PerceptIS just celebrated its 5th year as a business. All we do is provide customer service for our client organizations. Help desk, service desk and desk side services, for the most part, to colleges and universities across the country. It has been pretty rewarding. It has also taught us some valuable lessons about what customer service is all about. Some colleagues asked that I summarize my thoughts in a list…kind of a Ten Commandments of Customer Service. It’s funny, when the idea of Ten Commandments came to mind, I wondered if there might be only seven or perhaps fourteen, or even some other number. Ten seemed so, well, conventional. I am sure there are more, but it wasn’t hard to get to ten!
While I don’t pretend that the following list is all-inclusive, it might be provocative enough to spur some thought. The entries represent the basis upon which PerceptIS offers its help desk and customer support services to the higher education market. Here they are. I welcome input and additions.
- Customer service is not a product; it is the culture of the providing organization. This is an easy way of saying that customer service is everybody’s job. In fact, it is everybody’s job. It emanates from the top of the organization, but it is everybody’s responsibility. It’s easy to spot organizations with a sick service culture. They are either blaming their customers or going out of business…or both.
- Customers aren’t always right, but they are always customers. This is a very important point. Customers often make mistakes…few are dishonest or mean. They have paid money for or have been promised service and they are entitled to it. Provide them what they deserve. If you find them to be unreasonable or dishonest, you can fire them as customers. Just be sure to understand what the real cause of the failure was.
- Customer Service is a function of people, process and tools, but process is the key ingredient. Everywhere we go, we find great people and generally great tools. Almost always, customer services problems are the result of failed business processes and failed communications between organizations.
- Customer satisfaction is highest when people don’t have to call for help. An easy principle but tough to build into your culture. It really implies that effective systems design and deployment with a focus on end-user issues will make the customer experience more rewarding and less problem-prone. A customer focus in the design, in operations and in change management is worth the investment if time.
- Customers should be allowed to get service/help in the means most comfortable for them. In previous blogs, I have covered this topic in detail. An effective customer service strategy recognizes that some people want to call, some want to use self-help, some want a chat feature. Make all equally available to them.
- You cannot be too helpful or too accessible. Your customers are people who have bought or want to buy from you. Treat them like you care about that.
- You are only as good as your last interaction. There is an old adage that you only get one chance to make a positive impression. While that may be true, in customer service every interaction is that one chance. In essence, you get multiple opportunities to make a positive impression. Customers remember the most recent interaction with you. If it was a bad experience, they will tell others. In previous blogs, I have also written about “critical instances”. It’s just another way of pointing out the opportunities to make good and bad impressions.
- Data is king and customer service will not improve without it. Every customer interaction can teach the organization something. Aggregated and properly presented, it can be a valuable window into both your customer’s mindset and your organization’s effectiveness. If you aren’t using data from your customer interactions, start.
- Root cause analysis and continuous improvement will increase customer satisfaction and save money. The follow-up to collecting data is to use it. Analyze the reasons for problems or customer issues and fix the things that are broken. See Commandment 4 above.
- Any employee who does not have customer satisfaction as a key measurement is probably being overpaid. I really believe this.
Ok, there they are. Maybe a little ham-handed, but, I think useful. If I had to add any additional thought, it would be this: If you want to know how effective your customer service is, you can do two things. The first is to ask your customers. I pick up the phone 5-6 times a month and ask them how it’s going. The answers are sometimes surprising and often gratifying. They are always educational. The second is to “taste your own dog food”. Pick up the phone and call your service desk. Pretend you are a customer. Test your service center personnel on courtesy, speed, accuracy and effectiveness. You might just learn something.
