Many companies claim, and even boast, that their focus is excellence in customer service, but how many actually put it into practice? How many of them measure customer satisfaction?
The magazine Operations & Fulfillment surveyed 158 companies of all sizes, and more than a quarter of them don’t measure customer service and are unaware of the mistakes they make.
Satisfaction surveys are used, but they aren’t designed properly, there are no clear objectives, the results aren’t analysed properly and it isn’t done regularly.
Giving good service is far from simple: you have to devote resources and, above all, management has to get involved, so that everything genuinely revolves around the customer, and it has been shown to be profitable. Poor service catches up with you sooner or later.
We have to stop focusing excessively on short-term results and cost-cutting, and investing in everything except information systems to get to know our customers and in properly paying and training customer service staff, who are “the face of the company”.
Customer service staff need to feel valued; if they aren’t motivated, the face they show customers won’t be friendly at all. So if we see that we’re getting constant complaints and numerous errors, let’s analyse what the problem is in order to solve it.
Consumers are becoming more and more demanding, they have more information and they are backed by bodies and associations that defend them.
On the other hand, most people can spread their complaints and dissatisfaction through various dedicated websites or publish them on blogs, which are gaining more and more weight and enjoy users’ credibility.
We have to listen actively to our customers; they can help us improve our business, rather than being treated as a number. Give them different communication channels that make two-way communication easy.
Let’s not miss a single opportunity through failing to listen properly to the customer: discovering what kind of customer they are, what their needs are, how they use the product, and what advantages and drawbacks they find in it.
Every company, whatever sector it’s in, offers a service in one way or another and interacts with its environment, so let’s look after our relationships with our environment to build a positive image and a genuine customer service orientation.
Let’s make use of new technologies with a CRM that allows us to get the most out of our customers, and make sure the communication channels we offer them all feed into our CRM, so we don’t duplicate contacts, delay responses to complaints and claims, keep calling customers who aren’t interested, ask for their details every time they call us, etc.
We have to take the utmost care over communication with the customer, whether face to face when they come to our business, by phone or through the website; it’s as simple as following a series of key guidelines so that communication is effective and the customer ultimately leaves satisfied.
The key to keeping customers satisfied is to deliver the service we have promised them and meet their expectations.
Taken from the conclusions of my book “Comunicación con la clientela. Entrevistas con clientes, posventa y reclamaciones” (“Communicating with Customers: Customer Interviews, After-Sales and Complaints”), Netbiblo www.netbiblo.com
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