My friend Charlie pointed me to this Business Week story today on Customer Service in a down economy, and what winning companies are doing vs. those that are floundering.
Of course I couldn’t agree more with the article’s main message. Making smart choices and investments in customer service delivery wins every time in terms of customer loyalty and retention over the long haul. Now, where have I heard that before?
One item that stood out for me wasn’t so much what it said but what it did not say in driving home the point.
“… Smart players have learned from previous downturns. Companies used to go after customer reps with the same blunt ax used elsewhere. Now managers are starting to understand the long-term damage created by such moves, from eroded market share to diminished brand value. The International Customer Management Institute, a call center consultant, has done studies that show eliminating just four reps in a call center of about three dozen agents can increase the number of customers put on hold for four minutes from zero to 80″
That seems obvious – less people answering the phone has a multiplier effect and hold times rise. But what the author doesn’t point out here is the effect of added pressure and workload on the representatives that ARE on the phone and the effect it has on morale, absenteeism, attention to detail when using the systems, and most importantly their demeanor when speaking to customers. And lest we not forget the distracting “are you kidding me!?” reaction you’ll get from managers and supervisors.
Hold times and abandon rates are exceedingly easy to measure. An underwhelmed customer at the end of a service interaction, even with real-time transactional customer satisfaction surveys, is impossible to measure.
So what are some ways to address this challenge? Two come to mind:
- Promote “Active Listening” skills among managers while remembering the “Employee & Customer Satisfaction Mirror” written about in the Service Profit Chain by James Heskett. It basically says that if you want your employees to treat customers well, then managers must consider how well they are treating the employees themselves.
If employees feel respected and part of something they will carry that with them in to their work and the customer experience improves. You don’t need a lot of money to devote quality time in getting to know the people that work for you and their thoughts on how to improve things. Make sure they understand that they are there because they are valued and their opinion matters. DO NOT SKIP employee meetings and one-on-one’s because of tight schedules. Compliments are free.
- This has two parts. First, revisit your hiring practices to ensure you are maximizing the ability to weed out underperformers in the interviewing process. Secondly, use the down economy as an opportunity to get better performing staff and shed the weak ones. Remember that lots of really talented and hungry customer service and support staff that would kill for the opportunity to work again and show you what they are capable of can be gotten for the same expense or less, and they’ll come in with a fresh positive attitude.
Don’t fall for the old adage that those people will just take off for something better when the chance comes or the economy improves. If you are truly taking to heart the lesson in item #1 above you may be surprised. The reason people leave their current jobs is often because of a bad manager.
