, resignations are on the increase even given the economic situation! When employers were asked what lies behind this desire for employees to change jobs, a significant proportion (38.5 per cent) recognised that their ‘failure to offer career opportunities and training’ contributed to employees leaving.

Given widespread recognition that engaged staff are more loyal, it is alarming that 61.5 per cent also admitted that their employees’ heads had been turned by head-hunters and recruitment consultants. What does it cost to keep, nurture and develop a loyal member of staff versus the cost of recruiting and training a new one?