80/20 Service Myopia

Many companies today follow the timeless Pareto Analysis where they believe that 80% of their business comes from 20% of their customers. On the basis of this, companies have become myopic in the way they hand out service to their customers. By providing differential service to their profitable customers they are possibly creating a very dangerous divide. There is no doubt that treating profitable customers differently in terms of incentives makes sense. Loyal customers have to feel the warmth in return. But customer service should be inclusive and doled out with the same consistency to every customer. At the end of the day, customer service is not only a hygiene factor for a business but also a promise made to a customer.

Organisations need to start showing courage in not distinguishing their customers when it comes to service. The condition has become endemic because companies are refusing to see the long term ills of such a move. Bad customer service across industries is the reason for customer migration. The telecom industry, for example, has made Bedouins of normal customers with their appalling customer service tactics. Often frustrating, often numbing, we have reached a point where customers have purely given up on the idea of good customer service. In an environment such as this, to have customers know that they are being treated differently can lead to nothing short of disillusionment.

Many companies especially some in the hospitality industry are very good at providing indiscriminate customer service. If a customer walks through their doors for the first time or the tenth, the service remains a constant because the true potential cannot always be realized in the first few instances. Over and above, a customer’s potential can be increased in time by providing consistently exceptional service. However, a brand that is truly in the business of customer service would never let such a situation ever arise. Don’t forget that as a company you have no clue what the potential of a customer is after his first few interaction with you. Differential customer service on the other hand on the basis of profitability, or a lack of it, can assure you that you will never see the full potential of that customer.

This is what we think, what do you think?

Vendor Stakeholder

Nearly every company in the world pumps in millions of dollars into serving their customers better and even further millions to repair the wrongs committed on them. But very few seem to have the same attitude towards their vendors. So when a company has one strategy to bring in customers and a completely counter-productive strategy towards its vendors, the question really is – Who is winning?

Companies take great effort in understanding the needs of a customer, learn to talk their language and help deliver a product which in turn will bring them revenues. Why can’t they do the same for a vendor too? After all a vendor also helps in bringing in revenues. In fact better relations with a vendor can result in more leads, better support, greater engagement, protection in key accounts, and recognition that can help a company generate more business.

Consequently companies should look at ways and means of building strategies to maintain relationships with vendors as they would with customers. A simple strategy would be to just replicate your customer sales cycle with your vendors and in the process make your vendor, a stakeholder. Such a strategy can only help forge a relationship of mutual benefit that in turn can be routed back to a customer in terms of price, product features and overall service.

And in the process, everyone wins!

Creating a First Day Experience

Chris Brogan, a prolific blogger on the use of new media in marketing indulges us with a very interesting thought. A customer experience idea that seems to have evaded most of us. In his own words:

‘How often do we build experiences such that we’re welcoming of new people? Do we work enough on that? Do we help people get connected and involved? Do we make them feel like we realize it’s their first time and we’re here to guide them?’

Through this he introduces us to the idea of creating a ‘first day experience’ for new customers. New customers join a company somewhere in between the evolution of a company. Customers need to be invited on board with a story that helps them understand the company and feel a part of it at the same time. 

Even though Brogan talks of this idea in an online context (Read more here: Every Day is Someone’s First Day) the power of this idea can truly be tested if it can be replicated in a brick and mortar situation. New customers walk into a store everyday and identifying them no doubt is an improbable task. But if retail stores can find a method to the madness it can create loyalty and in an increasingly congested market, differentiation. 

Stores can explore ideas of putting up the story of their birth, pictures of how the store evolved or even have a ‘First Day’ officer who can help customers with a few additional services. Stores need to figure out what lengths they can go to and the bandwidth available to them. But an endeavor in this direction can be invaluable.

So how would you create a First Day experience for your customers? 

Signing On

A company’s signature experience is what it does especially well. It’s the odd or unique process that makes your company stand out in people's minds ( (Read this HBR article). Most companies, in time, always end up providing a signature experience. They may either not know about it or may know and use them as foundation to their positioning. Either way it’s something that needs to be harnessed because in that special moment of delivering something different may lie the key to attracting and retaining customers.

Companies need to search their organization and look across their customer delivery structure at possible signatures they are leaving on their customers. If companies can pick three such experiences and package them and sell it consistently, they may have a winner on their hands. Linking these experiences to its brand can help reinforce their brand image. For example it will give more tangibles to customers to associate with the brand promise.

Most successful brands have distinct signature experiences that they leave behind in a customer’s mind; it is these experiences that are spoken about to other customers. Bringing together these voices under the banner of your brand as a signature experience could be your next brand building move.

Tell us about some signature experiences you have come across with the companies you interact with.

With great power comes great responsibility

A good day in the office for most of us involves meeting targets, cracking that tough code or just making sure your boss is happy. But what if your job description involves bringing a smile on a customer’s face?

Imagine walking into your favorite breakfast place in the morning and encountering a smiling staff who responds to your requests, proactively helps you and gives you top class service. On occasions such as these even the quality of the food can be overlooked to an extent. This can set the mood for the rest of your day. At the same time, I’m sure you can imagine the opposite. Not a pretty picture at all, therefore I shall not paint it.

Customer Service representatives need to realise that they have great power in their hands to lighten up a customer’s day (As seen in this video)  By doing this they can ensure loyalty to not just a tangible i.e. the product but also an intangible which is the service. Companies need to understand how strong a differentiator this can be and devise ways and means of getting their employees involved.

How can companies help set the tone for the day for a customer?

Take the 'easy route'

Matt Dixon and Lauren Pragoff in their HBR article ‘Call Center Confidential: The Underbelly of Customer Centricity’ remind us of the following 3 statements you always hear when you call into a Contact Center

 

Excerpt

·         "This call is being recorded for quality and training purposes" 

·         "Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

·         "How satisfied are you with the service you received today?"

When you hear them, these phrases are good warning signs that you're dealing with an organization more focused on internal priorities than on what customers actually care about.      
                                                                                                                                                           

The true problem here is that these questions help in determining certain metrics which are religiously churned up but never converted into anything concrete.  Companies concentrate way too much on numbers which are really internal measures and not looking at specific customer needs which begs the question – ‘Are you reducing effort and making interactions easy for your customer?’

Companies obsess over metrics such as post call CSATs, quality assurance ratings and call closure. They have people working on just improving these stats but rarely is anyone working on making that conversation, which generates these stats, easier for the customer. Efforts need to start shifting to reducing customer effort. A customer should admire a company for quick response and resolution time as it is surely, what they want.

There is an urgent need for top management to start looking at metrics that indicate ‘ease of use’, ‘lack of effort’ and the like. They need to realize that customer centricity can be about metrics such as reducing customer effort and that driving these numbers up can also considerably improve service delivery.

So can customer service leaders begin to usher in an era where ‘Ease of Use’ becomes the defining metric?

Oshawa's Customer Service Strategy

We as consumers are tuned to demand good customer service from product vendors we deal with. Yet never seem to expect the same from our government and municipal bodies. We resign with an attitude that ‘this can never change’. This sentiment holds true across the world. We always seem to expect a lower standard from our government bodies. When we go to pay our utilities bill or enquire or complain, the response is far from satisfactory. Generally, having several contact points or multiple locations offering government service may cause a barrier to efficient service delivery for citizens.  As a result, service delivery strategies that worked in the past need to evolve to reflect changes in attitudes and expectations of customers. So why aren’t we demanding better service? And more importantly are our elected bodies looking for solutions?

The city of Oshawa in Canada is an exemplary example of a city that made customer service a priority. The city hired RBosch Consulting to execute this impressive plan. A study was initiated through interviews with the Mayor, city councilors and a Working Committee instituted for this purpose. Using data from these interviews, RBosch designed a set of guiding principles which define Oshawa’s customer service. They identified opportunities for service improvements and finally delivered a roadmap for them. Goals were drawn up which would be assessed time to time and a plan for a Contact Center implementation was also put into place to enable a centralized service delivery mechanism.

Many elements came together for the city of Oshawa to get it right. The critical success factors for this ambitious project were:

• Senior Management and Political Support
• Adequate Resources
• Staff Buy in and Communication
• Clear Vision
• Enabling Technology

The above points are important for any customer service strategy implementation irrespective of the scale and scope of the project. This initiative by the city of Oshawa isn’t unique because it is a city municipal body realizing the importance of good customer service, it is because when expectations are low on that parameter, they still went ahead and executed a strategy that can only improve customer satisfaction and goodwill in the long run. That is true vision, something many service and product vendors need to learn.

So why is customer service not as important a priority for companies jostling for market share and mind share today?