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3 Reasons Why You Better Know Your Customers...Or Else
Which statement sums up how you define your customers? 1) I have a very specific customer in mind -- very specific and very narrow. I only want to sell to this specific customer, I'm not interested in attracting anyone else. Or 2) If they...

Achieving Competitive Advantage through Collaboration with Key Customers and Suppliers
An Evolving Operational Focus In the past when companies pondered corporate strategy, operations had been peripheral to the discussion. Operations were considered a technical matter with one way of doing things and therefore not,...

Customer service, everyone say's their's is great
Customer service, everyone say's their's is great while a large percentage fail miserably. By Vern Anderson Customer service is probably the most important part of any online business, but many are dropping the ball. This past week (not by design)...

Customer Service: Stop Sabotaging Your Customer Relationships
If you've called for customer service recently you're familiar with this recorded message "This call may be recorded or monitored for quality purposes." I immediately think to myself, "Oh great, here comes the game of 20 questions." Now don't...

Streamlining Customer Interaction for Business Success.
Whether on the phone placing an order or in the checkout line, people hate to wait. Rarely am I physically present to make a purchase in a place of business where the facilities are not optimized for fast service. In those cases, it is often a...

 
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How to kick your customer service up a notch

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Human Tech Tips -- Tip #1. How do we take your customer service and kick it up a notch? This is a big question so where do we begin? As an overview, it's a given that the answer is three-fold: People, Process, and Technology. Let me say right from the start, my bias is on the people side. My questions for you to ponder are: 1) Do you collect and measure any data? After all, what gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed gets better. 2) Do you have customer satisfaction statistics? And if yes, how and where are you getting them? 3) Do you have ongoing training in place - not sales training - not product training - not protocol or rules and regulations training but true relationship building skills training? Let's address the first question. Just because your system has metrics available to you doesn't mean you need to use all of them. My advice is to start at the end. What are you trying to achieve and what measurement would absolutely reflect that achievement? Then that's what you want to measure. The first time you measure gives you a baseline, a benchmark, to use for charting your progress 1 month, 3 months, 6 months down the line.


You're not comparing yourself to any one but yourself so it's fairly accurate. Yes, there are environmental or economic or seasonal issues, but you're getting a pretty truthful snapshot. As an example, lots of companies measure length of call. Yes, this is a useful statistic. But if you are committed to customer service, then I would suggest first call resolution is more important than length of call. Southwest Airlines is committed to quality customer service and they don't even calculate length of call. We'll cover question #2 in the next Tip and so on. If you have questions or tips you'd like covered, please feel free to email me at rosanne@HumanTechTips.com. To receive your own copy, subscribe at www.HumanTechTips.com.

About the author:

ROSANNE D'AUSILIO, Ph.D., industrial psychologist, President of Human Technologies Global, known as 'champion for the human' authors 3 best sellers, "Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanize Your Interaction Hub," Customer Service and the Human Experience, and Lay Your Cards on the Table: 52 Ways to Stack Your Personal Deck, (www.human-technologies.com.) and a free 'tips' newsletter on How To Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch