Superior Customer Service How to Keep Customers Racing Back To Your Business--Time Tested Examples From Leading Companies

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CHAPTER 3: MuLTIPLE CHANNELS OF CuSTOMER

SERvICE 49

Align Your Processes with Customer Needs .................................. 50

Equal Time ........................................................................................... 51

E-Service ............................................................................................... 53

Unified Information ........................................................................... 54

Office Politics and Departmental Fiefdoms .................................... 55

Teamwork ............................................................................................ 57

Promote Information Sharing .................................................... 58

Use Communication Technology ............................................... 58

No Rigid Job Descriptions .......................................................... 58

Empower Employees ................................................................... 59

A Word About Security ...................................................................... 59

A Summary of Information Privacy Regulations ........................... 60

CISP (VISA Cardholder Information Security Program)........ 60

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act ............................................................. 61

HIPAA (Health Insurance and Portability Accountability

Act) ................................................................................................. 61

Sarbanes-Oxley Act ...................................................................... 61

California Information Practice Act ........................................... 62

I Can’t Do That ................................................................................ 62

HIRINg CuSTOMER SERvICE PEOPLE 65

Certifications ....................................................................................... 66

A Word About the Help Desk Career .............................................. 67

Background .......................................................................................... 68

A Background Check .......................................................................... 69

Training ................................................................................................ 72

Are Customer Service People Made or Born? ................................ 73

The Interview Process ........................................................................ 75

Continuing Education ........................................................................ 76

Every Employee Is a Customer Service Employee .................... 79

A Checklist ........................................................................................... 79

CHAPTER 5: SWITCHINg gEARS 81

The Ambassador’s Hat: People Skills .............................................. 82

The Techno Hat ................................................................................... 82

The Thinking Cap ............................................................................... 83

The Wizard’s Hat ................................................................................ 84

A Spelunker’s Helmet ........................................................................ 84

An Architect’s Hat .............................................................................. 85

A Firefighter’s Hat .............................................................................. 86

A Decision-Maker’s Hat .................................................................... 87

A Mind Reader’s Turban ................................................................... 87

Key drivers of customer service ....................................................... 88

Customer Lifecycle Care .................................................................... 88

Employee Engagement and the Customer Service Center ........... 90

How Engaged Is Your Customer Service Staff? ............................. 92

Empowering Your Customer Service Staff ..................................... 94

Quality Groups.................................................................................... 95

CHAPTER 6: CuSTOMER SERvICE AS AN

OPPORTuNITY TO CROSS-SELL AND uP-SELL 99

The Value of Existing Customers ..................................................... 99

Complaints ......................................................................................... 102

Do You Want Fries with That? ........................................................ 103

Turning a Service Call into a Sales Call ......................................... 104

Asking Questions .............................................................................. 105

Data for Cross-Sell and Up-Sell ...................................................... 106

Be a Customer Advocate.................................................................. 107

Customer Loyalty ............................................................................. 109

Customer Incentives: Buying Loyalty ............................................111

Sticky Web Sites ................................................................................ 112

CHAPTER 7: gATHERINg INFORMATION ABOuT

YOuR CuSTOMERS 117

Where Does the Information Go? ................................................... 117

It’s all in My Head ........................................................................ 118

Legislation .......................................................................................... 119

Credit Card Information and Other Legalities ............................. 120

Cookies ............................................................................................... 123

Who Are Your Offline Customers? ................................................. 124

CHAPTER 8: CRuNCHINg THE NuMBERS 129

What You Need to Know ................................................................. 129

Web Analytics .................................................................................... 130

CRM Analytics .................................................................................. 132

Customer Feedback .......................................................................... 132

CHAPTER 9: YOuR NEIgHBORHOOD CALL CENTER–

NOW CONvENIENTLY LOCATED IN INDIA 135

Failed Outsourcing Projects ............................................................ 136

An Outsourcing Strategy for Success ............................................ 137

What to Outsource ............................................................................ 139

Where to Outsource: Offshore or Domestic Outsourcing ........... 141

Why Outsource? ............................................................................... 142

Don’t Lose Sight of Your Customers .............................................. 144

Service Level Agreement ................................................................. 146

CHAPTER 10: CuSTOMER SERvICE TECHNOLOgY

151

Available Customer Service Technologies .................................... 152

E-commerce Products....................................................................... 153

Search/Knowledge Management Products .................................. 153

Customer Relationship Management ............................................ 154

Customer Portals .............................................................................. 155

Service Resolution Management .................................................... 156

IVR Systems ....................................................................................... 157

Sales Force Automation ................................................................... 158

E-Service ............................................................................................. 158

The Blog Monster .............................................................................. 159

E-mail Customer Service ................................................................. 161

The Web-Enabled Contact Center .................................................. 162

Transparency and Compatibility .................................................... 164

Sending an E-mail to a Customer ................................................... 166

CHAPTER 11: CREATINg CuSTOMER SERvICE IN AN

ONLINE ENvIRONMENT 171

A Web Site Isn’t an Excuse to Hide the Humans ......................... 172

Creating a Customer-Friendly Site ................................................. 175

Your Search Strategy ........................................................................ 179

E-mail Advertising ........................................................................... 181

Create a Content-Rich Web Site ...................................................... 183

The Checkout Process ...................................................................... 185

Customer self-service ....................................................................... 186

CHAPTER 12: CuSTOMER SERvICE STRATEgIES 189

The Call Log ...................................................................................... 189

The Customer Service Blog ............................................................. 191

Attitude and Demeanor ................................................................... 191

Think Proactively .............................................................................. 193

The customer is Always Right—Until He’s Wrong ..................... 194

Empower Your Customer ................................................................ 196

A Service Guarantee ......................................................................... 198

CHAPTER 13: OFFICE POLITICS 203

Keeping a Friendly Office Environment ....................................... 204

Keep Stress Levels Manageable ...................................................... 205

Keeping Them Motivated ................................................................ 207

No Boss’s Pet ..................................................................................... 210

Results are What Counts ................................................................. 211

Creating an Unmotivated Employee ............................................. 212

A Fun Workplace .............................................................................. 214

What is a Poor Attitude, Anyway? ............................................. 215

Performance Reviews ....................................................................... 216

Internal Public Relations .................................................................. 219

CHAPTER 14: EFFECTIvE PROBLEM SOLvINg 221

Getting Information from Your Client ........................................... 221

Be Honest with Your Client ............................................................. 223

Stop and Listen .................................................................................. 224

Be the Expert ...................................................................................... 226

Take Away the Idiot Factor .......................................................... 227

Understand What the Customer Wants ........................................ 228

Being the Bearer of Bad News......................................................... 229

When the Customer Asks for Too Much ....................................... 231

Avoiding the Run-around ............................................................... 233

Be on the Same Side as Your Customer ......................................... 235

CHAPTER 15: BEST PRACTICES 239

Avoid Voice Mail Hell ...................................................................... 239

Press One for Customer Service.... ............................................. 240

Automated response ........................................................................ 241

Use Guidelines, Not Scripts ............................................................ 241

Angry Clients .................................................................................... 243

Talk on the Same Level as Your Client ........................................... 245

Handle It Yourself when Possible, But Call in the Troops when Needed ........................................................................................ 245

Regular Updates and Communication .......................................... 246

Extra Donut ....................................................................................... 246

Feel Like a Number ...................................................................... 247

More Action, Less Talk ..................................................................... 248

Keeping Up Appearances ................................................................ 249

The Ten Commandments of Customer Service ............................ 251

Ten Commandments of Customer Service for Managers .... 252

Ten Commandments of Customer Service for Employees .. 253

INDEx 255

gLOSSARY 259

BIOgRAPHY 283

Foreword

How often does customer service affect your business?

Probably more often than you imagined…a person who

has experienced poor customer service will most likely

share their bad experience with an average of ten other people and cost your business money. Yet, how many businesses today focus on providing quality service that creates loyal customers?

Over the years, customer service has seemed to evaporate.

Think back to when customer service was prevalent in our society. Back in the 1950’s when gas station attendants would run out to your car to provide you with full service – filling your tank, checking under your hood and providing air to your tires when necessary. (Even if you do not recall those days, you do remember the image from the movie Back to the Future.) Those days have been replaced with the convenience of do-it-yourself and limited access to human contact. You place your credit card into a machine; fill-up your own tank, and print out a receipt. However, what happens when technology doesn’t work and you have to walk inside to give the clerk your credit card, or a receipt will not print? Convenience is taken awayand

people become irritated. Now, your business is in the hands of how a customer service representative handles the situation that will determine if that customer returns another day.

So what can you do to improve your organization’s customer service? Superior Customer Service provides a wealth of information from hiring individuals with the appropriate attitude, empowering staff and customers, choosing the

appropriate types of technology, protecting customer

information, increasing sales, and implementing best practices of customer service. It is a comprehensive book meticulously addressing the issues and decisions impacting customer

satisfaction and outlining examples of companies whose

customers continue to return time and again.

Providing superior service is the product of establishing an organization that has a core value of customer satisfaction and empowering every employee to honor that value. Too many organizations have silos or fiefdoms and the customer suffers due to an inability to care for the customer’s needs. A previous employer once stated If you aren’t taking care of a customer, you darn well better be taking care of someone who is and it has been a rule I have followed in my 15+ years of business.

Empowering your employees to take care of the customer will keep those customers raving about your service and always sprinting back for more.

Denise S. Starcher, MBA, SPHR

Denise Starcher is an innovative HR professional with expertise in organizational effectiveness, employee relations, compensation and benefits, and training and development. For the past 15 years, she has focused on enabling organizations to achieve sustained business

growth while embracing change in the hospitality, healthcare, technology, and energy industries. She holds a MBA in General Management from Georgia State University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.

C H A P T E R

1 Basics oF

customer

service

Everybody’s heard the expressions service with a smile, the customer is always right, and have a can-do attitude.

We may have heard them so many times that they

have become meaningless, but running a business today is more competitive than it has ever been, and providing the best customer service possible is often the only thing that can differentiate you from the competition.

Of course, there’s a lot more to customer service than creating a lot of trite expressions and posting them on your break room bulletin board. Expressions like the customer is always right are all well and good, and they are important, but one must take a look at what’s behind those expressions when creating a good customer service implementation. It involves creating a detailed strategy, implementing good customer service tactics, and, increasingly, using technology to help bring it all about.

And in the spirit of modern-day management, we have even assigned this process a three-letter initialism: CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

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SUPERIOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

But even before sophisticated business models and computer technology transformed the art of customer service into more of an exact science, customer service existed. When Mr. Macy started his first store, he made his customers feel welcome.

When Mr. Ford made his first automobile, he did so with the intention of making his product accessible to the masses. Donut shop proprietors sometimes have a pleasant habit of putting a little extra into your box of a dozen, and modern department stores tend to go easy on you when you want to return

something the next day but forgot your receipt.

THE CuSTOMER SERvICE gOLDEN RuLE

Think of it as a customer service Golden Rule. How would you like to be treated when you go into a store? What kind of experience do you want when you shop online? Do you want to go through a lot of hassle, fill out a long form, and wait for a manager to come out and sign it, when all you want to do is exchange your 40-watt light bulbs for a pack of 60-watt bulbs?

Let’s take a quick look at the history of this Golden Rule, a philosophy that has been handed down throughout the ages:

• All things therefore that you want people to do to you, do thus to them. - Christian

• Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. - Buddhist

• That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.

- Islam

CHAPTER 1: BASICS Of CUSTOMER SERVICE

15

• Do not impose on others what you do not desire others to impose upon you. - Confucianism

Customer service, in fact, has its roots in these simple and ancient philosophies. Regardless of the philosophy, these basic rules for living (and for the purpose of this book, for doing business) are based around the irrevocable fact that all people should have dignity, and there is a difference between right and wrong. We take into account how others feel and what they desire, and we try to do right by them when we are running a business. In doing so, we can feel better about ourselves as individuals, sleep the sleep of the righteous—and, ultimately, reap the rewards of our good deeds in terms of a successful and profitable business.

Although there has been customer service in one form or another for as long as there has been commerce, it has been varied in its approach. Today’s era of e-commerce has created an environment where it is extraordinarily easy to compare prices, and even easier to switch suppliers. Buyers have easy access to conveniences like e-business exchanges, where they can see not only what you have to offer, but also what all your competitors—all around the world—have to offer as well, and at what price. Before this e-commerce model came into play, manufacturers, for example, frequently were at the mercy of their suppliers. They had to sort through massive paper parts catalogs and were often locked into long-term deals that gave suppliers, not their customers, the upper hand. It was, in many cases, difficult to switch, so customers tended to stick with the suppliers they had. This tendency didn’t go unnoticed by suppliers. The supplier would not bend to accommodate the customer; rather, the customer had

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SUPERIOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

to bend to accommodate the conveniences of the supplier.

This is no longer the trend. As Forrester Research notes, No longer can a company lay claim to a market segment and have free reign over the customers in that area. Customers and prospective customers have broader access to information today, and a global perspective on business, driven by the Internet, has changed the face of commerce—and as a consequence, customer service—forever. More companies have multiple distribution channels and global outlets, and even smaller companies can now compete on an international scale. These factors have made it difficult to set one’s company apart from the pack.

Differentiation has become blurred. Selling a product in this environment, especially online, is a great challenge when there are hundreds of other companies offering equivalent products at equivalent prices.

SETTINg YOuR COMPANY APART

How can you, as a company, compete in this environment?

There are more small fish in an increasingly large pond, all competing for the same piece of the action. The only solution is to find a way to set your company apart from the pack. Of course, you will strive to offer quality products at a reasonable price. But this no longer puts you ahead of the rest; it only puts you on an even playing level, even after you have already cut your prices to the bone. Besides competition from the global Internet, smaller companies, especially retailers, face price pressure from big-box retailers, further driving down prices and cutting margins. No, offering good products at the best prices won’t set you apart; it will only keep you from sinking.

CHAPTER 1: BASICS Of CUSTOMER SERVICE

17

One of the only ways left to differentiate yourself from the increasing competition is to offer better customer service. Doing so requires a concentrated effort throughout the company, from top to bottom. Customer service is not just the responsibility of the service center or the call center. It’s not limited to those who have first contact with the customer. Rather, it must come out of a comprehensive, integrated strategy that involves every single area of the company.

When customers buy a product from you, more often than

not, it’s a product that they could have gotten at any one of a hundred other places, and probably at the same price. There are three types of impressions that you can leave:

1. The customers had a neutral experience, neither bad nor good. Their product works to their expectations. You won’t stand out in the customers’ mind later on, and

when they need another one, they will more than likely

purchase it from whichever place is more convenient.

There’s no particular reason for them to come back to

you. You have maybe a 50-50 chance of getting repeat

business; less if there are more shops in your area that offer the same thing.

2. The customers had a bad experience. Perhaps the product works as expected and the price was reasonable, but a sales clerk ignored them or they had to wait in line too long. Your employees may not have been dressed

professionally. Maybe the free coffee in your waiting

room was stale and you were out of sugar. Unless you’re a regulated monopoly and customers can’t go elsewhere,

you’re out of luck here. No repeat business for you.

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SUPERIOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

3. The customers had a positive experience. The product worked and was priced reasonably. They were served

promptly by a friendly employee who answered all their

questions and recommended a companion product that

turned out to be a good buy as well. Your employee

also recognized the customers as having been in before, greeted them by name, and gave them a free calendar.

Next time, those customers will come back to you, even if somebody closer offers the same thing.

BuY-IN FROM MANAgEMENT

If you want your customer service to be the best, your customer service implementation, strategies, and CRM technology must start with a management buy-in. If the top brass doesn’t actively support a customer service initiative, it won’t succeed. There’s a reason for this: customer service goes beyond the customer service department, and for this strategy to infiltrate the entire organization, it must start from the top and filter down.

That’s not to say that the idea must come from the top brass, and more often than not, it doesn’t. It’s a matter of presenting the concept of improving customer service—and spending

money on it—that must be presented effectively to the decision-makers to get their participation. Some customer service doesn’t cost anything extra for the company: It doesn’t cost anything extra for employees to keep a friendly attitude or to go out of their way to answer a question. Some customer service comes at only a very trivial expense; keeping fresh coffee in your waiting room is an example. But some customer service can be costly: Software systems designed to help your entire organization

CHAPTER 1: BASICS Of CUSTOMER SERVICE

19

provide more efficient service to your customers can represent a major investment, and for this, there must be support at the highest levels.

The first thing you have to deal with in trying to get buy-in from executive staff is the attitude that customer service is a cost center. When something is seen as a cost center, it’s often also seen as an area that can be cut—and is often the first one to get the axe when there’s a budget crisis. "Need to trim the budget?

No problem, let’s lay off a few customer service guys."

That’s the mindset that must be changed, and a good argument can be made that customer service is, in reality, much more than a cost center. It can also be a center for preserving existing revenue, and for generating new revenue as well. There are two areas your customer service department will make you money: 1. A good customer service center is an essential component in getting repeat business and referral business from

happy customers.

2. A good customer service center will know the customers well enough to anticipate their needs. Cross-sell and up-sell, two very big revenue centers, come mainly out of the customer service center. Every contact with a customer is an opportunity for cross-sell and up-sell.

THINgS YOuR CuSTOMERS DON’T WANT TO HEAR

How many times have you, as a customer, been frustrated when trying to conduct a simple transaction that has been made unduly complicated by a beady-eyed underling bent on making

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SUPERIOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

your life miserable? Said underling goes by the book. Strictly.

At all times. And the book was written by people who never have to deal with customers directly, and it was written to accommodate back-end business processes that are, for the most part, obsolete anyway.

1. Your order is held up in the accounting department.

Customers don’t want to hear that their business is being delayed by a bunch of bean-counters!

2. It takes a few days for that to go through processing.

This vague delay tactic implies that your customer’s

order is being delayed because it is on the bottom of a stack of papers on some underpaid clerk’s desk. Why

should processing take more than a few hours?

3. "Oh, it looks like that didn’t go through because you didn’t fill out Form XG7-195234, Part 2-C(19)iii correctly.

I’ll send that back to you and you can re-submit."

Government agencies and regulated monopolies may get

away with this, but you won’t last long in business this way.

4. Sorry, the computer won’t let me ring it up that way.

Computers are meant to make things more flexible. If the computer won’t accommodate a customer, you need to

change your computer programs, now.

5. My department doesn’t handle that. Customers don’t care which department handles that; they just want it

handled. Two words: integrated systems.

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21

6. I don’t know. The worst response